It frequently, ironically, occurs to me that I used to HATE it when my mom would drag me along with her to go birdwatching. Birdwatching! Ugg! Nothing was more lame and boring to my preteen self than watching birds, counting birds, identifying birds, and (worst of all!) TALKING about birds! And now, a mere forty-something years later, [...]

I recently finished reading a crazy book called Against the Machine, a rant against progress and the death of Western civilization. While I admit that the author, Paul Kingsnorth, jumps the shark several times, and that this book is definitely not for everybody, I also found many of his arguments making sense to me. I can be [...]

Emily Dickinson famously wrote: Hope is the thing with feathers; That perches in the soul; And sings the tune without the words; And never stops, at all. For me, though, hope does stop. It comes and goes. It’s like my cats lying in a shaft of sunlight, warm and comforting and cozy. It makes me want to [...]

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and I am thinking about love, yet strangely I am thinking of love in the context of the Super Bowl. Never thought I’d say that! Bad Bunny’s halftime show was filled with love, in stark contrast to the hateful messages that were hurled at him before and after his performance. He reminded us [...]

My husband reminded me this week that we have had the privilege of visiting two of the most beautiful places in the world this summer. In June, we spent several weeks in Hanalei Bay, Kauai. We sat on the beach listening to the soft lapping of waves in front of us, our feet in the soft, warm [...]

I spent last week on the beach in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, one of the most beautiful places on earth, if you ask me. And while I was soaking up the beauty and the sun, I was also people watching, one of my favorite beach activities. Since before I can remember, I have made up stories about people [...]

One year ago today, All I Know was published. I proclaimed myself a writer. I felt like a writer. And then I kind of stopped writing. Writers write. That’s what I’ve heard and said many times. The thing that defines someone as a writer is the act of writing. Come to think of it, that really applies [...]

Always there is darkness and light. In the midst of devastating fires in LA and the impending doom I feel about America’s new leadership, I have also been finding so much beauty in the world. A couple of weeks ago, I went with my brother to see a Mary Cassatt exhibit at San Francisco’s Palace of the [...]

I love a new year! I love setting goals, making lists, organizing a new planner, setting intentions, formulating a plan of action. I am always hopeful that I will achieve my goals. I never actually do accomplish them all, but I almost always accomplish some of them. I print them out and tape them to the front [...]

Tis the season for hustle and bustle, for overwhelm and stress, for long lists of things to be done and bought and baked and wrapped. I’d like to propose a different, three-pronged approach with which I am experimenting. My suggested holiday trinity includes spontaneity, surrender and hope. Let’s start with spontaneity. This past weekend was set aside [...]

I’ll admit it’s been challenge moving forward into this season of thanks and joy. I’m still wrestling with discouragement about humanity, which makes it tough to be grateful and happy. Paradoxically, though, I know that gratitude and joy are also the cure for what ails me. Gratitude grows hope, so I’ll give it a try. I’m going [...]

I am caught between having no words to capture how I feel about this moment in our country’s history and also having a constant cacophony of words running through my head. So I am writing this blog to try and make sense of something that bewilders me. My ruminating thoughts are trying to find meaning for Donald [...]

I went to the movies last night. A mid-week outing with a friend, which was a treat in itself. And although we complained about the twenty minutes of ads and stupid horror movie previews, the movie itself was really good, lots to think about. Hence, this blog. I have only read one Colleen Hoover book, and I [...]

After my joyful few weeks of book touring and traveling, I came home to news that made me sad. No, not the news of our country the past week or two, although there is that. This was the announcement that Klay Thompson is no longer a Golden State Warrior. I couldn’t even talk about it for a [...]

I’m flying home from Orlando, after finishing the initial leg of my very first book tour, and I have the song “I Can’t Do It Alone,” from the musical Chicago stuck in my head, particularly Velma Kelly’s line, “I simply cannot do it alone.” I’ve talked quite a few times during these author events and on podcasts [...]

I’ve been contemplating the bittersweetness of change and time and aging lately, brought on in no small measure by watching a new Bon Jovi documentary on Hulu called Thank you, goodnight. Being a huge Bon Jovi fan is a bit of an age-defining attribute in itself, although my son is also a fan and he’s still in [...]

Bad endings to stories bother me. Whether it’s getting through three hundred pages of a novel or two hours of a movie or a season of a series, it crushes me when they don’t stick the landing. This has always been true, but it’s become even more apparent as I’ve started writing. This topic comes up in [...]

The pace of activity for my book launch on June 11 is intensifying, and I am feeling excited and anxious in equal measure. It’s scary to do a bunch of things you’ve never done and wonder all the time if you are doing any of them right! It’s scary to be signing up for podcasts and writing [...]