“WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO BE TRULY HAPPY?” my mother once asked me, as she dangled a long stalk of celery in one hand and a silver-plated spoon in the other. I climbed up onto her nest of a lap with the warmest of centers and answered, “No Mama, but does it have […]

SUFFERING CAN BE A LIFELONG PROJECT as well as a fruitful journey of self-discovery, and so creativity can indeed be the beautiful transponder that grows from each suffering experience. My grandmother once told me, “All we are is what we have the courage to create, at any given moment.”

MAYBE YOU AREN’T AS WEIRD AND STRANGE AS YOU THINK. But if you are, it could be a great thing — because the strangest people in the world invent things, they think outside of boxes that haven’t yet been made, and they often help us all to feel less strange as a result. I born […]

FRESHLY CUT GRASS IS THE SMELL I MOST REMEMBER from my childhood neighborhood, mowed and manicured by young dimpled boys before and after school, but mostly on weekends between wide-eyed bike rides and stickball games in the street. We were considered a middle-class community, not because we had lawns — a few with painted fences […]

EVER SINCE I CAN REMEMBER, I HAVE BEEN AFRAID TO TRY YOGA. There has always “just been something” about the way yoga people walk around, all limber and peaceful, that intimidates me . . . not to mention those tight little pants and serene Cheshire Cat smiles they continually wear. But as my new goal […]