For a long time, my approach to insomnia was to fight it. Oddly, engaging in battle while trying to sleep did not help things. I concocted careful rituals: Earplugs, of course, and also a face mask. A fan to drown out any remaining ambient noise. Breathing and counting. Shifting positions once, twice, ten times. A …
Want to become a creative zombie? Just do this.
Have you compared your work to someone else’s recently? Today? In the past five minutes? Me too. I keep doing it, even though every time I do, it sucks a little more life out of my art. It gnaws at the root of my work, making the fruit wither on the vine. I grow impatient …
How to Make Your Dreams Come True
Here it is. Let’s all take a deep breath. Become a beginner. Not an expert. Not yet. First, you must start someplace. A start, a beginning, will humble you and bring you to your knees. Stay there a while. Consider what it is to start something. Starting a healthier lifestyle, or a new way of …
This is urgent: Find your tribe—patiently
I didn’t really have a chance of success as a writer until about five years ago. That’s when a friend of mine asked me and a few other moms if we wanted to form a writer’s group. These women have become my tribe. When I joined them, I had a one-year-old, and I wasn’t sure …
Fear’s Pot of Gold
The other day, one of my kids–previously afraid of slides–tugged my hand. “Mama will you catch me? I am going to do this slide.” She climbed to the top, and paused. I could see her thinking. Then she let go. It was a steep one, and I almost didn’t catch her before she hit the …
Goals keep your expectations reasonable
It’s just a half-hour. When I have that extra half-hour every day, when everyone is sleeping their maximum amount, when the childcare shows up and I don’t have extra nighttime commitments, when we don’t go out of town or have extra parenting struggles or get sick, then I have enough free time to really dream …
When You’re Afraid of Getting Judged
A while ago, I attended a party with some families I’m just getting to know. My youngest was the only toddler, but there were older kids, and several about my eldest’s age. The only outside place to play was right alongside a parking lot. I headed out to supervise my younger one, but I was …
I’m not going to hoard my dreams
I write things, and then I try to get them published. I send them to literary journals and online ‘zines, and occasionally, one of them gets picked up, and then I celebrate with my complimentary copies. Lately, now that my kids are a bit older, and I’ve been trying to take myself more seriously, I’ve …
When “No” is really “Yes”
One of my friends didn’t like the title of this blog. “I’m working on saying “no” more,” she said. “I think I say yes too often, and I end up doing things I’m not passionate about.” We were on the playground, our kids leaning back on a tire swing, lolling crazily from one side to …
life isn’t an on/off switch
I like checking things off lists. Dishes? Check. Returning emails? Check. Meeting goals? Check. There’s a cleanliness to a completed task, a finished goal, a project brought to fruition. But I’m realizing that the most important things in my life can’t be checked off. Because there isn’t a point where they’re done, or finished. They …
home alone…with kids
I love my kids. I love homeschooling them. I love not rushing from one place to another. So why, then, when I wake up and we have nothing planned, why do I feel afraid? Now let’s be clear: I’m aware that being at home all day with two kids can be trying. I’m an introvert, …
easygoing as a spiritual discipline
Let’s just get this out in the open right now: I’m not one of those easygoing parents. Wow, I feel better already. At least, I don’t feel like one of those easygoing parents; easygoing is a spiritual practice for me, wherein I practice being okay when my child does not want to organize her clothes …