fits & starts

Dan Harris has a new meditation app and it’s great. After a falling out with his partners on the original Ten% Happier app, the details of which I care not, he’s taken some time to pause and pivot to a great podcast and now, a new app called Ten% with Dan Harris . It’s pretty good I must say. One of the few American purchases I’m making regularly these days. (Sorry America.) The app offers guided meditations, led by different monthly teachers, which are largely quite awesome.

France beckons to me to come and visit. While I have no plans yet, I’d love to return to northern France, to visit Canadian battlefields and graveyards; small French villages and the rolling countryside; cute bistros and cafés; and rekindle the joy of ambling through, taking it all in. And so, I’m studying French again. But from a different angle this time. I’ve subscribed to a teacher on Substack, Learn French with Maud , and she presents the language using life itself. She

Last year’s word of the year for me was “grace” and frankly, it was a bust. I chose it as my word of the year because I struggle with it. I can’t define it in my daily life; I sometimes know it when I see it but I often can’t conjure it up for others, or me, when I know I need to offer it up. It’s like clay spinning on the potters’ wheel that just won’t take form. As a word of the year, it didn’t work out. And… that’s ok. Sometimes it’s the struggle that is meaningful, not t

Memory works in funny ways. Sometimes, it sends messengers to remind me to pay attention. This December, memory sent me bunnies. Bunnies are everywhere for me lately. A Christmas card set I bought featuring woodland creatures has a bunny included in the five designs in the box. Some stamps I purchased, for international cards, feature a stylized bunny. In a nice blue sweater, with a red-fringed scarf. Very stylish, this bunny is. Twice in real life I’ve almost run one down –

Or, why we remember It has been my experience that northern France in late October doesn’t have the best weather. Like Canada in the fall, days are short, cool and often rainy. Perfect weather for a battlefield walkabout. My Dad, husband and I visited the Vimy Memorial, just north of Arras, France, on an atmospheric day: rainy, cold and muddy, with the fog and mist regularly replacing each other in prominence. A perfect day for remembering the horrors of this war on this part

There’s a bite in the still hot but clearly changing air as I head out to the hot tub for my regular mediation routine. We’ve been away...

I mean really, how do we define it? Mr. Google calls joy “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” But to me, that feels somehow,...

I’ve voiced this blog post in case you’d like to listen. I heard on CBC Radio news today that psychologists are finding more and more...

I’ve voiced this blog post  in case you’d like to listen. I talk a good game about how to stay balanced: Regularly be in nature and let...

Now, I know what you’re thinking. I was thinking it too … what could Tom Selleck’s memoir have to offer as a resource for a personal...

Tears formed as I swept up the crumbs from under the dining room table, left from last night’s family dinner. Emotions are a fickle...

At middle age, it’s a good idea to spread your wings, to stretch yourself and remember who you can be when you’re not confined in the...