Here’s an experiment: Reach up as high as you can. Breathe deeply for a moment or two and feel the stretch along your ribs and down your back. Then stretch your arms to the side, spreading your fingers wide, feeling the space that creates in your shoulders. Breathe from your belly if you can. Reach […]
Snow Day
Today, Portland woke up to a thick coating of ice covering every surface. This is maybe the third or fourth ice storm we’ve had this winter. They’ve impacted school schedules and air traffic and commerce, but, as someone who works from home, they haven’t really impacted me. Until today. For the first time in years, I’m […]
Worth Pondering
On a rainy Sunday afternoon, I’m pondering two things. Two insights that are challenging me to reframe some very old, entrenched thinking. “When we focus on our shortcomings without taking the bigger human picture into account, our perspective tends to narrow. We become absorbed by our own feelings of insufficiency and insecurity. When we’re in the […]
30,000 Feet
This morning, on a flight to Chicago, two thoughts occurred to me. One: it’s almost the summer solstice. Two: I’ve been in Portland almost a year. We headed directly east from the airport, shooting above and beyond the clouds. Below us, the Columbia River stretched wide and impossibly blue-green. I could see countless waterfalls pouring […]
Routine
At the end of a long journey, I often experience a longing sensation. It’s a specific and peculiar feeling: not an eagerness to go home as much as an eagerness to return to a routine. The feeling always surprises me, because I have an uneasy relationship with routines, habits and planning. We all are entrenched in […]