"I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can […]

I gotta' be honest today: I feel stuck. Stuck about how to write anything that means anything about what the world feels like right now. Stuck about how honest and vulnerable to be about the things I am pondering these days, the things that are causing me angst, giving me pause, making me reconsider choices. […]

Confession: I am still in my LL Bean flannel pajamas in front of a roaring fire. It is well past morning. I am thinking about a concept called "idleness aversion." Idleness aversion is something the German sociologist Max Weber called "one of the core ingredients of the modern soul." Oliver Burkeman defines it as "not […]

Last Saturday morning dawned like most other Saturday mornings. Loose plans, weary bodies, much that needed our attention. "What do you want today to hold?" I asked my husband. He didn't seem very interested in the question. Distracted, caught up in his own thoughts. "I just have so much to do," he said. "Like what?" […]

To say this is a fast-paced time of year is an understatement, right? Concerts, parties, decorations to be strung, stockings to be hung, people to feed, gifts to buy and wrap and give … and sometimes return. It is too easy to lose oneself in the hustle and bustle. Too easy to think the hustle […]

I am revisiting Jenny Odell's fascinating book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Originally published in 2019, her work feels more urgent today than it did a mere six years ago. The pace of life--of change, of disruption, of technology--continues to accelerate. Most everyone I talk with is not okay. At all. I […]