I started thinking about luminaria this week.

First, it’s a beautiful word.

Luminaria.

So graceful. Poetic, and full of vowels. It comes from classical Latin luminare—meaning “window,” and from lumen, meaning “light.”
These paper lanterns are also stunning—lit from within.

I started thinking about them this week because I saw someone had described themselves as a luminary on their website. I thought, how lovely! To be a lamplighter, moving through life illuminating that which needs to be seen.

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In group coaching and facilitation, there is this thing called fading.

It’s when the facilitator fades into the background to allow participants to fully engage. The facilitator doesn’t disappear, but instead slips into the surroundings to let the group to do its work.

I love this idea, fading.

There are many ways to fade. My boyfriend has been officiating high school and college hockey for about 40 years. And he says the best officials are those you don’t even notice on the ice. They appear only when needed to call penalties or blow the whistle to stop and start play. Even when doing that, you don't really notice them. The best officials fade.

I am working on fading in my son’s life, now that he is in his mid-20s. I’m consciously practicing how to let him take center stage, while I fade into the rafters.

Not easy to do when for 10 years, it was me and my son against the world.

But for now, it’s Mom, exit stage left.

Mom! Exit stage left!

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Todoist tells me I am a Grand Master.

Do you have a life-affirming app like that? Are you so lucky?

Apparently, I have completed 5,581 tasks over the last two or so years. Todoist says I am one level away from Enlightenment.

Enlightenment! Ha!

The question is, when I am enlightened, will I no longer need Todoist? Will I wake up a free spirit, each morning thinking, “Hello, Day! What should we do together?”

Instead, I often awaken at 4:30 am thinking about a PowerPoint or agenda I have to create before my meetings start at 8:00.

I'll admit it. I am an achiever. I like getting things done. So, I find some satisfaction in checking off my to-dos. But the best part about having an app to track my to-do list is that I can’t remember anything otherwise. So, the minute I think of something I need to do, I add it to Todoist.

It acts as a booster for one of the most valuable parts of my brain.

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Can you remember a time when you heard a truth that you did not want to take in?

A time that stands out in your memory because what was said just rang true?

And you didn't like it?

I can think of one.

It was back when I was married, in a relationship with a wonderful man, but who was a highly-functioning alcoholic. And we had a son who was only 3 or 4.

It was a turbulent time. We were trying to make it work. He was really good about never drinking around us, and I was trying to hang in for the sake of our son. But one night, I said to a dear friend, “I know I can’t stay in this relationship much longer, because it won’t be long before my son notices something is off.”

I had this sense that my son was so young that he wasn’t really paying attention. That he didn’t know somehow.

But my friend stopped me. She grabbed my hand, and said gently but firmly, “Your son already knows. He already knows something is off.”

I’ll never forget that moment.

Because she was right.

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What’s your thing?

What’s one thing that brings you complete and utter joy?

Maybe it’s running. Gardening. Knitting. Tae Kwon Do. Hiking. Singing. Pickleball.

You might say it’s your family. But if you imagine outside of that, if it’s just you alone and the world of options, what would you choose to do, be, or have?

My son once said to me when he was young, “Mommy, you know how writing is your thing?”

“Yes?” I said.

“Hockey is my thing,” he said, emphatically.

At that time, he was a goalie and playing in travel hockey leagues. If you asked him what he wanted to do for a career, he would say he wanted to be an NHL player. Either that or work with koalas.

I wasn’t sure which was less likely.

But I admired his clarity. It’s so good to know what you want.

To know what brings you joy.

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I used to sing to my son at night.

Rubbing his back, trying to help him fall asleep, I would sing a trio: Two songs I learned at Girl Scout camp, “Peace I Ask of Thee, O River” and “Taps,” and then I’d wrap it up with “Amazing Grace.”

I often botched the verses of “Amazing Grace.”

But by that point, he would usually be asleep. And I don’t think God cared about me getting it wrong.

The other day, I asked my son if he remembered me singing the songs to him, and he looked at me, surprised.

“No?” he said.

He had zero recollection.

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I recently came across my mother’s wall calendars from the early 1970s.

Who saves wall calendars for 50 years?

Apparently, she does.

The calendars are illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund—images of pastel, round-faced children with tiny black eyes, but no mouths or noses. They can see everything, but they can’t say anything.

But these calendars reveal a lot. Inside are highlights of our lives in the '70s. They disclose a lot about who my mother was.

She had needlepoint with Nancy, coffee with Margaret, and tennis on Fridays at 6:00 pm. (I didn't know Mom played tennis!) She marked when she was working on a new bulletin board at school, and when the KQED auction was. One year, the local PBS station auctioned off an entire Big Bird birthday party she had created, including favors, decorations, cake, and all.

