Author, Musician, Editor, Writing Coach
When I was a rebellious child and teen, my mother wasn’t right about anything that related to me. She thought she was, but she wasn’t.
Now that I’m in my 50s, it turns out she actually was right. Unfortunately, she didn’t live long enough for me to get it and acknowledge it to her. So sorry, Mom. I hope my daughter gets it before I’m gone, but if she doesn’t, well, it will probably just serve me right.
Read MoreI don’t naturally enjoy working out in a gym. But, I’m doing it more now, along with other healthy things. I gravitate toward times when the gym is otherwise quiet. One day recently I took my iPad along and propped it up in front of the screen that keeps you up to date on your workout. I’m always looking for ways to distract myself from the lack of oxygen and joint pain that comes along with a lengthy elliptical workout, and I thought maybe playing games would help.
The famous line from the ’70s movie Love Story was Love means never having to say you’re sorry. I’m sorry, but what horse poo that was! A more appropriate line might be love means knowing when you need to say you’re sorry and having the cojones to do it. I realize that’s not as elegant sounding, but it rings a lot truer to me.
The other dayI had a flashback to when I was about 13, all full of teen-girl hormones and unpredictable rages. I was on about some girl at school and her attitude and how she was mean to other girls and I really…My mom, making beef stew at the stove and a little hot and grumpy herself turned to me and said, “Really! Why don’t you just mind your own business?”
We can do this now. A video we make of a gesture can find and touch millions of hearts, as this video did when it was posted on Facebook six months ago. A man asks a choir to sing Bruno Mars’ hit song Just the Way You Are to his wife on their anniversary. His wife, as it happens, is chair-ridden from advanced multiple sclerosis. He does this because he wants, he needs, her to know how cherished she is, and he needs to do it in some undeniable, public way.
Read MoreI’ve been blessed to attend various support groups over the past two years, and have recorded many of the more meaningful comments and quotes that have been made by others in my pink notebook, along with my own thoughts, many of which have been shared (respecting anonymity, of course) with TPN readers over the past year. Read More
Cybill was THE model of teenage perfection in the 1970s, as visualized in Cover Girl ads in many issues of influential magazines, like this one.
I’m a pretty typical late Baby Boomer woman, I think. I grew up in an era (a really long one) where women were objectified constantly in the media (not that we’re entirely finished doing that) and where certain cultural definitions of beauty were foisted on young women at a most vulnerable time in life–high school.
When I was a pre-teen, we moved out of the city to a rural acreage. We did this because my brother had died tragically at 19 in a car accident, and my mother couldn’t bear living in the house where he’d been raised. It was meant to be a fresh start for our family, and it was full of new adventures. The first thing that happened was that my sister and I got horses. The property housed a large dog kennel operation, which we inherited. It became the focus of our lives for the next seven years.
Why me, Lord? Maybe you just received divorce papers. Or you broke your favorite cut glass serving bowl from your grandmother (not that I just did that), or were rejected when you asked for something. Whatever the disappointment, sometimes you just need to throw yourself a feelings feté.
So two weekends ago I had a rare gift: I got to spend two days in New York City, where I lived for a few years more than three decades ago. I had only gone back a couple of times after I moved away, and even that was still 20 years ago. A lot of living was packed into that short time.