I didn’t expect to have a baby so late in life. But in some ways, writing and publishing my memoir Light in Bandaged Places (published September 5, 2024)is the culmination of gestating a lifetime of struggle, learning, and growth. I mention both the writing and the publishing because these turn out to be two significantly different experiences.

Many people ask me if writing the book was cathartic. I always pause at this question because I think the expectation is that it was. But for me, it was more of a creative unfolding. Delightful, in that the creative process is joyful. If anything was cathartic, perhaps it was the post-publication speaking experience because giving a literal voice to my history is part of what heals. Attending to it, holding it with care and love is what heals—offering it so that anyone who might resonate with its themes and be seen and helped is what heals.

This week, I have the privilege of living in a small studio apartment overlooking the ocean. Only a small, windy road and a few feet of scrub brush and sand separate me from the ocean. This is along a stretch of the Sanibel-Captiva Road, where the sand and water seem to come right up to the road, and you can see the expanse of water and sky for miles. It’s open and spacious, and on a sunny day, it sparkles with white sand and sea foam. I’ve always wanted to stay here.

This apartment is on the third floor and has a balcony overlooking this display of natural and wild beauty. A tropical storm passed through this week, bringing high winds and pelting rain. Going outside was impossible …

Last year, I wrote about how my front lawn embarrassed me with all its weeds and disarray. I wanted to fix it and replace it with healthy grass. Many of you kindly educated me (I needed it!) about how harmful grass lawns are and how my dandelions and weeds were good for pollination. I considered hardscape alternatives, which boggled my mind, and my overwhelm led me nowhere. This spring, as I gaze upon my riot of dandelions and weeds, I have a very different feeling. No embarrassment. No shame. I am now fond of what I used to call a disaster and hope the birds and bees stop by and do their health-promoting business.

What really interests me about this change of mind is just that – how our beliefs and the stories we tell ourselves shape our actions and moods. What was once shame is now pride and delight. Nothing changed outside; the weeds are still there, just as they were last year. What did change was the story I now have in my mind about the value and goodness of those same weeds. I swapped one story for another, one I like much better. And still, the weeds are just the weeds.

Here’s another ordinary life example of the mind’s power to determine our well-being …

Sometimes, I want to crawl down so deep into my being to that place where everything stops, and it’s quiet and still. The swirl slows, and there is pure rest. I want to live in and from that place, which is the center of my being.

I also want to live in the swirl of joys and sorrows that is ordinary, miraculous, beautiful, fascinating everyday life. I love my life, every corner of it, and I live in an ocean of joy and gratitude every day.

How to hold this balance – stillness or swirl? …

I have to keep reminding myself that we humans travel between states of contraction and expansion all the time. In nature, we see Fall and Winter are times of contraction; Spring and Summer are times of expansion. Just because I find myself in prolonged contraction right now doesn’t have to mean something is wrong.

It might be that my body is asking for some attention to its health. Or maybe it's my mind or my heart asking for care —most likely all of them since they travel together.

My prolonged fatigue, difficulty finding my internal energy and focus, and body aches snuck up on me—seemingly out of the blue. But if I look closely, it’s not really out of the blue…

Today, I took a long walk along the beach. The walk became my meditation. Here’s how: the horizon of gentle blue sky meeting the darker blue water with softly rippling waves was my meditation anchor. The visual experience was both calming and accessible; when my mind wandered into past or future thinking, I just had to look up, and I was home again.…

What does devotion mean? The word carries charge for many; some people are drawn to the word and have a warm association with it, while others find it off-putting, maybe even frightening.

For a long time, I was in camp off-put. But things have changed.

I find myself wanting to demystify it and bring it into my life more fully; to embrace it…

It feels like forever since my last blog post; you may wonder if I’ve fallen off the edge of the earth. I am here!

