Writing
Essays & reflections.
I write about the many dimensions of being human: motherhood, trauma and healing, relationships, public life, the inner life, and the ordinary pleasures that make a life.
Essays
Selected long-form essays from my Substack publication.
Those Self-help Folk Lied To You
How I Get High Without Marijuana
Dating Someone Older Or Younger
Reflections
A wide range for the human experience
I am incredibly tolerant of people’s stuff.
I’ve witnessed people eat powder, cut themselves and completely self-destruct. I’ve also seen people totally destroy others out of rage, contempt and jealousy.
I have seen every expression of addiction, perversion and sexual expression. I have heard things about human experiences that left me unable to sleep for nights upon nights.
As a result, I have range for the human experience.
So when I run into people who have a significantly smaller range than I do for humanity, it’s rough for me.
Intellectually, I get it, but emotionally, a person with a narrow range fundamentally is a person who does not feel safe for me.
And here’s the thing: I can love a person, adore a person, believe in a person, root for a person’s success and still choose to keep them at arm’s length because I distrust them with the range of my own human experiences and, subsequently, my heart.
The contrast between what we want and what our behaviour makes possible
I think my father wanted to be a dignified and respected man. His behaviour, however, was not aligned with that desire, and so instead he became a feared man whom people thought twice about disrespecting.
The contrast between what we want and what our behaviour makes possible in our lives is sitting with me this morning.
Leave people be as they walk into the fire they set to scorch themselves
Once upon a time, there was a man who used to clean his loaded gun while pointing it at his foot. His mistress would constantly tell him to unload the gun first. He scoffed, ignored her and even suggested that she had no common sense.
This went on for years. Eventually, the mistress stopped nagging.
Time passed without incident until one day…
POW! The gun fired and took his whole foot.
Moral of the story: Leave people be as they walk into the fire they set to scorch themselves.
