Daffodils Every March my father brought the Daffodils. Flashes of my nose pressed into the yellow silky blooms cradled in the waxy green paper. Realizing a sudden femaleness. Holding these contradictory frail yet strong flowers a gift for my mother and me. The...
People & Connections
A Message in the Heart of Winter
Late January and early February in northeastern Pennsylvania can be dark in both literal and metaphorical terms. The holidays are behind, New Year’s Resolutions are beginning to wobble and one finds oneself on that tightrope of meaningful winter reflections versus...
Thank You Note to My Mother On Her Birthday
My mother’s spiritual home is New York. She hustles through the spontaneous choreography of the city’s streets utterly joyful in its energy, relishing the swish of divergent fashion, languages and ages. It called to her as a child when she went to visit her aunts. An...
Cats: Masters of Self-Care
Cats get a bad rap. Those who are not as enamored of these unique creatures view them as narcissistic, the evil opposite of the selflessly devoted dog. Those of us who are devotees of the feline however, know that they are not selfish, but rather masters of...
The Gift of Attaya (Senegalese Tea Ceremony)
My friend Latir lifts the silver pot and the tawney liquid spills from high above the tiny glass,called a kas, and streams perfectly into its target in a stunning, dramatic arc. He picks up the glass and steadily pours the tea in another perfect arc into the other...
Reply All Is Not Evil & Other Slogans for Happier Emailing
Email. Did you shudder? A tool once revolutionary and cutting edge has inverted itself as the bane of many people’s existence; a kind of Sisyphean hell in which the list of messages is never reduced, but multiplies. Hence why so many entrepreneurial blogs, and...
I’ll Get Back to You as soon as I do some Jumping Jacks. 10 Tips for Better Communication through Pausing.
Amazing things get done by people working together. But human interconnection can be messy. Along the way to the ribbon cutting there can be miscommunication, deadlines broken and conflicts. On my good days I like to call this creative tension and on my bad...