Posts by amandamagee

Stop Trying to Outrun Yourself

Posted on February 24, 2019

I can trace back to as early as eleven, things about myself that I remember running away from. I had a penchant for cussing, picked up from sitting along the periphery of my dad’s poker games. The vocabulary would escape with enthusiasm on the playground. “You’re a bad influence. We don’t want you around because you bring trouble. Just because you’re parents are splitting up doesn’t mean you can act like an animal.” Her name was Lisa, we were at Amazon Park in Eugene, and I can still see the way the weeping willow limbs cast shadows on her face. She had a hint of a smile as she said it, the other kids gathering around her. I was poison. Too strong, too loud,…

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What Did You Want to Be?

Posted on February 7, 2019

Finley and I were walking across the Target parking lot the other night. The pavement was slick, and we weren’t in a hurry. We strolled, holding hands, and talking. “Mom, what did you want to be when you were my age?” I thought for a minute, “A writer.” She squeezed my hand and smiled, “You kind of do that now, right?” “Yes.” She looked up at me, “Do you ever wish you were a book writer and that you didn’t do all the other stuff you do?” “I’m not sure, maybe? I mean, I like what I do,” I said honestly. “Would you still have met Dad if you were a writer?” “That’s pretty doubtful. A lot of things have to happen, decisions and…

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Incidental Joy, or saying yes to little things

Posted on January 10, 2019

Today I am casting out a small raft of hope in the sea of resolutions, words of intention, cleanses, and tidying interventions. Not your typical, “Ten easy ways to be happier” kind of essays, more of a “This kind of surprised me, thought I’d share.” The other day I was having a teeth-clenching kind of day on both a personal and professional level. As I started my car to go from a meeting in one town to a meeting in another I looked at the rearview mirror and said to myself, “You have to stop.” A recurring theme for me is delaying using the bathroom. It’s wrapped up in my belief that I can multitask. I wedge two more to-dos, dashing off an email…

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Cost vs Benefit Analysis of Vulnerability

Posted on December 9, 2018

I’m teasing you with that post title. I do want to talk about vulnerability, acknowledging from the get-go I can’t possibly address all the different kinds of vulnerability. There are costs and benefits for each type, but how we weigh them will be vastly different. We don’t get to eliminate vulnerability, I mean, we can avoid it, do our best to minimize exposure, but then when we feel super safe a gust of wind’ll sweep right in and reveal all. Perhaps if we each move forward acknowledging that all of us are walking around with exposed patches of vulnerability then we can be the tiniest bit kinder—I won’t say if I mean kinder to ourselves or to others because either would be grand. Lately,…

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Saying Yes to Seeing Things Differently

Posted on November 7, 2018

You know that feeling when you discover a new word and then you keep seeing and hearing it? A month or two ago I agreed to participate in a campaign for GenderAvenger. Sounds superheroic, doesn’t it? I’d learned about them from my friend Elan, from what I’d seen GenderAvenger identified missed opportunities for a balance of gender representation at things like conferences. What I discovered as I began using  GA Tally, an app to quickly log who is speaking or how long people are speaking is that things can be pretty lopsided. The early tallies came out better than I expected. The first event was a women’s luncheon and there was a woman of color on the panel. Yay, right? At first, yes, but…

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