"What do you need from me?" the sheriff asked."Walk with us," the people replied.And he said, "Let's walk." Many years ago, Margaret Mead, the late anthropologist, was asked by a student what she considered to be the very first sign of civilization in culture. The student...
The other day, I clicked on a New York Times article detailing the nearly 100,000 lives lost to date in the U.S. from Covid. Names and memories were gathered from obituaries across the nation to capture the gravity of the loss and personalize the people...
Emma has been reading Charlotte’s Web every night for weeks. She pulls it off her nightstand immediately after I kiss her goodnight. In the morning, I usually find it lying next to her, wrapped in the covers. She finishes it only to begin again. “You really...
Now that the weather is warm, we are spending more of our quarantine time outside. The girls spent the morning swimming in the backyard while I worked on my laptop on the patio. The streets are so quiet. Usually we can hear road noise from our...
This week, Emma’s at-home science lesson was about flamingos and how they become pink in color because of all the shrimp they eat. Emma liked this fact quite a bit and opened the refrigerator to see the foods we had inside and think about which...
Most people sneeze about four times a day. Long ago, the Romans and Greeks considered sneezing a sign of wellness and expressed their good wishes to the person who sneezed with the joyful proclamation, “Live long!” Yet somewhere along the way, sneezing became associated with sickness. Certainly, sneezing...
Resiliency is the internal strength you use to carry the emotional load of life. It helps you navigate more easily through challenges and stressors that come your way. Just as you might exercise to strengthen your muscles, you can practice resiliency to bounce back from...
Life is strange these days. I’ve been thinking of how, as parents, we try our best to endure hardships with the smallest possible impact to our children, to protect them from scary news and preserve fun moments during a tough situation. Sure, life is going to be...
“I cried last night,” my coworker told me. “I’m having a hard time with all of this,” someone mentioned on a conference call. “I’m disappointed my plans had to change,” my friend posted on social media. In the past week, I’ve noticed many people are talking about their feelings more openly. If...
“I should be on my field trip to the Crayola Experience right now,” my daughter Ella stated as she worked on her schoolwork at our kitchen table. She frowned. “I’m so mad we don’t get to go.” The field trip had been planned for months. Ella was especially...