The Glove in the Subway
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A one-paragraph newspaper article describes a subway platform during the morning rush hour at Grand Central Terminal. A train pulls in; a well-dressed woman gets off. Before the doors close, the woman realizes that she is holding only one of her leather gloves. She looks back into the train and spots the matching one on a seat. It is obviously too late to dash back in to retrieve it, so with a cavalier shrug, she flings her arm out and, the doors about to close, tosses her one glove onto the seat alongside its mate. The doors shut, and the train pulls away. Read more →
Letting Go of What We Don’t Have
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Oh, letting go. Every so often a minister has to preach on something that is absolutely not a personal strength. And this is one of those times. I’m not a letter-go; I’m an attacher and a holder-on. I hold onto people and relationships I love. I hold onto to souvenirs and mementos. I hang onto old things from my parents or grandparents, even when I have no place to put them. I hold onto and reread beloved books—some I have read 10, maybe 20 times. I have transplanted plants from one house’s garden to another, clung like a vine to bad boyfriends and outworn securities, cherished broken knickknacks and topless treasure boxes and coverless books—sometimes even books with pages that keep falling out.
The Roots We Choose (Excerpt)
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We don’t get a say in the roots we inherit, even as they stretch beneath the surface of our daily lives and contain within them countless stories—of danger and survival and elation and heartbreak—that inform our living in ways we understand and ways we do not. No matter if we spend a lifetime tracing what we can learn about our family’s branches of these roots, or if we do all we can to ignore or even abandon these roots, they will remain there all the same, connecting us to the past, and in a sense, to each other.
From Your Minister
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My uncle had lost his powers of speech by the time he died. In his hospital bed, surrounded by his loved ones, he used a bead board to spell out what he wanted to say during his final days. At one point, my cousin told me, everyone leaned in close because it seemed like he wanted to say something important. C-H-A-N-G-E—the whole family sounded out the word—change!—and wondered what important words might follow. T-H-E O-I-L F-I-L-T-E-R eventually came through. He was reminding my aunt to do a job he had always done on their furnace. For some reason, letting go of this detail was critical for him as he departed the planet. These were some of his final words.
REsources for Living
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Have you ever had an all-out, meltdown, full-on temper tantrum? I don’t remember having major hissy fits when I was little, although if you asked my mom you would probably learn that’s more about my faulty memory than my good temper. I certainly have been witness to some raging temper tantrums as a parent. My daughter’s frequent tantrums in her younger years pretty much always grew out of wanting something that she couldn’t have—either because we weren’t willing to satisfy her desire, or simply because couldn’t find the thing that she wanted. Either way, you could watch her brain dashing around and around in a tiny little circle: “I want it! I don’t have it! I want it! I don’t have it! I want it! I don’t have it!”
A Stone to Hold On To
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It was the weekend before I was scheduled for a biopsy. Marta spent the morning gathering stones on the beach. Later that evening, she pressed a smooth round stone into my hand and said “I know that when you’re facing a challenge it helps to have something to hold onto. I chose this stone especially for you so you will have something to hold onto this week.” On the plane going home somehow I lost the stone, but during my biopsy I held on to Marta’s love.
Holding On / Letting Go
May 2014
All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” —Havelock Ellis
Articles
The Glove in the Subway
A one-paragraph newspaper article describes a subway platform during the morning rush hour at Grand Central Terminal. A train pulls in; a well-dressed woman gets off. Before the doors close, the woman realizes that she is holding only one of her leather gloves. Read more »
Letting Go of What We Don’t Have
Oh, letting go. Every so often a minister has to preach on something that is absolutely not a personal strength. And this is one of those times. I’m not a letter-go; I’m an attacher and a holder-on. I hold onto people and relationships I love. Read more »
The Roots We Choose (Excerpt)
We don’t get a say in the roots we inherit, even as they stretch beneath the surface of our daily lives and contain within them countless stories of danger and survival and elation and heartbreak that inform our living in ways we understand and ways we do not. Read more »
From Your Minister
My uncle had lost his powers of speech by the time he died. In his hospital bed, surrounded by his loved ones, he used a bead board to spell out what he wanted to say during his final days. Read more »
REsources for Living
Have you ever had an all-out, meltdown, full-on temper tantrum? I don’t remember having major hissy fits when I was little, although if you asked my mom you would probably learn that’s more about my faulty memory than my good temper. Read more »
A Stone to Hold On To
It was the weekend before I was scheduled for a biopsy. Marta spent the morning gathering stones on the beach. Later that evening, she pressed a smooth round stone into my hand and said I know that when you’re facing a challenge it helps to have something to hold onto. Read more »
Holding On / Letting Go
“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” —Havelock Ellis Read more »
Letting Go of the Past
Grief in all of its forms is essential to a healthy life in this fragile world. But fiercely and stubbornly clinging to singular events and losses in the past is not so much grief as it is a kind of “stuckness” that truly limits the gift of our present life. Read more »
Letting Go of the Past
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I love to draw, and for well over a decade I attended a drawing group in San Francisco. There, drawing a new model each time, I would produce ten drawings per night on 18×24 inch sheets of tinted paper. Some were quick gesture sketches; some were completely finished with shading and color. I was faithful, and went every Tuesday night. After ten years, despite pieces I had given away or sold, I had collected what felt like a ton of the drawings in the large tablets. They were so big I needed to store them in the hallway of the loft where I was living at the time, an old factory building. I was able to keep them out of the way by putting them into an alcove no one was using. In 1993, we had a terrible rainy winter in Oakland, where I lived. No thunder, no lightning, which are exceedingly rare in California, but downpours for days on end. Cold rain that came down so hard it hurt to walk in it without an umbrella. Downpours for literally days at a time, causing little rivers along the curbs; the cuffs of my trousers never dried for weeks. Read more →