I Choose Love
Motherhood | Inner Life | Wellness | Community | Awe & Wonder
Today, August 6th, 2018, is the 73rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States. The white concrete ceiling supported by horizontally-running exposed redwood beams soars at least two stories above the heads of about 150 seated attendees at Sunday’s gathering at the Green Gulch Zen Center in Mill Valley. Something about…
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“Mama! Ma—-maaaaa!!” Lily exclaims as she crawls over to me in the dark, steadying her small, soft hands on my cheeks and nose. Before I try to open my eyes, the thought, “It’s too early for this,” runs through my mind. I take a deep breath and look over at my daughter’s bright eyes that…
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A gray mist envelops us in a damp hug that leaves its cold sweat on exposed skin. The condensation is warmer than the biting winds that sweep through the canyon with seeming mockery as they push directly at us from ahead. We are three-quarters of the way into our three-week private rafting trip through the Grand…
Read More“Activation and cultivation of the imagination is a practice. Wildness is its breeding ground — wildness of place, wildness of heart and mind.” – Albert Flynn De Silver, Writing as a Path to Awakening “Why am I writing? I mean, what’s the point?” I say to my coach as serpent fingers of yearning try to…
Read MoreDay 1. On the first leg of my travel from Cabo to Nashville, I write this blog on the ways leaving my daughter for the first time since her birth is touching my heart. After boarding the second leg in Houston, we deplane before takeoff due to a mechanical issue. The gate attendant says there…
Read More“I would like to bring Lily to the airport when you drop me off. That way, if she’s wondering where I am, she can remember that I went on an airplane (she knows them well by now after all of our travel together),” I told Dave a couple of days ago. But in this morning’s…
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On my regular route home to our beachfront respite for the season, I turn left off the main highway onto the 5km dirt road that winds through farmland, passed our favorite farm-to-table restaurant and the stable where we take our daughter to feed apples to horses. Landing in El Pescadero somewhat by chance, we felt…
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My grandmother is beckoning a smile from my daughter by tapping her arm and meowing while holding her lifelike orange toy tabby cat. My mom says something to her in Japanese, and my grandmother momentarily breaks her focus on Lily to respond in a curt tone. Her facial expression shifts again as she turns back…
Read MoreMy 20-month old toddler and I are flying from Mexico to San Francisco today – a flight we’ve done together at least a handful of times. I decide to leave my Ergo at home for the first time since I started traveling with Lily at 6-weeks-old, and my heart flutters as she walks the whole…
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“Mama, more shells,” says Lily as she beckons to me from under the shade of her hiking backpack perched on Dave’s shoulders as we walk down a seemingly endless stretch of white sand beach. Dave throws a log back into the perfectly warm 76 degree aquamarine sea, and our dog Bandon sprints into the beach…
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