Notes on imposter syndrome
When I was chief resident (many many years ago), I set myself up to be a sort of dorm mom, falling headlong and eagerly into one of the roles women leaders can take. On Fridays, for example, I would bring chocolates to the sign out room, and to make things more engaging, would come up […]
Notes on Mourning
As I write this, Tom and his crew from T & J’s Excavating are taking down half a dozen oak trees that were uprooted or otherwise destroyed during several recent storms. The chainsaw sounds like a dentist’s drill, we can feel the earth shaking when an enormous bough or trunk comes plummeting to the earth. […]
Becoming
What if we consider transformation as a process that can honor both the stories we tell about ourselves as we are right now and can help us dream and consider what is possible?
Our emotional life
As an oncologist, I am no stranger to being yanked around by my emotions. In one day of seeing patients, I can feel the profound sadness of losing a patient with young children, the relief when another patient finally has a response to treatment and easing of pain, the joy shared with another when we […]
Hold lightly…
Last Saturday, my husband and our two daughters enjoyed dinner together. Everyone had enough. Enough food, enough time to talk, enough love. No one was snippy, and laughter was abundant. Somehow the dishes were done without anyone having been asked. I have been learning to hold lightly my expectations. Expectations about how the meal should […]
Grace notes
I made a mistake. An expensive and inconvenient mistake. Wanting to be with my husband and our daughters over Christmas, I reserved a place for us to go up north for a couple of days over the holiday. I was looking forward to some time to play out our traditions. With our beloved dog, Daisy. […]
I’m not busy.
When our first child was born late one November, our lives of course changed. Of love and necessity, our family was reorganized around its smallest member. Other things were put aside, reshuffled, or abandoned forever. We thought we had been busy when, in fact, we hadn’t been. So we decided that we would no longer […]