I want to check in and let you know what I’ve been doing and learning…

Probably most of you know, I’ve been busy with the launch of my memoir. I hope you’re not tired of hearing about it – I wouldn’t blame you, except that this book is my baby, and I need to nurture it along, so I ask for your indulgence. :)

As is my wont, I’ve been asking myself what I’ve learned so far from birthing this new baby.

 First of all,…

This summer we had some unexpected guests. They moved in and over time took up more and more space. They watched our comings and goings every time we got in the car to go somewhere. We mostly ignored them and let them be who they were – until it got out of hand, and we knew an intervention was necessary…

My father was a kind man, a deep thinker. He would sit for hours in his home office gazing into space. He was a minister, and I imagine he was contemplating how to be present to his ill and suffering parishioners, what to say in next week’s sermon, and how to understand life and spirit.

I also imagine he was not contemplating how to raise his children, who they were, or how to really know them. Let me speak only for myself and not my siblings; I don’t imagine he was focused on me because I didn’t feel him present to me other than in a passing way. I don’t know much about how my four siblings experienced our father.

So, at the time he passed away, almost thirty years ago, I wasn’t sure what I felt. I was sad and worried about my mother but couldn’t feel deep loss because I never had a deep connection.

Yet, on the day of his funeral, ironically, I finally had moments of connection with him…

The ‘birth day’ of my memoir, Light in Bandaged Places: Healing in the Wake of Young Betrayal, is rapidly approaching!

You are all invited to my book launch on August 17, 2023, in Winchester, MA – click on the image for details. For now, please mark the date in your calendar, and watch for an official invitation with the opportunity to register in the weeks ahead.

Someone recently asked how long I’ve been working on this project. I actually had to do some research to get the timeline right… Here’s a quick summary…

Even though Mother’s Day is mostly a Hallmark institution, I’ve always liked it - Father’s Day too. It seems worthy to take a moment, or a day, to consider our mothers. There is a primacy about our connection to our mother, whether it is, or was, a healthy connection or not. We all enter this life through our mother, even if we don’t grow up with her or even like her – she gave birth to us. That’s a worthy undertaking, certainly deserving of notice and gratitude!

Of course, ‘mother’ can mean our primary caretaker, or one of them, regardless of gender or actual biological relationship. We can be mothered by aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, family friends, grandparents, adoptive parents, house parents, and I’m sure I’m missing many others. So, I’ll say ‘mother’ as a stand-in for all the mother-figures who filled the role of mother for us.

We learn so many basic, important, life-forming, necessary things from our mothers. Hopefully, they were healthy, life-affirming, loving, and stabilizing things. In actuality, they aren’t always, and as little ones, we had absolutely no conscious say in the matter. It’s astonishing to see how a child loves and wants connection with their mother regardless of how fabulous or flawed they may be in that role…

I walked into a large shopping mall the other day. I hadn’t been in one in about a year. When I did go during the pandemic, it was like a ghost town – most shops closed, few people, blocked off unmoving escalators, brown boards covering many storefronts. It was eerie.

Now, it’s quite different – busy, shiny, crowded. I was immediately hit with a kind of wonder, like a child in a candy shop. Awe at the show of wealth and the variety of offerings. It was a contrast to the sad, boarded-up place it was not that long ago.

What hit me next was a surprisingly strong sense of acquisitiveness – the desire, the pull to suddenly WANT things…

Exciting news – my memoir, which will be published on September 5, 2023, is now available for pre-order! …

Some of its themes are:

• Family relationships – both healthy and unhealthy

• Spiritual journey – searching for an authentic relationship with the transcendent

• Marriage – its struggles and joys

• Parenthood – its ability to open the heart

• Recovery from abuse – a teen relationship with a trusted teacher

• Self-discovery – uncovering hidden truths through therapy

• Healing – repairing wounds and finding wholeness

• Empowerment – becoming the best version of ourselves

Earlier this morning, I was going about my daily life, putting something into a lower kitchen cabinet, when suddenly, my back went into a spasm that took my breath away. I could not stand up straight or even move; I was frozen in place, bent over halfway, leaning on the counter to support my weight.

