I’ve been back from traveling for a week now, and I’m easing back into things. I had a lovely holiday. I told myself I’d work a bit on this trip, but as soon as I left New York, I decided not to. Nothing, I realized, was so terribly important that it couldn’t be dealt with in two weeks’ time. In the words of a former boss of mine, “the lives of children do not hang in the balance.” I shared some photos on…

If you tune in regularly, then maybe you’ve noticed that it’s been a challenge for me to keep up with Sunday posts lately. Nothing’s wrong; I’m just very focused on work and on loved ones. There’s not a lot of time to process or reflect these days, so when I think about writing something on Sunday, I often don’t know what to say. A while back, I polled readers about what they might like to see covered in a monthly newsletter for subscribers…

I spent some time with friends outside of Boston last weekend. On Saturday night, they gave me a treat: pizza night in their home. When they first told me that homemade pizza was on the menu, I felt the need to assure them that I didn’t expect or need anything so elaborate. My friend Stephanie looked confused. “But it’s our favorite thing!” she exclaimed. “That’s what we’d be making tonight if you weren’t here.” In theory, I like making homemade pizza, too. In…

This week, I was really struck by a thread about rest, written by psychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs. Specifically, I loved the way that Hobbs delineates different forms of rest, many of which I hadn’t considered. Hobbs writes, Physical rest is sleep. Stretching, Nourishing food. Mindful movement. Mental rest is any kind of non-thinking activity. Baking. Painting. Gardening. Single Tasking. Emotional rest is crying. Journalling. Therapy. Healthy emotional expression. Sharing rather than suppressing. Social rest is hugs. Solitude. Intimacy. Community. Activism. Employee resource groups….

I spent last weekend in upstate New York with my best friend and her kids. It was a low-key, happy few days in a place that I associate with feelings of safety and home. Weekends with Chloe and her family always fill my cup, but they’re tough to return from. Whether we go someplace together or I visit them, I come home to some melancholy. It passes, of course. But it can be poignant, and that’s how it was early this week. Between…

As I mentioned last Sunday, I’ve had some thought-provoking, deep exchanges with new acquaintances lately. One of these was a few weeks ago. I got on the topic of age with a woman whom I’d recently met. According to her, we each live many lives. She told me that she’s living one of her early lives. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, on the other hand, has lived a great many lives before this one. It was a very novel outlook for me. Yet the woman…

I’ve had two conversations with complete strangers in the last few weeks that have stuck with me. This seems to happen more and more these days, perhaps a sign of increasing openness and curiosity on my part. It’s a good thing. I’ll share about one of the exchanges today and the other next weekend. A few nights ago, I ended up speaking with a woman who’s a generation above me; she has a daughter about my age. We got to talking about work….