You Like Me!
People of a certain age may remember that moment in 1984 when Sally Field won an Oscar for her performance in Places in the Heart. In her acceptance speech she was overcome with emotion. Barely but beautifully managing to remain coherent, she expressed her profound happiness and amazement that...
When I Jumped Over
It all happened in miraculous, slow motion, where I could see everything unfold in real time. Before I took the leap, I could see her very clearly on the other side: a young adult of 21, making judgments I questioned, displaying behaviors I thought were needlessly risky or abrasive or impatient, or whatever...
Close Shave
My father and I had a secret ritual, which began before I can remember, and finally came to an end, as was right and necessary, when I was about 11 or 12. I stumbled upon the ritual; it was of my making, but my father was complicit, and I like...
My Friend Iris
I had a friend Iris. I say “had” because I ended the friendship definitively and incontrovertibly, about 18 years ago. I said, “Have a nice life,” and hung up on her. You can’t get any more final than that. This was in the old days, when there was an...
The Loveys
From my kitchen table I can see that lamp. That floor lamp I finally came up with an excuse to get rid of (it really is far too puny for our oversized family room, and I had no other place to use it) and temporarily replaced with a bigger,...
What’s wrong with navel-gazing anyway?
Some people use the accusation of “gazing at your own navel” to dismiss a self-exploratory mental exercise as useless, self-indulgent, narcissistic, or worse, primitive. Something an ape might do. But an ape doesn’t ruminate as we do, not about its navel or anything else, and so I reject that characterization. [Read More]