The V-Word

“When it’s over, that’s the time I fall in love again…” -Sugar Ray

The more deeply I accompany my grief of late, the more resounding are my feelings of gratitude. When we allow ourselves to befriend loss and know it for the lifelong companion that it is. You would have to be a fool to not recognize how blessed you are – for all the many ways life is working right in this moment and, even more...

“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them….how much sorrow can I hold- that’s how much gratitude I can give.”  -Francis Weller

I have been crying a lot lately. Negotiating my new empty nest and learning how to live in the silence and space created by my kids’ departure has brought me to a new relationship with grief....

"The moment she had laid the child to the breast both became perfectly calm. " -Isak DinesenI never fully understood my breasts until a couple of days after the birth of my first baby. I was in the tub learning how to express milk, being coached by my friends who were reading aloud from the La Leche League handbook. Literally overnight, my breasts had filled to the size of ripe cantaloupes, the skin stretched tight and my breasts hard as rocks.

“Our two greatest challenges, are figuring out better treatments for the 40,000 women who die of breast cancer every year, and at same time, figure out who, on the other end of the spectrum, is getting exposed to needless toxicity.” -Dr. Eric Winer

 

The human breast is a beautiful adaptation, which is singular in the animal world. While other mammals only have enlarged breasts during nursing,...

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” –Proverbs 4:23

 

It would have been my friend Janice’s 60^thbirthday this month. She was a multi-talented artist, a compassionate friend, a devoted mother and a godmother to my first daughter. This year marks the second anniversary of her death, which began with breast cancer. As the pink ribbons fly this month, we all have...

“He brought up the fact he likes to rape little boys…He’s telling me how he likes to use a knife on them.”  -Cpl Travis Schouten

What happens when the core sexual attraction of men to women is so tainted with terror that it disappears? It’s practically science fiction to imagine living in a culture that has so effectively terrorized the natural desire for sexual union between men and women, one...

We get it. The work week is a busy time, full of meetings, reports to write, kids to pick up and dinners to make. Sometimes casual reading doesn’t exactly make it to the to-do list. So, in case you missed what’s going on around the world (online that is) check out our newest feature, Weekly Recommended Reads. Featuring the finest articles on love, sex, relationships and related topics, as well as...

“Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.”  -Carlos Fuentes

The most gratifying part of my work is when people, often whom I have never met, but have somehow been introduced to this weekly column, come greet me at a tradeshow booth with a hug and sometimes tears in their eyes. A guy today walked by several times before getting up the courage to come and speak to me. One of...

We get it. The work week is a busy time, full of meetings, reports to write, kids to pick up and dinners to make. Sometimes casual reading doesn’t exactly make it to the to-do list. So, in case you missed what’s going on around the world (online that is) check out our newest feature, Weekly Recommended Reads. Featuring the finest articles on love, sex, relationships and related topics, as well as...