When you converse face-to-face, do you touch the person with whom you’re speaking? Perhaps you graze the forearm, or rest your hand for a moment on the shoulder. Some of us are more naturally warm, with voices and gestures that radiate energy, compassion, empathy. We lean forward, we make eye contact, and we touch – […]
Boost your brain (with pleasure)
Unanticipated pleasure Last evening, for three hours, I hovered in the pleasure zone, my brain and body exquisitely in sync. This was delight the likes of which I haven’t felt in six months, or perhaps as long as a year. The kind of pleasure, intense and pervasive, that obliterates worry and fatigue as all the […]
What Frightens You?
I was a reading a news report this morning, a serious one, about a young man who died on the rails of the French metro system, in a freakish incident. He was grabbed from the crowd at random, and pulled in front of an arriving train by a crazy man who took a complete stranger […]
Good Driver, Bad Passenger?
Do you consider yourself a confident driver, but not reckless? Skilled at night, and smart in treacherous weather conditions? Yet you squirm when you’re not behind the wheel, right? Good driver, bad passenger. So what does that say about you? About your leadership style? Need to lead? Are your driving habits one more sign of […]
Where Do Women Stow Their Violent Selves?
Women feel rage, too. Do we turn it inward, and self-destruct?
Why I Wouldn’t Shave My Head
Romance and rumination…
Letter to the new decade
Dear 2010, and the nine years that follow: I am bracing myself. I step over the threshold to meet you with awareness of my own fragility, shadows hovering, and a crystal ball that seems to be on the fritz. My machinery is in disrepair and I am past due for a talented handy man. I […]
Are you wasting your time?
If work or study is unpaid, do we consider it a waste of time?
Light in the morning
When not awakened by the alarm, when no requirement to rush out into the kitchen, when no schedule slips into my morning brain as the eyes open, when I lay unmoving in my bed even for a few minutes – before hunger, before pain begins, before worries – I am aware of the light in […]
Yes, no, and finding balance
I have a bad habit. The fact is – I have many, but this particular bad habit is quite literally detrimental to my health. No, it isn’t smoking or drinking. It isn’t substance abuse of any sort. It’s simpler than that, and so much more complicated. I don’t pay enough attention to me. Too busy […]