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Beginner's Heart
the blues ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
Sometimes I get incredibly blue. Blue as in indigo, deep and dark and find a hole to crawl into. Today has been one of those days… It began — as far too many days do — with aches & pains. Middle age sooo sucks with the whole arthritis thing. Yuk. So I went outside, my…
Sunday runaways ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
We found a dog today. She was romping in our driveway as my two sisters and I loaded the car to go to breakfast. Friendly as a politician, she came up and promptly rolled over for a belly rub (warning: do not attempt this on the campaign trail…). Of course I obliged. Since it’s hot…
race in America, and the dilemma of forgiveness ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
I’ve never cared for Paula Deen. Didn’t watch her on TV more than once or twice. Didn’t buy her cookbooks. Don’t even care for her kind of cooking, these days. I also think that people need to NOT use the n-word. And that the ‘lost days of the Confederacy’ are unlamented. So I was flabbergasted…
wonder, and loving strangers (even mean ones??) ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
My grandson — one month old, today! — cries when I hold him. A LOT of the time. It’s embarrassing. Not to mention depressing. I do NOT have this grandmother thing down. Tonight my son & DIL are out to dinner. I have Trinidad. And after a devastating explosion of screaming, he finally let me…
life budgets ~ or, the rocks in the jar…
By
Britton Gildersleeve
If you haven’t heard the story about the rocks in the jar, you only need to know that the big rocks go in first, or you can’t put in the pebbles & sand. And that the big rocks are what we value most. For most of us, that’s family, friends, our interests. My husband —…
changing job descriptions ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
Have you ever watched a new baby? Seriously observed one? Focused on the wide eyes drinking in light (pre-birth is a bit dark…), the mouth twitching towards milk, the tiny fingers curling around support. Like most things in my life, watching a new baby seems a quintessentially Buddhist endeavour. It’s beyond illuminating. 🙂 Everything is…
more bees ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
So it’s bees again. AND poetry. Because really ~ why not?? What’s more like June than the hum of bees, their own gently busy music? The poetry is what comes of watching, good Buddhist contemplation ~ Here’s John Ciardi’s poem, “Bees & Morning Glories”: Morning glories, pale as a mist drying, fade from the…
motes and logs: or, what we don’t see…
By
Britton Gildersleeve
On the plane coming home from a weekend writer’s conference, I sat next to a very nice woman from Austin. She was unbelievably lovely, soft-spoken with a sweet Southern drawl. We talked, as passengers in tiny seats sharing breathing space do, about one thing & another. And I didn’t even realise that I had made…
death of a blue jay ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
I don’t want to tell you how much of our retirement fund goes for bird seed. Not to mention bird feeders, suet and the containers to put it in, hummer feeders (and sugar for it — we make our own not-red ‘nectar’), etc. Thankfully my husband is a birdophile too. 🙂 Each spring it’s fascinating…
the pressure to conform ~
By
Britton Gildersleeve
I’ve always been insatiably, even dangerously curious. As a child (a pink-cheeked blonde, whose mother too often made her wear pastels…), I took apart lamps, rewiring them (and only rarely shocked myself). I slept with a taxidermied squirrel, because it was real (lumpy, though). I followed bugs to wherever they were going, and read anything…
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