Dear 2024, Fourteen years ago, when I was in the middle of a five-month road trip driving around the country seeking shama (inner peace), I started an annual tradition of writing a letter to the new year. I’ve largely kept all my resolutions, and I like to think that they have helped me grow with […]
Dear Year 2023, I’m writing my twelfth annual open letter to the new year from isolation. Covid finally got me, and because Eric is healthy and we want him to remain that way for his January concert tour, I have barely left the bedroom since Monday. He was at the same holiday party as me 10 […]
How is it that we are living through an unthinkable period in world history? If presented with a screenplay that included everything we are experiencing, the former Hollywood executive in me would say that there is no way that all this tragedy—all at once—would be believable in a movie. We are living through it in […]
Dear 2022, Year 2021 was one big whoosh. One would think time would crawl when plodding wearily through the second year of a global pandemic. Yet despite being cloaked in disquiet about the ongoing Covid crisis, numerous climate disasters, and all the horrible things that go along with both, I have gratitude for much of […]
Dear 2021, You are a mystery. Well actually, every new year is a mystery—what will it bring? But you are a ginormous mystery with the state of the world being as it is. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for quite some time. But now that you are here, well, right off the bat […]
It’s December and we just completed a final harvest of our pandemic vegetable garden. December! Considering our first planting was in March, that’s one helluva long time in NJ to be eating veggies grown in one’s backyard. We grew rainbow carrots, a medley of radishes, pole beans, bush beans, snow peas, sugar snap peas, kale, […]
It’s a heated issue: why or why not to wear a mask in the age of Covid-19. But before I get into the mask debate, I’m hoping you will consider the interconnectedness of being, and to do that, I need to first talk about poop (which seems to be a recurrent theme in my recent […]
Dear 2020, This marks a decade of writing letters to the new year. The past ten years have been a time of dramatic change and transition as I’ve carved out a new way of life for myself. It’s largely been wonderful, but there have also been plenty of dark nights of the soul woven into […]
This blog post is half public service announcement, and half spiritual expose. It’s about poop and knocking on death’s door. And it’s ultimately about how we need to treasure every breath we take because we never know if it will be our last one. I recently spent a week in isolation in the hospital battling […]
Shama Sanctuary has been anything but a peaceful safe haven for woodland creatures this summer. When Eric and I returned home in early July after a few weeks of travel, we were excited to meet this year’s fawns. Lily gave birth on May 29th and Pearl and Sparkle likely did soon thereafter. Although initially as […]