During the winter months, when the thermometer hovers below “chilly” and the sky turns metallic, I have to dig a little deeper for my joy. This stretch of calendar feels trip-wired for small bombs of worry and valleys of melancholy. Going about my day, the blues sift around in the background, like a mist or vapor. But at 3:30 AM, they puff up into ...
At a certain point in life, all of us will experience loss, grief and disappointment. We will all be tested, all end up downstream or upstream of where we set out to sail. The truth about life is that none of us truly has our hands on the script. It’s not possible to rewind the tape; no matter how much time we spend fantasizing about it with our head in ...
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CONSCIOUS UNCOUPLING When I first read about Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s “Conscious Uncoupling,” I guess I wasn’t surprised. The Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward long-haul marriages seem the absolute exception to the Hollywood rule. Most every celebrity coupling today seems to have a shelf life of about one or two kids after ...
“When you become a parent, you might as well just open a vein.” I’ve long forgotten who said that to me, but as a mother, I immediately understood. Parenthood abruptly catapults one into the realization of how many ways you can fail at protecting your child from life’s randomness. Before you, at all times, ...
Lung cancer. That will stop a conversation. More than any of the frightening medical diagnoses, that one seems extra ominous. Someone utters the words “lung cancer” and I think of devastating, almost insurmountable odds. At the age of 32, that’s what Lee Rhodes was told when she learned that her worrisome ...