Keep what is necessary. Let go of what is not.
Grapple is a great word. It’s kind of like a simple hybrid for “Granny Smith Apple,” like the whole word was just smashed together. Grapple. Recently I’ve been grappling with letting go of past dreams to make room for new dreams. I feel like a juggler who bought a new set of juggling balls, but […]
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Year is 2010. We are sitting in our high school auditorium. My friend Valerie, a brilliant violinist, sits on stage and plays the opening notes of a familiar wordless melody. Her seamless playing of every note draws a hush over the students. The violin’s melody serenades us, enveloping us in the crescendo of each note […]
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Once a week, Little Winnowers, we are focusing on anxiety. It deserves a day entirely to itself because it is so powerful, so consuming. And unfortunately, it really is one of our biggest inhibitors to growth. For we Winnowers, our focus is on letting go – on moving through our lives in the present moment […]
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Today I want to do nothing more than share a few words of wisdom from Mary Oliver, the naturalist and American poet: There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled. Like, telling someone you love them. Or giving your money away, all of it. Your heart is beating, isn’t it? You’re not […]
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Little Winnowers, we are sorting. The process of emotional sorting is complex, constant, consuming. It’s a state that you enter when you begin to look at your life critically. Like cleaning out your emotional closet, you pick up each thing and ask: Do I keep this? Or do I let it go? This is our […]
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Lavender plants are often propagated by root cuttings. Instead of attempting to grow the plant from seed, many gardeners will choose to splice off a portion of the plant’s roots and replant it in new soil. The process is also called root division. That’s a little how this year feels to me, Little Winnowers. It […]
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Acoustic guitar moves like the river, rhythmic and plain and constant, and so very soothing. It is an auditory bath, coursing over the curves our bodies and reverberating inside our chest walls. It cleanses us inside and outside. I’ve often said that whenever I’m pregnant for the first time, I’m going to stretch headphones over […]
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Remember that L’Oréal hair detangler spray for little kids? That potent pear-smelling spray you’d spritz on tricky knots of hair, and work through with a comb until the hair is orderly again? I want a grown-up detangler spray for my life. I would spray it all over my room, my car, my job, my relationships, […]
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Do you make wishes? I do. I am a wish-maker-die-hard. I wish when the analog clock reads 11:11. I wish when I blow out birthday candles. I wish when I see a shooting star. I wish when I pluck a white-headed dandelion, blowing its seeds away as they swirl off on a breeze. That is […]
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“So what caused your break up?” Melissa asked me. “I wasn’t balanced,” I replied. My own response shocked me. For the first time in answering the question, I didn’t say Adam’s name as the subject; I said my own. For the first time, I didn’t describe the break-up as something that happened to me; I […]
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