Blog Posts

This week I kept coming across, in various contexts, writing’s rule of three. This week also found me dipping into old journals. And, as they often do, the wires of my busy brain crossed to bring you yet more lists. My top three personal strengths (according to a personality test) Love Humor Honesty Three things on my unofficial resume Word puzzle champ Superior lost item finder Ruthless minimalist Three words to sum up the last three years Grief Recalibration Emergence My li

The reset appears to be complete. As I imagined in my last dispatch, travel has provided me a running start to once again embrace my life with joy. The sludge appears to have been cleared from my brain and my body and I’m brimming with energy and new ideas. This week I’m deviating from my standard format to share some highlights with you. Where I went London Amsterdam (including a day trip to Zaanse Schans) Some of the things I did Soaked in the ambience Rode hop-on hop-off

Well, it’s official. The Seasonal Affective Disorder which I previously suffered in northern winters has, after eleven years in Florida, become a mirror-image summer malady. One where the environment (and my inability to adapt to it, despite major effort) prevents me from fully living. Where I slowly and inexorably lose my joie de vivre as I forego things that are important to my well-being. Just as I used to in those gone-but-not-forgotten winters, I start out determined to

Last week’s meditation on commonly confused word pairs opened up one of the rabbit holes which I love to jump down and meander through. Much of what occurs in these quagmires is of little interest to anyone else (especially those with solid mental health), but every now and then I stumble upon (in my opinion) a shareable nugget. This week, in keeping with the theme of confusion, I investigated the fertile ground of my evolving self-image. And I realized that, throughout my li

In my indiscriminate and nearly ceaseless reading, I recently came across something that perfectly articulated my evolving understanding of a concept. I’m paraphrasing, but the gist was that self-care is doing things you don’t necessarily want to do that will enhance your life in the long run (for example, swallowing the vitamins, stretching every morning upon waking, meditating, consuming wisely, physically and otherwise, taking sleep seriously), and the stuff that is instan

In the early days of my third act, the epiphanies were arriving fast and furiously (I wrote about that here). Now, years later, they’re fewer and further between. This week, though, brought a jackpot of insight. My dreams, my unconscious, and serendipity all conspired to present me with two major, mind-altering nuggets. Disconnection was on my mind. Continued radio silence from the former lover I expected to remain in my life. A sudden, bewildering friendship breakup. A parti

I talked a while back about my well-developed ability to pivot, and this week provided a refresher course for both me and the CWP. When a badly sprained foot (pro tip: if you can, take a moment to become fully conscious before responding to a fire alarm) was added to her challenges, we decided to move her to my house temporarily for some rest and TLC. It was a bitter pill for her, who had just the week before taken the proverbial step forward. I watched her vent a little and

Maybe because I’ve been tamping down my horror and apoplexy at the state of our country for so long (lest I start screaming and never stop), I’m finding myself much more irritable about what I consider first world problems lately. Things came to a head this week when one of my accounts was hacked, resulting in multiple payment methods being compromised and untold hours of harrowing efforts at remediation. Once the dust settled a bit (I’ll be sweeping up for weeks, I’m afraid)

Last month I started a new practice. What began as a result of rediscovering my treasure trove of “someday” collage components (words and images I’d spent peaceful hours cutting from old magazines and books) after a bout of quieting has been almost miraculously transformational. And it couldn’t be simpler. Having also found a small Moleskine notebook during my reorganizing binge, I felt suddenly compelled to use it, and decided that I would start each session in my Creatorium

I’ve mentioned Suleika Jaouad several times previously and can’t recommend her Substack (Suleika Jaouad | Substack) or her books highly enough. Each week I’m inspired anew by both her fortitude and her creativity. Something she shared a few weeks ago has not left me; she made a list titled “Things I Keep Wanting and Not Doing”. Not things she’d once wanted and no longer did, but things she thought would be nice, but she hadn’t yet done. She shared that “proximity is a kind of

Me searching for a shred of remaining civility This week, as part of my unremitting quest to dig a bit of joy out of this increasingly desolate hellscape, I treated myself, among other things, to a bestselling book and a blockbuster movie. Both did the trick: providing an escape from reality, enjoyable craftsmanship, and a bit of food for thought. And then I stumbled across the discourse surrounding both (side note: maybe I need to limit my social media consumption even more

A crucial part of my efforts to elude the proverbial black dog is my recent resolution to write every day without an end goal in mind. My notebook is quite a jumble: responses to writing prompts, lists (of course), further development of ideas once scribbled on scraps of paper and thrown into a file, and meandering attempts to process my feelings. These days, it feels so much more like play than work. Like I get to instead of have to. I love keeping this promise to myself. Re

Today yet another heat advisory has been issued here, bringing the total to six over the past ten days. (For those of you fortunate enough to be unacquainted with the phenomenon, this means that temperatures in the 90s actually have a heat index of 105-110 degrees, making being outdoors for any length of time unhealthy as well as unpleasant.) Given that my tolerance for the heat seems to be decreasing as my birthdays increase, and given that I generally walk everywhere, I’ve

This week has proved a sort of tipping point for me; I’ve almost been stunned into silence by the sheer lunacy of “celebrating” our country as it continues to plumb new depths of ignorance and cruelty. I’ve tried really hard over the past eighteen months to stay positive and strive to improve my little corner of the world, to keep my grief and outrage to myself, but the cognitive dissonance is overwhelming me lately. I feel a bit like a toy soldier who has wound all the way d

Almost twelve years ago, the implosion of my marriage and an ensuing series of unfortunate events laid the foundation for a sea change in every aspect of my life. Over time, the learning, healing, and growing I was fortunate enough to experience rendered my life unrecognizable from the one I’d previously been living. While I did make some important additions, the bulk of the changes I made were a matter of subtraction: dropping my attempts to control; no longer seeking approv

I’ve written before about filling the well, or injecting novelty into your life in order to stimulate curiosity and growth. One of my favorite ways to do that is through travel, and this week a short road trip reminded me of the importance of breaking out of my routine. Shaking things up a bit also provided me with the opportunity to switch up some habits of thought and reactions. There were minor glitches along the way that would have once set me on a downward mental spiral;

Last week I talked about how a short session of quieting transformed my mood and my day. It also led to a veritable avalanche of decluttering and quieting this week, which has resulted in such pleasure that it feels like it might be illegal. There’s the removal of bags of items for donation or disposal, creating space and calm and saving some poor soul from the task at a later date. There’s the peace gained from focusing on a task while simultaneously giving myself the illusi

It was a tough couple of days: an eye infection that just would not quit; a heart wrenching conversation with someone I love; my estranged son’s birthday; an outing I’d been looking forward to canceled; a call to return to the dermatologist’s office “just to be safe”. I noticed myself preparing to shut down, to dish out some ice cream (or pour a glass of wine), get on the couch, and start the endless tape of old stories. Remembering that movement precedes motivation, I decide

Last week, I resolved to be more present and to work toward radical acceptance. Which means I’m noticing and naming things. This week’s big takeaway should come as no surprise: I’m much happier when my consumption of social media is minimal. I’d recently noticed that the time I spent online had inadvertently crept upward and set a vague intention to decrease it. And I did for the most part. Yet this week, when other things and people kept me too busy to spend much time overlo

From the collage exhibit at Boca Raton Museum of Art. Lack of proper attribution courtesy of my ADD. Last week, as my vacation ended, I articulated the ways in which I wanted to recalibrate my daily life by editing some things and incorporating more of others. This week, returning to “real life” after two weeks of deep relaxation, I’ve been a bit surprised to notice just how loud and distracting the chatter in my head can be. It might be my inner Judge Judy relitigating the p