Reboot, Rejuvenate, Resurrect

POP QUIZ Love is never theoretical; love is a practice, and life has a way of giving pop quizzes that reveal how faithfully I am practicing it. I am a work in progress. I know this to be true, but occasionally I unconsciously begin to think that I have arrived. Arrived where? I don’t know, but I slip into a mindset of satisfaction with self. Experience is the best teacher, and it has taught me that this mindset requires self-assessment. Sometimes, however, self-examination

Lessons from Pothos I believe much of what we need to know about sustaining healthy relationships can be gleaned from the intentional observation of nature. You are not required to subscribe to my belief, but I invite you to consider what a thriving plant can teach us about restoration, renewal, and growth. The Gift of a Cutting My Sistah-friend in Florida cares for a magnificent pot of pothos. It is the centerpiece of her lanai—her screened porch, for those of us who live ou

Watching the Battle Against Rest My family of three was asked to watch the two girls from next door—two energetic, somewhat demanding children. Their father left promising he would return and insisting they would not need to spend the night. Still, he brought their pajamas just in case. After a full evening of activities, dinner, and snacks, the girls were finally dressed for bed. The younger one quickly gave in to sleep and drifted off in my son’s lap. Her older sister, howe

THE HONEY MAN Four children under twelve and I piled into EarthMother—my blue car—to visit The Honey Man. We needed honey for our daily coffee, and for health reasons we prefer it locally made and harvested. I also like taking the kids on outings their parents might not think about doing. During the pandemic, we discovered we could buy honey just steps from the hives where bees do their work. Honey does not appear by accident. Making honey is dangerous and time-consuming

BOOTS ON THE GROUND As our plane lifted from Minneapolis, I was unusually awake for takeoff. I turned to my companion, a frequent visitor to the state and repository of much trivia, and asked, “Isn’t Minnesota the land of 10,000 lakes?” He smiled and said it was closer to 13,000. In fact, Minnesota has 11,842 lakes of ten acres or more. Looking out the window, I understood why the slogan fits. From above, the land seemed covered with scattered patches of water of various si

SHOULD I OR SHOULD’NT I? I was walking on the sidewalk in a neighborhood that I didn’t know existed in my city when I read a sign posted on a utility pole. “DANGER DO NOT CLIMB.” I thought, “Dah, why would anyone want to try?” The following morning, I read words penned by my new favorite author/poet, Mark Nepo… “living over hiding, being over thinking, participating over observing, thriving over surviving,” and the danger sign flashed in my head. Follow along as I attempt to

TIME 5:05 AM – a tiny sliver of a matchstick embeds itself in the pad of my right thumb. I am a bit of a pragmatist; I had two choices for quick removal; use the nails of the left hand to remove it or find tweezers to pluck it out. My fingernails were right there. At 5:10, I concluded that I had chosen incorrectly. As I stood to look for tweezers, I spied a small safety pin lying on the end table. “This should do the job” I thought. 5:17 – I had successfully extracted nothing

SNEAKERS AND SCARVES The father asked, “Son, how many pairs of sneakers do you own?” The son answered with a number that was more than he could wear in a month if he wore a different pair every day. The father turned to his friend, “And how many pairs do you own?” The friend answered with a number that far exceeded the son’s. The combined pairs of sneakers could easily stock a small footwear store. Not to sound judgmental - the question that begged an answer: is this a case

IGNORANCE As I mulled over the word ignorance, I came to a place of thinking; what is the opposite of the word? Sometimes when thoughts like this come to mind, I stop and examine my definition… in this case -ignorance. Is it a lack of knowledge, education? Or the lack of understanding something specific? Is it these and more? I dug a little deeper and discovered that ignorance can be categorized – simply not knowing, willfully ignoring information to remain uninformed, ration