A Mindful Life

I go through phases of information gluttony and fasting, and these are usually mirrored by phases of creative inactivity and output. In other words, when I’m on the computer too much, creative expression by other means comes to a dead stop. I’ve been working so many hours. The few I have free I use on [...]

At times I was so lonely I was amazed I didn’t just expire right there on the spot, as if loneliness that strong were a divine thunderbolt that could strike me down at any moment, whether I was in bed, at a crowded dinner table, or at an empty roadside stop.
–Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a [...]

On Saturday I led a team of 18 people in the establishment of a 7,000-book elementary school library. The library had been closed for over a year for lack of a librarian (funding cuts). The books had been boxed up and stored. The SF Connect project goal was to unpack those boxes, along with scores [...]

Those who know the Way, know the way to create a space for people to feel their beauty.
–Jack Ricchiuto, Jack/Zen

I used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything else would be measured. I know now that this isn’t so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most [...]

Tomorrow I shall depart for San Francisco at 7:00 a.m. I’m drafted to assist with painting for Project Youth & Families Connect at an elementary school. Afterward, Husband and Newly Relocated Friends will pick me up, and we will go to the Exploratorium. One of the Newly Relocated Friends is having a birthday tomorrow, and [...]

His kisses began like cotton candy
melting quickly, barely touching my lips.
I devoured them.
His fingers stroked the nape of my neck.
A chord of need rang through me, vibrating
up from between my legs.
A cord of need snaked around my hips,
wound through my lips, impaled me. I fell
away from myself, I turned
inside out,
inhaled
and floated away.

Yesterday I did something for myself. I took the day off from work. It wasn’t a restful day, but by the time I went to sleep, I felt more centered and less like I was running on fumes. By the end of the day, I:

washed four loads of laundry
cleaned the kitchen
sorted recycling
worked out at the [...]

I learned the balance between letting loose and keeping control, allowing my body to react impulsively to the beat and directing that impulse into a more meditated, skilled movement. It was all about rhythm, about finding the place where the music’s rhythm met my own. As I danced I thought how this wasn’t all that [...]

All summer I’ve been sleeping with my window open. Even on the nights when the humid air seeped into my room and seemed to cling to the carpet and sheets and walls. Even like last night when the air was cool and crisp as a granny smith apple and I closed my eyes and felt [...]