My father, a gentle man who was rarely angry, had a face that, when lost in thought, relaxed into a kind of neutrality that made him look stern. My sisters and I were sure he was mad. In a household not given to expressions of anger, it scared...
Finding Flow
It’s early morning and my husband is outside tending to his tomato plants. He moves among them with an electric toothbrush, buzzing the blossoms to encourage them to pollinate and produce more tomatoes. When he’s done, he moves onto the lettuce...
Reinventing a Life
I have recently been watching home videos of my son when he was a year and a half. In one scene he is inspecting a cheese grater composed of several parts. He winds the handle, trying to figure out what it is and how he might use it. He invests...
Insignificance
The recent photographs taken from space with the James Webb telescope—of galaxies and individual stars light years away from us, appearing as they were 13 billion years ago and providing insights into the origins of the universe—are truly...
When Independence Slips Away
I recently returned from a writing residency on the high desert of Central Oregon, a magical place couched between a ridge of low mountains and a dry—in the summer—lakebed. The buildings are situated near a pond with shade trees where all variety...
If I Could Speak Again
I’ve been dreaming recently that I can talk. In these dreams I always know that my ability to speak will not last; it will come and go, so while it’s available I have to speak quickly and efficiently to say everything I need to say. It’s a...
My Psilocybin Trip: Releasing Expectations
A few years ago I read an article about a depressed and anxious psychotherapist who took a guided psilocybin trip. He emerged from the experience considerably calmer and more capable of functioning, with the insight: Show up and be open. His...
The Power of Women
From the very beginnings of my storytelling career, I have been obsessed with the question of what it means to be a woman in a world that privileges men. My first produced play was about two women with ten “genderless” children who return home to...
Love Your Body
In the ten years before the pandemic began, I was regular practitioner of hot yoga. When I first began, the studio offered only ninety-minute classes conducted in a room that was 105 degrees—or more—with 40% humidity, designed to produce maximum...
Memento Mori
My son recently got a tattoo that runs the length of his thigh. It features a beautifully-rendered hour glass with a skull leaking from the top to the bottom. Along the top are inscribed the words: memento mori. This is the Latin phrase that...