Permission to feel
I have a question, or three, for you to answer – not for me, but for yourself. What are you not giving yourself permission to feel right...
Grief is physical.
My hair looks different to me lately. Over the last few months, it has become puffier on the top – oddly, only on the top. My hair is...
So utterly alone. So completely connected.
The day after my brother died, I started writing everything pertaining to him and his death in a blank book. Much of what I recorded is...
In the oyster of obsession, you may find a pearl
On a business trip last winter, I got into a car to drive from Austin to Dallas, TX. I had all sorts of intentions for how I would spend...
If you want to take people somewhere else, first meet them where they are
The more I write about crisis, the more people tell me stories about things that have happened to them. Every once in a while a type of...
People stay close in everyday ways
A friend was at my house on the fourth of July, and we were talking in the kitchen while I made a salad. As I started peeling a vegetable...
Make a "what's real now" list
I am reading a book entitled The Lake, which was written by a friend I’ve known since the sixth grade. The central character, Zach, had...
On Memorial Day: Training continues
On this Memorial Day, I am thinking of my husband’s great-uncle. I have thought of him often over the past eleven months since my...
Focusing on the positive: Does it help?
A bitter drink: Introduce sugar, and the whole drink becomes sweet. A cold bath: Introduce hot water, and the whole bath becomes warm. A...
Hijacked
One morning last week I woke up angry and with a headache, the kind that seems to live both inside and outside of your skull, enveloping...