The V-Word

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

-Mary Oliver

I am learning hour by hour what sustainable love means these days. It begins with me- in me actually. My lip service to the overwhelming level of activities and demands that drive my lifestyle is just not good enough. It isn’t possible to just keep saying how tired you are if you keep going at the same pace. The same is true with your partner. You can’t say how much you wish you had more time for...

“I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” -Vincent Van Gogh

I found this quote recently and have been hanging onto it, almost like fingers clutching a ledge, as the onslaught of stories and information pours on about the demise of our current state of relationships. Last week’s coverage of the historic turn of events where more...

Lying on my back staring up at the ceiling over the last several days has given me an opportunity to reflect. Enforced stillness will do that to even the most stubborn among us. Refusing all opportunities to create quiet in the hectic pace that I call my life, finally my body gave it to me- no questions asked.

A friend of mine suggested that I put my hand on my back and ask what it was trying to...

Our physical pain gives voice to all that we refuse to hear and say. On a recent visit with my mother, our emotional truce was based on an agreement to not say our real feelings or expect to be heard or understood. Before her arrival, I was convinced that I was over my need for anything from her. A couple of days into the visit, I slipped on icy stairs and fell squarely on my butt...

A recent article (December 31st) in the New York Times titled “The Graying of Naughty” chronicles the entry of several older women, i.e. 40-50, into the pornography business. Yes, even the porn industry is responding to the aging baby boomer population, offering all kinds of stories that include older women and younger men, apparently an easily marketable niche.

The upside of the story is that...

Here is a good book for any of us who wonder what it would take to improve your relationship. The actual title is “The Sex Starved Marriage” by Michele Weiner Davis, but the content applies to any intimate relationship. I was particularly struck by the section of the book on real giving.

The premise of giving in a relationship is that when you do it, it can’t be based on what you would want or...

“Love is always revolutionary…It is the only thing worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.”

This week my extended family has joined our yearly winter getaway. We are not known for reunions, my own immediate family accustomed to just our own company. Being in the middle of the crazy family stories that I moved far away to avoid now, years later, makes me realize that really all they are is stories. It was particularly poignant to have the whole group of us, three generations, watching...