One February, she hosted a Valentine’s party for my brother on Monday the 12th and one for me on Wednesday the 14th. Clearly, she could be a bit over the top.

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We just returned from a trip to the Southwest.

There, I met the desert.

When I think of the desert, I usually think of Tatooine: Luke Skywalker stumbling across treacherous landscape surrounded by sand people. A place where people die of thirst—where droids like R2D2 and C-3PO freeze up with sand in their joints.

In New England where I live, everything is green—or winter-white. The desert is so sand-colored in comparison. And hot and dry.

Clearly, I never understood the desert.

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Ever wish you had a world-renowned architect to design you?

I recently visited Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona. The home and laboratory are a living, breathing representation of Wright’s work, immersed in stunning desert landscape.

We learned about Wright’s thoughtful use of organic materials, integration of light, and elementary forms.

Wright believed architecture is not simply about designing buildings. It is about creating art where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This includes landscape, materials, form and structure, and how all of those things interact.

That's what people are like, too! We are about form, structure, the landscape around us, and what's inside too.

What if we could understand humans as an elaborate form of art where we, too, are greater than the sum of our bodies, experiences, emotions, and memories?

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Some days, I remember.

I awaken in the ambrosia hour before dawn.

I'm early enough to catch the morning sun as it alights in gold and orange in our front windows, bringing fire and warmth to inspire a new day.

On these days, I am hopeful, ready to bring a lightness of being to the world. Even the teapot sounds joyful in these moments, its whistle promising something new.

The cat might even be purring in my lap when the planets align perfectly. All is right with the world. It could be a Monday. Or it could be a Friday. Those mornings just somehow feel light.

But other days, the sky is grey.

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Someone had posted in our town’s Facebook group that they were seeking basics for a young family who arrived in the U.S. a month ago from Afghanistan. They had witnessed a number of traumatic events in their evacuation from Kabul.

The family with their three little ones had been living in a hotel room for a month. And they just got their first apartment.

They have nothing.

At Christmas, I had sent the person a gift card so she could help get some things for the kids. And now that they are in their apartment, I remembered that we had some extra kitchen items in the basement.

I went down to check it out, pulling out the giant cardboard box that held an odd collection of things. It had a small George Foreman, a deep fryer, an electric griddle, an electric knife, some old plates and glasses, and my mom’s stockpot.

These things had been there in a box since we moved in. So, I took pictures of everything and sent it to the woman in town.

But I debated about my mom’s stockpot for a few days.

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I went searching for a Thich Nhat Hanh book on my bookshelf this weekend.

He just passed away. I have been somber since I read the news—especially coming so soon after Archbishop Demond Tutu.

I have scoured Thay's work on mindfulness and non-violence for 20 years—even listening to him on tape—seeking the peace that he lived.

This time, the first book of his I found on my shelf was No Death, No Fear.

I didn’t remember that one. I was actually looking for Peace Is Every Step. But the book caught my eye, so I grabbed it. And as I opened it, I noticed right away that it wasn’t empty. Stuck inside was a plastic sleeve.

And inside the plastic sleeve were two index cards with my handwriting. The one on top was labeled “My Life in 2004.”

Ahhh, I thought; this is going to be interesting.

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Art first. Muggle shit later.

These five words made me catch my breath. It came from one of my favorite Instagram feeds about writing.

Art first?

But I work full time! And for a long time, I was a single parent! And I like to have a social life! And there are so many other interesting things to do in the world besides art!

And, and, and.

I used to put everything before writing: eating, sleeping, working, caring for my kid, tennis, yoga, watching TV, organizing the pantry, cleaning closets, and flossing my teeth.

All those things are so important. And some of them are urgent.

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I need a crowbar. Or at least some other kind of heavy, iron tool that I can wield powerfully in my hands.

That’s what it will take—according to a coach friend of mine—to open space my calendar.

What?

It’s not normal to have back-to-back Zoom meetings from 8 AM to 7 PM straight?

The challenge with this kind of relentless schedule is you can’t eat. Or go to the bathroom. And worse, if you are a consultant or coach, you can’t ever turn off your camera to have a snack. It's generally frowned upon if you are facilitating the meeting to not be present when it starts.

Therefore, starting in 2022, I made a promise to myself. Not a resolution—but a promise. I will build empty time into my calendar.

I opened up Outlook, and plugged in a mid-day break as many days as I could throughout January, February, and March.

These meetings are just with me.

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This holiday season was rich with highs and lows.
Like a proverbial see-saw: ups and downs, and then ups again.

What were your highs and lows? For me, they were:

High: Five days in the sun in southwest Florida. Wood storks, white pelicans, anhinga, alligators, and the beach.

