I have to admit that my walking shoes are ugly. When I look down, my feet look too big, too wide, and too long. In my mind I have three images of beautiful shoes and beautiful feet.
As a girl, in National Geographic, I saw lovely children and young women being carried because they couldn’t walk. Their feet, with broken bones, had been bound since infancy.
My mother had dyed-to-match pointed-toe high heels in the 1950’s to 1960’s. I thought she was beautiful, but her shoes that matched each outfit caused bunions and mis-shapen toes.
Now I see powerful women like Nancy Pelosi wearing stilletos. The narrow six to seven inch heels are sharp and dangerous if used as a weapon. Stilletos make women taller, lengthen their legs, emphasize their bust, and typically cost $700 for executives. Clearly they don’t have any wiggle room for toes.
The term “wiggle room” comes from the Depression Era in the 1930’s.
Read moreHow Would You Talk to A Fifth Grader About Not Going Back to School? Since the April 20, 1999 massacre at Columbine High, 279 students have been murdered in school. If you count the number enrolled in those target schools, 311,000 students have experienced gun violence. (The Washington Post). These have been called the Lockdown Generations.
A mother named Gal Beckerman has made this proposal in The Atlantic: “Today, I’m left with one conclusion: The children and parents of our country need to take the summer to organize locally, build a set of national demands, and then refuse to go back to school in the fall until Congress does something.”
Read morePrompt for a writing exercise: What is the nicest thing that anybody has ever done to you? What is the nicest thing anybody has ever said or written to you?
Read more“Quiet People Have the Loudest Minds.” –Stephen Hawking
In 2022 Assertive, Optimistic, and Lively voices are IN. More quiet, observant, and thoughtful voices are OUT. We live in a time that focuses on big personalities in subscription daily blogs, YouTube, Ted Talks, and Spotify performances. Our state governments and city councils make grants to consultant groups to propose solutions to homelessness, difficulties in finding and hiring police, or low reading scores in public schools-- instead of asking for the ideas of quiet people already at the table.
Are you one of them?
Read moreWhen I was younger, a standard exercise at retreats or conferences was to ask “What three things would you take with you to a deserted island?” On the news, we see entire families fleeing Ukraine. They have small rolling luggage, backpacks, and heavy coats with the pockets stuffed…
Read more“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”-- Anne Lamott
My husband was an electrical engineer who never had to return anything to the manufacturer or take it in to be service. He had three approaches to something working slower and slower to operate or making mistakes:
Read moreNadia Bolz-Weber is an ordained Lutheran Pastor. She makes the revolutionary proposal that we give ourselves the gift of really low expectations. “May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.”
Read more"One of the rituals that I've made part of my life is the celebration of my birthday once a month. . . . On the twenty-eighth of every month I make a special effort… — Gold in Your Memories by Macrina Wiederkehr (1939-2020)
Read moreObjects and Events Can Tell Different Stories! “The same object, as everyone knows, can be described in many ways. A rectangular red object on my living room floor may be a nuisance if I stub my toe on it in the dark, a doorstop if I use it for that purpose, further evidence of my lackadaisical housekeeping to my visiting mother, a toy to my young daughter, or simply a brick left over from my patio restoration project. There is no single true or all-encompassing description. —From Richard Delgado, “Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative.”
Your writing prompt: Pick an object that you see every day. Imagine that it belongs to someone else. What is it used for? Do they like it, tolerate it, mostly ignore it, or hate it?
Read moreImmanuel Kant said Happiness required three things: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. If you have something to do and to hope for, and a person to love, write them down.
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