Posts from the “Me” Category

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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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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Writing For Good and For Myself

Posted on May 23, 2018

On Writing My writing, like many others things, gets wedged between parenting, working, and trying not to neglect my marriage. It takes a backseat to fretting, battling pet hair, and unsubscribing from email lists. Writing is and has always been, the activity that takes me to my best place. I wish I could understand why it is so routine to postpone what I know I need. When I write I become more than I am, stretching how I think and how I love, leaving me with what I can only describe as increased power. It can be like hand-to-hand combat as my fingers move across the keyboard and my mind halts them. I’ve gotten better at fighting my weaker self, overcoming doubt and climbing…

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Another Story

Posted on March 15, 2018

Life has been hectic lately.       I’m just going to give that statement a little space, feel free to take a moment yourself to just push away from all the things you have to do and acknowledge all the things you have done, or the angry words you haven’t spoken, or the sweet recovery you made after saying an angry word. Whatever you need, I am sure your life is hectic too. Yesterday I felt a bit like I was in one of those carnival features where you sit on a wobbly seat over a vat of water. People through things at a target and if it connects you are dropped into the water—over and over and over again. I managed to…

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The Cuts That Echo

Posted on March 10, 2018

A couple of weeks ago conversation at my office turned to ordering clothes online as we discussed what we would wear to an industry awards ceremony. I found myself completely blown away by how commonplace self-criticism is, and, more poignantly, how inaccurate the laments were. The history of the “flaws” jumped in relief as women talked candidly about what didn’t work on them and why. I was too flip about brushing off their worries, because these things we carry, the words from the past echo and influence us for so long, they do exist. When I was 9 my best friend lived across the street from me. We usually played alone, but sometimes her brother would come out with his Darth Vader Star Wars character…

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