I have been custodian to five dogs during my life. Custodian? Companion? Well, I cannot really say that we ever own a dog. They live with us. They count on us. We also live with, count on them. Over winter holidays I had the joy of hanging out with Dexter even more than usual. What a…
Eleven years ago, Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment that banned marriage between two people of the same sex. Religious organizations that hold tax exempt status engaged in de facto lobbying and campaigns to influence voters. Though there were decades of evidence to support the perspective that marriage was generally beneficial to the social, emotional,…
We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience. ― John Dewey The past eight years with my President have been really good. Mr. Obama is a brilliant man who shows himself again and again and again. Unlike many others who extol his praises in social media, I do not consider him…
I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. – Simone de Beauvoir Three children. Two miscarriages, at least. A shaky marriage. A will born for survival in an adolescent girl, now a woman who would not be controlled. She needed to work to…
My late husband Paul was an artist. When we were alone, I sometimes sang to him these lyrics that Joni Mitchell penned sometime before 1970: Oh I am a lonely painter I live in a box of paints I’m frightened by the devil And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid I remember that…
Prayer for a New Mother The things she knew, let her forget again- The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold, The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold. Let her have laughter with her little one; Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing, Grant her…
I am a big fan of giving thanks, specific appreciations, and expressing delight. I set up meetings so that their last five minutes or so are devoted to creating the opportunity to say what we learned from each other or what we appreciated. I find that my work is best when I wrap my mind…
