My Sweet has no use for Facebook or social media in general except to glance occasionally from the seat beside me and ask “Who is that?” It’s a bit like having someone read over your shoulder, actually it’s exactly like having someone read over your shoulder, and it drives me crazy. Sometimes I’ll tell him […]
Relationships
Ordinary is never really ordinary…
On the outside, people generally look quite ordinary. For the most part, we dress the same, we comb our hair, and we go about the world in a similar way. Occasionally you will see a colourful character that stands out from the crowd like the man yesterday. He was seated at a sidewalk café opposite […]
Walking a different path…
There’s a German proverb that says, “Sweep in front of your own door and the whole world will be clean.” That’s good advice. If we worried about taking care of our own dirty doorsteps (choices, lives, children…) we wouldn’t have time to worry about anyone else’s. I had such an interesting chat the other day. […]
Emotional apologies
A week or so ago, I was watching the news and a woman was recounting the story of a traumatic event. It was clear she was struggling with the words and when her voice finally broke and tears fell, she choked out two words…”I’m sorry.” I thought, “What on earth does she have to apologize […]
- Aging
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Love at the end…
I thought I knew about love. I thought I knew about loss. I did. And I didn’t. What I am feeling now, experiencing now, is something I didn’t know about. This kind of love requires more than I knew I had in me to give. We are having a long goodbye. Dad is so near […]
Practicing gratitude
At the end of December I started thinking about the New Year and what I wanted to accomplish and if I should try to set a resolution for myself. I tossed it around for a while because I don’t really like New Year’s resolutions. I have never been truly successful with them and I don’t […]
A letter to a young girl…
Dearest girl, I saw a photo of you the other day. You were at the lake with your grandparents and your Papa was taking pictures because that’s what he loves to do. You were sitting on a driftwood log on the beach with the breeze lifting your hair just a bit and you were looking […]
People keep asking…
Not quite two months ago we became grandparents again and people keep asking me if it’s different this time. No. That beautiful baby does what all babies do: eats, sleeps, and dirties diapers. Nothing out of the ordinary really, at least not yet. So why do people keep asking if this time is different? Because […]
For the girl in the Harry Potter hat…
I was standing in the children’s section of a bookstore the other day when I first saw her. A young girl with her back to me was in earnest conversation with one of the clerks. I was guesstimating her age at about 10 maybe 11 years old. I’d had to edge past her to get […]
How to make friends in your middle years
“Is it my imagination or are people friendlier this year?” I asked My Sweet as we walked from the marina up to our campsite. We had been in camp a few days and were noticing a difference. We were used to the politely mumbled morning greetings as we passed people in the dark on our […]