Low: Scheduling that MRI for my left shoulder, which has been troubling me since September.

High: Empty, spontaneous days for not-urgent activities. Cleaning out our basement, opening up subconscious space to breathe.

Low: Omnicron. My brother-in-law losing his son to COVID.

High: Stretches of quality time with my 24-year-old son.

Low: Remembering eggnog and sweet orange cup Christmases with extended family. Wondering where they all are and how they are doing.

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My ex-husband once bought a pair of crutches at a yard sale.

He was a frequenter of yard sales—it was his favorite way to spend Saturday mornings. But still, I was perplexed about this purchase. When he brought them home, I asked, rolling my eyes, “Why did you buy crutches?”

“They were only five bucks,” he said, “and who knows when we'll need them?”

I didn’t bother pointing out that the crutches were too tall for me—they were wooden and spindly. But he liked having them. And years later, when our son broke his foot playing football on the last day of high school, they were too tall for even him.

But I understood the appeal.

We all have crutches like that in our basement. There are things we all rely on to carry us.

Sometimes these crutches can be useful—if you have a ruptured Achilles tendon or a broken appendage. But some crutches don’t really serve us or help us move forward.

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I was a little cranky with the service advisor while getting work done on my car this week.

The job was to install some protective film that was supposed to be on the car when I bought it, and so I was already frustrated I had to make a special trip to have it taken care of.

This film goes near the rear tires and is meant to protect the car from dirt and salt, and they told me this was considered a “waiting” service so they would not give me a loaner for it. The approximate time to do the service was listed as three hours.

What?

Have you ever been hostage at the car repair shop?

Yes, a first-world problem. But I had a call in a half hour and then three more hour-long Zooms after that, so I had no time to be sitting waiting for protective film (in fact, someone else might need some protective film pretty soon).

cI was a little cranky.

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They say frogs can jump up to 50 times their own body length.

Frogs walk between worlds—they are adept in water, the world of the feminine, the world of emotion. But they are also of the land.

My mother collected frogs. She had over 150 of them by the time I was in high school.

Crocheted frogs, pewter frogs, salt and peppershaker frogs, glass figurine frogs, cast iron frogs for the garden, sterling silver frogs for her ears. One ceramic mug had a frog glued to the bottom inside—he blew miniature bubbles when she drank from the cup.

Our house was filled with protruding marble eyes.

Our mother’s fascination with frogs started in 1975—when we moved from California to Vermont. My father had been laid off, so we moved East for just one year. They thought it would be good for their children to try maple sugar on snow. So, we rented a farmhouse that had a pond—and plenty of frogs—in the backyard. My mother named the house “Frog Hollow Knoll.”

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I was at O’Hare this week with a TSA agent, trying to check in to my flight. Backpack on my back, carry-on by my side, I was trying to hand the agent my license and place my boarding pass on the scanner the same time.

I only have two hands. So in the middle of it all, I dropped my clutch purse on the ground.

Usually TSA agents are somewhat humorless. But this one said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What you got in there? Too much money? Is that why it’s so heavy?”

I laughed.

“No, my phone is in there. Too many emails on it,” I replied. “That’s why it’s so heavy.”

“Oh, he said, “so you are one of those. The workday never ends, huh?”

I shook my head, and for a moment, fantasized about what it would be like to punch in and out of a time clock. I sometimes think about having a job where I can leave it on Friday and not think about it again until Monday.

But as I gathered my things, the agent looked me straight in the eyes, and said, “But is it worth it?”

I stopped in my tracks.

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It’s almost Thanksgiving, the patio furniture is put away, and the grass is trimmed short. And we finally have collected all the apples under the trees in our yard.

It was a banner blossom year. The perfect mix of rain, and sun, and some years of pruning led to a plethora of apples.

Our property must have been an orchard at one time, because there is an unusual number of apple trees at the edge of the woods circling our house. Most were not cared for over many years, so they have grown too tall to prune. Giant even.

These trees create thousands of tiny apples instead of hundreds of normally sized ones. Too small to bake into pies, many too imperfect to bother eating.

Some years, there are more apples than even the deer and porcupines can eat. And if we don’t do anything about them, these bushels turn into applesauce on the lawn. So, we have to gather them up and create piles in the woods and the deer will find them come winter.

As we gather the apples into empty asphalt buckets and garbage cans, they make satisfying plunks as you drop them in, one after the other. Yellow jackets spend a few weeks on these piles, drunk on the juice. It’s a battle against nature, because every day we clear out under one tree and then next day, another 50 or 100 have fallen.

It always makes me a little sad seeing all these tiny apples as we dump bucket after bucket in the woods.

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