(I wrote this post back in 2013, when we’d just gotten back from time abroad. I don’t even recognize the organizational system I’m describing here. But the way anxiety (or, what Steven Pressfield calls “Resistance”) sprouts in cracks in my mental sidewalk? Very familiar). The other day, I sat down to write down my list …
Define Your Life, Change Your Life
I’ve been practicing drawing, and I’ve noticed something. I’ll sketch a picture of a cat, and look at it and think, “Meh.” Then, I take a pencil and go over the contour line again with a bold stroke. Along the cat’s back say, over its ear, the paw curled into a J at the end …
The shocking secret of courageousness
Originally published at The Happiest Home. I used to define myself by what I wouldn’t do. Dive headfirst in a pool. Duck under an ocean wave. Watch scary movies, even “scary” movies meant for children. Rollercoasters. Heights. Anything starting with the word “extreme.” I hate calling to order takeout. I hesitate, really, to pick up …
People ask me how Argentina was. I have a hard time answering.
People keep asking me how our family’s six months in Argentina were. I have a hard time answering. There’s the sexy part: I prayed in an Ecuadorian church, rode horses in the Argentine countryside, and once carried 10,000 pesos stashed in my boot. But I also washed dishes, tried to find palatable soy milk, and fretted …
People ask me how Argentina was. I have a hard time answering.Read More
I Used to Loathe Myself
Originally published at The Happiest Home. It would happen almost every month. “I wish I were someone else,” I’d cry. I wanted to squeeze small enough in my skin that I could be free of being me altogether. My husband would hand me tissues while I explained how I’d never get anywhere, being who I …
When You’re Afraid of Being Needy
During his year abroad, my friend Terence was descending stairs in one of the busiest subway stations in Japan. He stumbled and fell. He told me he tumbled like you’d imagine a cartoon character falling down stairs: spinning and bouncing down two long flights before he reached bottom. He lay like a tangled marionette there, …
All I know about creativity I learned from washing dishes
This post originally appeared on The Happiest Home. I’ll happily cook a three-course chicken dinner. I’ll willingly gather laundry and drop it in the wash. But for a long time, washing dishes, especially by hand, was my least favorite chore. But moving to a house without a dishwasher changed that. I’m spending more time up …
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What “excellence” is–and isn’t
As a kid, I imagined a black belt meant that you were a martial-arts expert. So I was surprised to learn later that it signals a mastery of the fundamentals. The basic vocabulary. At the time, I felt oddly depressed by this bit of information. I was just out of college, and realizing that my years of …
The Keeper of the Keys
My daughter lost one of the keys to our apartment. Thankfully, it was not the key that opens the front door or the back door. Instead, she lost the key to the bathroom. Yes, the bathroom. She liked playing with it when she was bored, moving the thin deadbolt back and forth, a tongue slipping in and …
The surprising definition of “fluent”
When people learn I can speak Spanish, their first question is, “Are you fluent?” And for a long time, my answer was no. I speak Spanish well, I reasoned, but I was hardly fluent. If I have to tell a story about my hopes, dreams, fears in the past, I get tangled in the verb …
Don’t Wait to Change Your Life
When my husband and I got married, we bought a house. Along one side of the house was a covered area where you could have a table in the shade. Only the covering was infested with termites, so the owners removed it before we finalized the sale. Just the covering, not the poles and beams. The …
Losing my wallet, my keys and (sometimes) my religion
It is hard for me to say this out loud, but I’m always afraid of losing my faith. I imagine it slipping it out of my fingers and being gone forever. But a recent incident made me realize how backwards I have this narrative. And I found freedom realizing who, exactly, is in control of …
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Let’s Cheer Others On
I’m amazed at the astonishing affect friendship has on grammar. When I’m surrounded by people I know here, people with whom I have shared history, years of relationship, and hours and hours of great anecdotes, I feel confident and eloquent in Spanish. I can make jokes, understand stories, and say complex things. When, on the …
Why Crazy Enthusiasm Changes Your Life
I felt pretty proud of myself the first time Lori Pickert favorited one of my tweets. Lori is the author of Project-Based Homeschooling, a book that continues to influence how I approach my two kids’ education. Her blog is always inspiring me to not only educate my kids with more passion, freedom, and intention, but …
Have You Held On to the Wrong Identity?
A while ago, I commiserated with a friend about how fearful we both were, growing up. Like me, the friend took years (or never attempted) to do all the “fun” kid stuff like riding a bike, swimming, watching horror movies, or going roller-skating. I bemoan this about myself on a regular basis. Like a lot …
One thing I never really knew about Steve Martin
Steve Martin was once a beginner. You might be thinking, “well, duh.” But wait a minute. Imagine Martin–the same Steve Martin that won Grammys, hosted SNL, wrote books and screenplays and starred in movies–as a wobbly kid biking into Disneyland to get his first job. A messed-up teenager copying others’ jokes. A failing comedian thinking …
Why my first stab at “success” looked like, well, a stabbing.
About a year after I got married, my husband saw a book on freelance writing in a bookstore. He bought it for me. Which was a lovely gesture. Then I got it home, read it, got inspired, and decided to give it a shot. I would send out pitches to magazines! I would get published! …
Why my first stab at “success” looked like, well, a stabbing.Read More
Choosing Rest Over Art Saved My Art
With my first kid, it happened without me wanting it to. With my second, it was planned. I’m not talking about the pregnancies. I’m talking about writing. Or, more accurately, not writing. I stopped writing from after each kid was born for about a year. With my first kid, I did not plan to stop. It …
Want to become a creative zombie? Just do this.
Have you compared your work to someone else’s recently? Today? In the past five minutes? Me too. I keep doing it, even though every time I do, it sucks a little more life out of my art. It gnaws at the root of my work, making the fruit wither on the vine. I grow impatient …
How to Make Your Dreams Come True
Here it is. Let’s all take a deep breath. Become a beginner. Not an expert. Not yet. First, you must start someplace. A start, a beginning, will humble you and bring you to your knees. Stay there a while. Consider what it is to start something. Starting a healthier lifestyle, or a new way of …
This is urgent: Find your tribe—patiently
I didn’t really have a chance of success as a writer until about five years ago. That’s when a friend of mine asked me and a few other moms if we wanted to form a writer’s group. These women have become my tribe. When I joined them, I had a one-year-old, and I wasn’t sure …
Fear’s Pot of Gold
The other day, one of my kids–previously afraid of slides–tugged my hand. “Mama will you catch me? I am going to do this slide.” She climbed to the top, and paused. I could see her thinking. Then she let go. It was a steep one, and I almost didn’t catch her before she hit the …
Goals keep your expectations reasonable
It’s just a half-hour. When I have that extra half-hour every day, when everyone is sleeping their maximum amount, when the childcare shows up and I don’t have extra nighttime commitments, when we don’t go out of town or have extra parenting struggles or get sick, then I have enough free time to really dream …
When You’re Afraid of Getting Judged
A while ago, I attended a party with some families I’m just getting to know. My youngest was the only toddler, but there were older kids, and several about my eldest’s age. The only outside place to play was right alongside a parking lot. I headed out to supervise my younger one, but I was …