As soon as you begin to ask the question, Who loves me? You are completely screwed, Because the next question is How Much?… ~Tony Hoagland, “The Loneliest Job in the World” And after that, Does he love
Read more →Psychology and Mythology
Three-year-old David snuggled on our friend Jeanne Astor’s lap in an Ithaca clothing store. “What’s your daddy like?” a saucy saleswoman asked curly-topped David. “My daddy’s tough as nails,” David said with all the bravado he could
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I jump in my car, pull out of my driveway, and speed uphill—the direct route to town. At the top of the hill, the road is torn up and blocked. A relaxed, slow-paced country guy on the
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“Write a list of questions,” Ellen instructed. “Anything that comes to mind. Just let your pen flow across the page.” I sat around Ellen’s cozy table with a small group of students and began. “Will I ever
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“Who do you want to see more than anyone?” my husband Vic asked in an excited voice. It was unusual for him to call from his office in the middle of a work day. “I don’t know,”
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“There has to be more to life than this dark gloom,” I wrote. I was sinking under the weight of my widowed life with no sweet husband to listen to my smallest fears, to care if my
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On frigid winter mornings, I am a devotee of Hestia, Greek Goddess of the Hearth. I descend the wooden steps from my bedroom, shoulders shrugged against the cold, put my dog Willow outside in the shivering dawn,
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We faced off in the upstairs bedroom, sitting on a mattress on the floor in our rented house on Cayuga Lake. We’d been married less than a year. The afternoon light was low and the bedroom window
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In February, prednisone gave Vic a prolonged energy surge. He longed to be alone and taste independence, and I wanted to think about something besides the timing of medicine and doctor’s appointments. Barbara Nowogrodzki, an artist, teacher,
Read more →It’s hard to distinguish between grief and depression. When does one slide into the other? Who gets to choose the labels anyway? A New York Times article from January 25, 2012 explored diagnostic labels for mental illness.
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