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Beginner's Heart

 I recently learned that one of my essays made the finals for a creative non-fiction contest at a national literary journal. Whoohoo! The same day, I heard from my younger son that he received a huge raise. Another whoohoo! My son had obviously memorised what his boss said when informing Noah about the raise. Like…

There is, apparently, a ‘discussion‘ going on between Buddhists who believe in prayer, and those who think it’s a term best left to other faiths. Since many Buddhists don’t believe that Buddha was a god (you can be a Buddhist & a Christian, or a Buddhist & a Jew, with no conflict), there’s an understandable…

When I visualise a beginner’s heart — at least my own — I see this picture. Because when your heart is open, sometimes it gets bumped. And as it grows — and you’re not aware, often that it has — you miscalculate. Think of the clumsiness of growing puppies. I think of my beginner’s heart…

I have three sisters. People who know all of us well — a small number (we tend to overwhelm in large doses!) would say we’re not much alike. We would agree. But we also can give you countless examples of a perfect stranger asking one or the other of us, “Are you Diane’s sister?” or “You…

If there was a job loving babies, I’d be the BOSS. Because here’s the secret to babies: you can love them as much as you want to. They won’t feel smothered, threatened, controlled, or weird in any way. They will look up at you, and grin. How great is that? Yesterday, my entire job was to…

To paraphrase one of my favourite authors (Tom Robbins), “It’s never too late to have a normal childhood.” And I just realised — really! — that I did. When I was little, reading stories of normal American children, they lived in small American towns. They went to the beach for the summer — a month…

 I drove to London today. And to Palestine. And right past the turnoff for Toad Suck Park. If these clues leave you going “hunh?” then you haven’t been to Arkansas lately. 🙂 We’re doing a family road trip, moving my son & daughter-in-law & grandson to Virginia. That’s quite a ways from the family house…

I hate war. Hate. And there isn’t really much I use that word for, at least not seriously (I hate ticks, for instance, and mosquitos, but not like WAR…). And I actively dislike that my tax dollars go to support it. I also love science. And I actively dislike that my tax dollars do NOT…

Normally, this could be our dogs. I plead guilty — our dogs are very… indulged. 🙂 But with the grandson here, and his attendant entourage (Mom, Dad, Silas-the-dog and Rufus-the-cat), one of our dogs (the dysfunctional one) is at my sister’s. The other one is trying to figure out what the heck happened to his…

My grandson slept for three hours in my lap yesterday afternoon. Slept my legs into their own nap. Slept through phones ringing, dogs barking, and the afternoon sun waning. Wrapped snugly in his swaddling cloth, he might have been another era’s baby, proof against technologies and innovations. One woman, an infant, a cloth. Nothing luxurious,…
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