If you’ve ever felt like you are going in circles, in cycles, in seasons, it’s because you are. We live a life of rhythms. Day easing its burdens into the cool dark of night, sun slipping lazily in the sky. And darkness giving way to dawn break and the rising hope of new mornings. Our growth isn’t linear, it’s circular. It bends back on itself and overlaps in loops and swirls and curves. We aren’t marching forward on a timeline so much as we’re adding rings to our core like aged oak, firming …
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What Mental Illness Taught Me About Mindfulness
I pushed my laptop aside and curled back swelling with nausea, stomach creaking like a rusty hinge while my head swirled. All of my plans to sit down and write this post and others vanished and I was once again constrained by the limits of my body. I take pills every night to treat bipolar disorder. They keep my mind stable and running steadily along but I still deal with physical side effects from those meds that often derail my best intentions. Those days are hard. It’s difficult not to …
Come Eating and Drinking, Come Hungry: A Mudroom Post
In my father’s last days, his hunger vanished. As he shrunk like a hollowed out husk, his spirit being gathered by the very hand of God, his appetites died within him. The hospice nurse handed me a pamphlet about the stages of death and closed her palm gently over the back of my hand. “Fluid and food decrease. Your loved one may want little or no food or fluid. The body will naturally conserve energy required for the task ahead. Food is no longer needed. As the end-of-life …
