A peaceful warrior on the body and body image, spirituality, politics, family and food
I cried when I told my mom I couldn't muster the energy to get the house ready for her visit. When I had come down with body aches and a sore throat a week before, I thought surely I would recover in time. Instead, I woke up each morning feeling worse than I had the… Continue reading Sick
Here's something I didn't anticipate about our trip: a surprising number of visits to amusement parks. At the top of our list -- for activities in India as well as amusement parks visited -- is Wonderla Kochi. Set atop a hill overlooking Kerala's lushness, Wonderla offers and and water amusements plus the best-ever fair food… Continue reading How Was Your Trip, Part II: I Confront My Colonial Impulse on a Waterslide
This is the first of a three-part series about our family trip, with my parents-in-law, to India and Singapore, on which I reflect about the complexity of my response to the question, "How was your trip?" I'm embarrassed by the speed with which the word "grueling" comes to mind, fully aware that everything we did… Continue reading How Was Your Trip? Part I
Inner Artist What a delight to happen upon at the local library Julia Cameron's Vein of Gold, a spinoff of her very popular (cultish?) Artist's Way. Cameron is an artistic descendant of one of my writing heroes, Brenda Ueland; what Brenda was writing decades earlier, Cameron expands and enhances with accessible -- and even fun!… Continue reading Breaking Through: Winter Discoveries for Creativity and Healing
To the Editors: Ross Douthat’s Sunday piece, “The Church and the Abortion Capital,” was so rife with assumptions and logical fallacies that I began to wonder if you had run it specifically in order to discredit his argument. In perhaps the most astounding passage, he writes, “New York State still has millions of baptized Catholics,… Continue reading Damned Scribbling Women
We went to a wedding this weekend. The priest started off strong. “The Bible tells us that a husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church. There are many different kinds of love, but here, we are not talking about romantic love, as our modern sensibilities might think of marital love," he explained.… Continue reading Submission
"This is the best dessert I've ever had," my husband declared. "You have to take it away from me." Hide it somewhere, he told me. Somewhere I won't find it. Otherwise I'll eat the whole thing. Over the next few days it became a game of sorts: I would find a hiding place, he would… Continue reading Susie’s SouthForty Toffee: Christmas Disaster Averted
In the second half of October, I took a break from crawling around in the dark cave of sexual assault stories to write on a lighter topic: in-laws! In the process I was delighted to discover the Wanderful community, whose mission is to build an inclusive network of women and non-binary people to help each other… Continue reading Kerala: A South Indian Lesson on Loving My In-Laws
Last week, I finally looked him up. It’s not as if I’d blocked it out all these years, but this time around, the memory was hitting me differently. I guess even given the resonance of the allegations, I wasn’t prepared for the triggering familiarity of Kavanaugh's tone. It didn’t take long to locate him on… Continue reading Brett Kavanaugh Reminds Me of College. God Help Us All.
My daughter and I had just stopped by 12 Baskets to drop off some food for lunch, but when we arrived we learned that a wedding was about to begin. We had to stay. (For background on 12 Baskets see my post "No Ordinary Watermelon".) Shannon, 12 Baskets' founder, was poised to officiate in khaki shorts,… Continue reading Love endureth all things
