In Praise of Easy

A teacher I admire wrote this in her newsletter: Beware anyone who tells you what you want can be “easy.” Easy is a drug. Easy is not discerning. Easy is for lazy people. I didn’t exactly bristle when I read that, but I questioned myself. “Stella thinks easy is bad. I strive for easy. How […]

Brighter Days Ahead

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text]Autumn has often been a difficult time for me. Living in New England with the beautiful colors didn’t help. As soon as the first swamp maple turned red in mid-August I’d get a stab of sadness as […]

Planning for Serendipity

Yesterday in conversation I was describing how a certain event in my life came about and realized that many if not all of my major milestones happened by chance– or at least that’s the way I think about them. My college major, my best jobs, meeting my husband, our home in Italy. I stumbled upon […]

How to maintain productivity when the world as you know it has ended

I received some bad news this morning. Really bad. Likely to have far-reaching consequences. I’m distracted. I feel shock, sadness, shame. I want to run to social media to find out more and the thought of wallowing in the commiseration revolts me. I’m struggling to remember the good advice I know about catastrophe. Breathe. Put […]

How much fear is the right amount?

We felt a couple of earthquakes last night (10.26.16)– a 5.5 and 6.1 plus some noticeable aftershocks. Good sized shakers worthy of some fright. No noticeable effects other than rattling dishes and some cupboard doors opening. The epicenter was 100 km south of here. After the initial thoughts of “oh shit how bad is this […]