For my first marriage, we were married in a church by a priest—one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met. In our meeting with him, he asked us, “What do you want guests to get out of your wedding ceremony?” What? This was a question I had never thought of, had never heard anyone … Read more
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Clearly Newton was not in the social sciences. I saw a bumper sticker: Keep talking, I’m reloading Besides poor punctuation… What makes one an acceptable response to the other?! I’m completely flabbergasted by transgressions, real or perceived, that some people regard as sufficient to shoot … Read more
During the course of conversation and brainstorming with my group during a training, someone mentioned that they have children whose parents put them in an ensemble (band or orchestra) to “get over their shyness.” First of all, in a traditionally-run ensemble, there’s not a lot of verbal interaction between players, so that’s not really going … Read more
The English language has a lot of words. On the whole, we use a little subset of them pretty well, but there are some pairs of words that are often used interchangeably that aren’t actually synonyms. Sympathy vs. pity Sympathy is feeling sad for someone else who is sad and in an unfortunate situation. Pity … Read more
We hear this often. We say this often. There are a few different types of people when it comes to this. There are the people who give up early with a sigh and a shrug and say, “I did my best.” There are the people who are tenacious and work way harder than perhaps they … Read more
I noticed an interesting juxtaposition of defense mechanisms. A few people I know don’t laugh or joke with people they don’t know, or people they don’t feel comfortable with. Laughing is vulnerable, and they’re not comfortable with that level of intimacy without a corresponding level of trust. Quite a few of my students laugh and … Read more
I have heard people say that they can’t retire, or their spouse can’t retire, because they’d be bored. They’d have nothing to do. I can’t imagine. There are so many things I want to do and learn and try that I suspect that if I retired immediately and lived 50 more years, I would have … Read more
The following popped up in my Facebook memories: The crap this morning reminded me that while I am privileged enough to choose not to be here next year…or even just not to be in this neighborhood in the evenings and on the weekends…my kids here don’t have that choice. I didn’t earn this life. It … Read more
So … this is likely to ruffle some feathers, but that’s how things go sometimes. (I’m always amazed at things that ruffle feathers—this one, at least, won’t catch me off guard.) There’s been a lot of media attention to teachers’ salaries, and it’s rightly deserved. We’re not appropriately paid for the work we do. Lots … Read more
From my Facebook memories: “Lots of sirens in the distance. I am snuggled in my bed. Every now and then, I am struck by just how different everyone’s experiences are right in this moment.” I wrote something similar at some other point as well, while a few close friends were going through drastically different things … Read more