What is this?! It was so sudden, so out of the blue. I wondered if something in my body had broken. I wondered if I’d ever be able to move again. All the plans I had coming up flashed before my eyes, and I wondered if they were now lost to me … a lunch date, a class to teach, walks to take, a Springsteen concert, my son’s wedding … the kinds of things that we look forward to, and pretty much take for granted that we’ll do.

After slowly taking tentative small steps, applying ice, taking Advil, and the sharp pain easing some, I was relieved that I didn’t need a 911 call. Not so far.

This brought to mind how quickly things can change - in a heartbeat. And something valuable to us is lost. We blithely go about not considering how little control we actually have in any day, hour, or moment. Maybe that seems like a good thing. But I think my back spasm is a reminder to me of this truth of the impermanence of all things of this world…

Light in Bandaged Places – Healing in the Wake of Young Betrayal is the title of my upcoming memoir, coming out later this year, on September 5. One of the most fun milestones in the book publishing process is when the cover design is finalized.

After many iterations with the designer and soliciting feedback from family and friends, the cover you see here was born…

Click the image to see the cover and read the post!

Today as I walked down a wooded street in my neighborhood, I heard the wails of a child from over the hill. As I got closer I found a very small boy and a bike on the ground, ankle wedged tightly between the pedal and bike frame. He was wrapped in his burly dad’s arms, sitting down on the ground with him, saying, “I’ve got you, you are so brave, I’m going to take good care of you.” At the same time, the dad was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher giving the required information: name, location, problem. He was crying quiet tears of worry, helping his little boy breathe slowly and cry out his pain and fear… (stock photo)

Secrets are complicated. I don’t mean keeping someone’s surprise birthday party a secret – not that kind. I mean those secrets wrapped up with deceit and shame. These are secrets we keep to protect ourselves, not others. They’re complicated because many of them begin with deceiving ourselves.

We deceive ourselves often through ignorance, meaning there’s something we aren’t ready to face, to see into the truth of, so we remain unconscious of it. We could say this is non-intentional self-deception.

Sometimes we deceive ourselves intentionally; we know there’s something we ought to look into more closely, but we choose to look away, maybe pretend we aren’t deceiving ourselves at all, or that whatever we’re up to isn’t all that bad…

Sitting with the discomfort of making a mistake drives me crazy. It invites me to look closely at my relationship with perfectionism.

Do any of you have a challenging relationship with perfectionism? …

Wanting to do a good job is one thing, but what drives perfectionism?

Here is what I know to be true:

Perfectionism is an illusion.

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

There is a practice in the mindfulness tradition called RAIN. This is an acronym: R is Recognize; A is Allow; I is Investigate; N is Nurture.

When I practice this with my perfectionism, this is what happens: …

In one of my classes this week, I shared this quote from Lama Surya Das:

“With every breath, the old moment is lost; a new moment arrives. We exhale and we let go of the old moment. It is lost to us. In doing so, we let go of the person we used to be. We inhale and breathe in the moment that is becoming. In doing so, we welcome the person we are becoming. We repeat the process. This is meditation. This is renewal. This is life.”

This suggests that life happens only in the present moment, one moment at a time. If we think about it, where else could it happen?

But because we are able to remember things from the past, and to think about the future, we tend to think of our lives as happening in the past, present, and future. But the past is over and the future isn’t here yet – it doesn’t exist except as a concept. There really is only the present moment in which our life exists. However, in our lived experience, these single moments blend into the next and reach back to the past, so we perceive our lives in much larger portions – an hour, a day, a decade, a lifetime.

In those hours, days, and decades we experience a lot of suffering, sadness, fear, and grief. Also joy, love, delight, and peace.

How to tip the balance toward greater peace and less suffering …