Getting to the Other Shore

The past five years has ushered in some extreme changes....in fact, things are still changing as I write this. And now it's happening. There is no stopping it. In just over five short months I will be turning the big 4-0.  To be honest....I have to admit that I'm not entirely cool with it. (please, please, anyone forty or over don't be offended, let me explain) I know that forty is just a number and I don't, by a long shot, think that forty is old. I just think it's that I feel a bit like I'm playing this crazy, fierce game of catch up. While I look back on my life so far and think of the things that I have done...sailed, ate some very weird foods (including the world's second stinkiest food), owned a dirt bike, cut off all my hair, performed in small stage plays (including Shakespeare and one in my underpants with a Brooklyn accent), talked to Oprah, swam with stingrays, learned (sort of) to play the guitar, flown a plane, jumped out of a plane, kissed a

Kids are buttholes. That’s right, I said it; kids are buttholes. They don’t mean to be buttholes, necessarily, it’s just that they don’t know any better. They are so wrapped up in their own existence and naivety about the world that they don’t realize that the shit they say and do sucks sometimes; it sucks big time. I’m a full time, single, working mom of two kids, aged almost 11 and almost 9, and I am almost losing my mind.   They are still young and dumb enough that they make the most disastrous messes. Well what they call “experiments”; what? like an experiment in how much glitter, glue and wet toilet paper it takes to make mommy garble her words in frustration?   They recently made “stress” balls with balloons and corn starch and sugar. Why do you need stress balls kids!!?? You stressed!? No; I’m stressed. I’m so tired of the mess and the chaos and the fact that the kids are now old enough to have developed the A word…Attitude. They can roll their eyes and talk back, complain

I set out to read 25 books in 2017. For avid readers this might not seem like very many, but having just plunged fiercely back into reading, after a prolonged period of mental overload, this is a large, solid start for my come back with the written word.  So.....here are the 25 books I spent my time on in 2017... 1) AFTER YOU - JOJO MOYES:   If you loved 'Me Before You' (the book, not the lackluster movie) then you will enjoy finding out what comes next. Plus Jojo Moyes makes it impossible for you not to fall in love with her endearing characters or get sucked into their believable story line lives. 2) EAT, PRAY, LOVE MADE ME DO IT - ASSORTED AUTHORS: While my essay did not make the cut for this collection or stories inspired by the book, the ones that did will 1) make you want to read Eat, Pray, Love all over again and 2) make you want to read Eat, Pray, Love all over again. 3) T HE LIFE CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP - MARIE KONDO: Ya...no. I mean there were some good

Too often we find ourselves writing very specific lists of goals and aspirations, some attainable, some absolutely impossible.  Resolutions like....I want to lose 10 pounds, I want to keep my kitchen cleaner, I want to eat more leafy greens, read more, wear clean socks more often, remember the kids' library days, swear less......(those that know me well know I have given up on swearing less....also on remembering library days) I find that beyond the rigid, detailed lists, I personally need a broader, more universal mandate; a blanket to cover all the lists I make for the coming year and all the lists I will continue to obsessively make during the coming year. Honestly, 2016 wasn't the worst year for me; it was another tough one for sure, full of life lessons, stresses, and challenges, but it was also full of lots of good memories, steps forward, revelations, and laughter.  It was a tough year for many, with lost loved ones, personal and professional trials and tribulations

I have not even finished reading this book yet I feel compelled to urge you to go get it  and read it immediately.   The first thing and really the only other thing I have read by Cheryl Strayed was her epic memoir "Wild."  And while her story was very different from my own what I overwhelmingly appreciated was her emotional journey of healing and the process she went through with time, experience, challenges and solitude to arrive at both an understanding of herself and her circumstances.   I have been picking up and putting down "Tiny Beautiful Things," for some time but the other day I was hit by an intense need to finally get a copy and see what Dear Sugar (Cheryl Strayed) had to say about life and love.    It was not at all what I expected and yet everything I should have expected from her.   The letters between these pages are heartbreaking and profound and on several occasions have moved me to tears.  Cheryl's replies are even more moving

It's words we may be blessed enough to hear from friends, family and loved ones but the person we don't hear it from enough, is ourselves....so today, right now, this is me, being you, because, you're basically me, and I'm basically you, and we're all going through some of the same shit in different ways on different days but.....YOU ARE AMAZING If everyday you get your butt out of bed and you plod through the day fiercely focused on loving your children and doing everything you can with every resource, whether its financial, mental, emotional or physical, that you have in that given moment (which is the best any of us can ever do) then you are succeeding.  Your success as a parent is not measured by whether or not you get all the laundry folded or hell, if it even makes it into the dryer before it gets what I'm told (cause I have no sense of smell), is that musty stench. It is not measured in the amount of homemade baking you can get done while you separate f