Inspiration

There is a word I have been thinking about lately: margin. Years ago, when I was teaching first graders how to write, I remember pointing out the faint margin lines running down both sides of their copybooks. “See these lines?” I would say. “Your writing begins here on the left, and it stops here on the right. You don’t write all the way to the edge.”

I recently returned from a visit to Southern Africa. The experience was beyond all expectations. Because the game reserve was private, they have strict rules about the number of vehicles that could be near an animal. The animals are never fed. They have become habituated to vehicles. It helps that they have been safe from hunting and poaching for several generations…

At 90, I have discovered something rather amusing about getting older: the calendar insists I am old, but most days I don’t feel particularly interested in cooperating with it. I believe one reason is simple: I nearly always have something to look forward to. It may be a book I am working on…

Does it start with a spark? Does it stop? Does it end? Is it tied with a ribbon and handed away, Or alive in each breath of an ordinary day? It says, “You may be you, in time and in space.” It makes room for each viewpoint, voice, and face…

Growing into my wisdom each year, I have noticed the desire for ease and simplicity. It wasn’t always like this. I spent many years wasting my energy and time worrying about things that I couldn’t control and really didn’t matter…

I’m a horror movie fan, so when the new Insidious movie came out this weekend, I decided to do something I hadn’t done in a long time. I went to a movie theater. And I was genuinely excited. Not just interested or casually looking forward to it. I was excited like a little kid. I got my popcorn, found my seat, settled in, and for a moment, I realized just how much this simple experience meant to me…

As a full-time caregiver, it’s not that easy to slip away for a vacation or even slip out of the house for an hour or two but I have found I can take frequent breaks throughout the day to a lovely little inn on the Washington coast. Just a few quiet moments to smell the salty air and hear the seagulls arguing over who got the biggest crumb from a discarded…

When I think back to being a kid, so much of what we did was simply because it was fun. We spent hours outside, running up and down the road to the big black door at the back of William Patten School. Nobody actually used that entrance, but for us it became a focal point. Other days were spent dancing around the kitchen table, clicking our fingers to “The Jets”…

Feeling stuck after 60 was the last thing she expected on the afternoon she closed the biggest deal of her year. Everyone around her was celebrating, and she could not understand why she wanted to leave. The conference room erupted before she had finished closing her laptop. The client had said yes. After three months of negotiations, revised proposals…

A few months ago, I was feeling lethargic about my life. It seemed smaller, rather flat and far too predictable. I wondered whether this was simply what happened at 72. Perhaps life naturally slowed down, and I needed to accept it. But I didn’t want to accept it. Just because I may be three quarters of the way through my life does not mean I need to stop fully living it…