Learn to love the questions
"And now let us welcome the New Year full of things that have never been." -Rainer Maria Rilke May we learn to love the questions themselves, as Rilke also reminds us: "Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms …
Save me from those bats
Evidently, I am only traveling to cities beginning with the letter "A" in 2009. Or at least for the first few trips. I hope that after these holidays of frenetic shopping and family dinners, you might like a breather, time to "set a spell" and talk about living a more …
Love, devotion, the simple gift of an apple.
The manner of giving is worth more than the gift. -Pierre Corneille
Find what you have lost
In what has become a holiday tradition, I am reposting an essay I wrote a few years ago about my dad. Christmas day was his birthday. I've long believed that we keep people alive by telling their stories. And so, sometime on this busy day, please take a moment to …
You have the power of standing still
No speed of wind or water rushing byBut you have a speed far greater. You can climbBack up a stream of radiance to the sky,And back through history up the stream of time.And you were given this swiftness, not for hasteNor chiefly that you may go where you will.But in …
Fly like a Pig!
Well, I always said I would run a marathon before I was 50. In fact, for years and years I have said that I would be at my most powerful on my 50th birthday. It's easy to say that when your 50th is, say, 30 years away, and less easy …
I am alive.
I am alive. I've taken the past two weeks to recover from a spectacular many-city, many- incredible-people book tour. Thanks for the notes of concern at my absence. Just trying to catch up on life, the kids, holiday concerts, and glorious things like washing clothes and trying to make gingerbread …
Put that ribbon back on
We are a nation of ribbons. Sometimes, too soon, we take them off. The first AIDS ribbon worn publicly was on the lapel of actor Jeremy Irons' tuxedo in 1991 at an awards show. But almost 20 years later, AIDS is not gone, though the ribbon has nearly disappeared. We …
Complete the circles of your life
As it turns out, you can go home again. And tomorrow I will, reading from Life is a Verb at the church in which I grew up, as a benefit for the Hospice group that helped so much when my stepfather was dying the death that led me to write …
