The Meaning of Life and Other Minor Details: Practicing Mindfulness After Fifty

Last night after our traditional family Christmas drama, daddy referred to something I had mentioned in passing--that I see a therapist. The second he asked about it, I regretted it. Actually, I thought he knew; my mom has known for months, so I assumed they had talked. No. So, he asked me about it. He asked me why I'm going to a therapist. "What are you going for ?" he asked. Two things here: If I knew why I was going to therapy, I wouldn't need to go. And also, it's none of his business why. I thought everybody in the world knew to have enough tact not to aske this question. It is right up there with age and weight. But my daddy does not mind asking questions. So, despite spending the previous hour processing Xmas drama by using tools from the past year's work, I knew I might as well give him some sort of reasonable sounding answer. He asked me specifically if it was for anger, which gives me pause because I don't put that reason high on the list despite

Littleville, Alabama, doesn't have a Starbucks. In fact, from the time I leave my apartment, conveniently located behind my local Starbucks, until I arrive at my parents' house, I don't even pass one. That's 250 miles with no Starbucks. That must be the longest stretch in the country without one. That got me thinking. It's a long way from Starbucks in more ways than one. My daddy told me once--and I agreed with him--that it took me a few days of being home to get back to my old self. I started thinking about what my old self vs. my new self must look like. He meant it takes me that long to relax, to let go of "city life" and the stresses it brings. I think it is something different. I think it takes me a few days to become accustomed to people again. I don't often appear that way to causual observers and acquaintances, but I am a solitary person. I myself didn't even know I am an introvert for a long time. I was grown when I found out. It's qu

As happy as I was puttering around my new place, it's two days before Christmas, so I had to pack up the car and go to Alabama. Being directionally impaired to the point of anxiety and not being a fan of interstate highways, I set the TomTom to find me a new backroads shortcut. Took me 6 years to learn the shortcut from my old place--that's how bad I am. But TomTom--for whom my motto is TomTom: We Get You Close --kept planning routes that involved I-75, one of Georgia's busiest and most crowded interstates. Barely out of my apartment complex's entrance, I pulled over and searched Google Maps on my phone. The shortest route, as I knew in my heart, was a path through the lakes and mountains of my home state. So, I proceed through unchartered (for me) territory, manually scrolling through directions on my phone and leaving TomTom on to catch up. This he did after two hours of replanning the route every half mile. "Turn around when possible. Turn around when possible.

I was in a PowerPoint frenzy at Starbucks. Outside, the storm was raging, and not unexpectedly, the store began to fill. Now, if you stay any place long enough, you see many people come and go. I think of that stop-action photography in the movies. For hours there was a quiet lull, then when I had finally gotten into the work, a young child, a girl around 5 years old, asked the man working beside me in the long half-booth if she could have his chair. He said sure, and she dragged it across the floor. Then she came to me and asked me if she could have my chair. I said sure, and off she went. It was then I began looking to see who was going to sit in all these chairs. Two families were gathering to have a mini-Christmas get-together at Starbucks. Three kids were decked out in Christmas outfits--two girls with iridescent dresses and gold shoes and a boy with a christmas vest. The adults were also dressed more for a party than a rainy evening at a coffee shop. I thought it was odd.  As soo

Don't think I'm romanticizing SBX. Plenty has already been written about why people come here. Most of us have perfectly good living room chairs or desks where we could work. But still we come. We come alone and with people. There is something simple and anonymous and inviting about a coffee shop. If I come here i have something to do: chat, visit, eat a cup of oatmeal, or like today: design a PowerPoint for a course I'm about to teach. If I'm at home, I will spring from the recliner to do anything to keep from working on a task. And that includes cleaning out sock drawers or toilets. Or just looking up and becoming entranced at the television; something profound, like Tabitha's Salon Takeover. And in the event there is a marathon, I'm done for the day. Of course, creating a blog about the ordinary is definitely not the same as designing a PowerPoint. But, in the world of an academic, nothing is not related... On Saturday the cable guy came to hook up my digi