Hey Reader! Every spring, my friends have a ritual. They pilgrimage to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (JazzFest). They travel without flags and poles to signal their position in the crowd. No coolers or blankets lay claim to a patch they camp out on all day. Foldable chairs remain in the car. For a weekend, all that matters is music, and they follow the sound of horns from stage to stage, knowing that wherever they end up, it will be good. After more than two decades of pilgrimage,...
11 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader! There’s a lot we absorb as kids that we drag with us into adulthood. We may not even remember the lesson, but it shows up in our inner voice as that critical voice acting like it’s the fun police. It makes you feel guilty for laughing too loud, or having that extra cookie, or whatever you got yelled at when you were little. We’ve been conditioned to be silent If you went through school, chances are you got yelled at to sit down and shut up. Or, if you were a quiet kid, you watched...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader! Spring is such a hopeful season. Meadows fill with baby deer, bunnies, and animals of all kinds. Long-dormant trees sprout fresh, green leaves, while flowers vie for attention with their vibrant colors and abundant blooms. Everything springs to life, all at once, in a joyful riot. It's enough to make your heart sing. Celebrations abound Religious holidays echo the world's glorious rebirth. The repentant season of Ramadan has ended, allowing our Muslim friends to walk into spring...
24 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader! In times of uncertainty, it's so easy to get stuck. We get overloaded. We get speedy. Our thoughts get cloudy. It's hard to organize our thoughts. We don't know where to begin. We freeze. We retreat. We cocoon. We give up. The mounting frustration bubbles up and explodes. We self-medicate. We lash out. We harm ourselves and others. Your emotions are a river. Don't dam them up. Let them flow. And once you've given them full vent, sit in that emptiness. Focus on nothing but the...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader! Last night, I found myself in a little fishing village in Iceland. Walking along the waterfront, I stumbled upon this driftwood sculpture of Klemus Bjarnason, a man sentenced to death in 1690. The Klemus Bjarnason sculpture overlooking Hólmavik harbor. His crime? Not getting along with his neighbors. Yep, you read that right. People didn’t like him. The plaque mentioned that he’d been creeping people out since he was a kid. A feud between Klemus and the family on Hrófberg farm...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader! Friday morning, I awoke to bad news via a text message. “Last night, D__ passed away.” How do you react to news of a friend passing? I climbed back into bed and hugged my dog. I’m not the kind of person to rail against God, or insist death is an injustice. It always seems sudden, shattering, and somewhat pointless. It always catches me off guard. Forces me to examine what I’m doing and if I’d be satisfied if my life ended in the next moment. After all, we can’t see around corners....
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader! Men show up in your house without a warrant and take your husband away. No one will tell you where he is, if he’s safe or what crime he’s committed. They won’t even confirm that they’re arresting him. The men are armed but in plain clothes. They show you no badges or IDs to prove the authority they have to invade your home and abduct your loved one. They take your husband and disappear. If this happened to you, would you be okay with this? The government decides they don’t want...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader! When I was younger and far more pretentious, I believed that time alone in a wooded cabin was all I’d need to blossom into the artist I was fated to become. In those days, I did a lot of theater and sports, and I formed superstitions around both. After all, I was convinced what I ate, wore and did affected my performance. So I kept careful watch over my actions and blamed mistakes on missing some cue or another. Each time, I redoubled my faith in empty ritual. And stayed stuck....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader! One of my favorite T-shirts proclaims, "Joy Is an Act of Resistance." If you remember your time in elementary school, you've seen how this works: Teacher tries to shut someone down. The suppressed kid acts up behind the teacher's back. Class erupts in laughter. Teacher struggles to regain control. The stricter the teacher, the more joy we felt in rebelling, and the more humiliating the experience seemed to them. Why is this? Control is an illusion We can't control what other...
2 months ago • 2 min read