To give birth – whether to a person or an idea – is to bring something new into existence. Its origin is from the Old Norse word meaning “bear.” My assumption is that this was an early acknowledgment of the intense labor that is intrinsic to the act of giving birth.
When we give birth to anything it brings with it a combination of immediate joy, hope, anxiety and fear.…
Like many families, every year we create a calendar. Around December, I begin by looking through all the pictures our family has taken over the last year. We then select somewhere between three and twelve to put with each month. In total that means around fifty to sixty photos end up representing our year at a glance. A small number curated from almost a thousand.
While I’m sure the family members who receive this gift appreciate it; the act of creating provides me with the greatest present.…
As the saying goes, this is the season for giving. Yet for some, including myself, the giving is often focussed on just a few days.
For the rest of the month of December, we’re running around frantically trying to wrap things up – not just the presents we’ve purchased but various end-of-year projects – both work and personal – that have piled up the previous months.…
The holiday, by nature, can be stressful. Throw in another wave of a pandemic that can impact our health, upend our preparations and wreak havoc on travel plans, it would be understandable if many of us are as they say, “at our wit’s end.”
But to quote the writer, Rudyard Kipling, “If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you.…
On any given day, approximately 800,000 people in the United States will celebrate their birthday. When we are young, we sit with a birthday cake before us, surrounded by friends and families and we make a wish to blow out the lit candles marking our years.
In any given year, many of these wishes bear some semblance to one another despite the diversity of the wish makers. …
While walking my dog in the woods nearby, I stopped to marvel at a giant fallen oak. Uprooted from the ground, it was hard to surmise what had toppled this mammoth tree. I was full of wonder at the extensive roots laid bare for all to examine the many connections severed. Feelings of both loss and hope filled me as I was reminded that soon that tree would decompose with its nutrients revitalizing the soil that it would soon become part of.…
It has its obvious drawbacks. It’s near impossible to throw a birthday party. You did indeed get the short end on gifts and the stiff reality that comes on December 26th when you wake up realizing it will be another 364 days until you open another present.
On the other hand, everyone seems to remember your birthday. On a day when most have a reason to be preoccupied with their own happiness, they take a few moments to share some of it with you.…
