Spotlight on Ibram X. Kendi’s work
Considering the events taking place around the country right now, I am using this time and space today to bring my readers’ attention to an article by Ibram X. Kendi, “The American Nightmare.” Kendi is the author of How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning. Here is a short excerpt from the article, …
Waving
Have you noticed that we’ve started waving to end video calls? As someone said to me yesterday, “I’d never wave when I left an in-person meeting; what is that about?” My guess is that it’s closely related to this post from last week, about rituals. When you’re meeting in person and the meeting ends, …
Endings, rituals, and intention
I’m thinking a lot this week about how we mark endings. My daughter graduated from high school last weekend, and I was blown away by the thoughtfulness her school put into this rite of passage. There were more than 200 students in her class, so there was no way to have anything approximating a …
The Slog
My daughter and I were talking this week about how hard it can be to start something you know will be difficult. Okay, we were talking about exercising. She said, “There are days when it’s fun, but often it’s just a slog. How do you make yourself do it when it’s just going to …
You know that person who monopolizes your Zoom call?
Most facilitators are familiar with this experience—you’re running a meeting, and one person keeps piping up. They have an opinion on everything, and once they take the floor, it’s tough to get them to give it up. When this happens in person, there are a few tricks you can use to rein the monologue …
The button.
I went with my son to see some of his friends and their parents for a socially-distanced picnic. We visited for a couple of hours, and then it was time to go. Normally we would have hugged and walked back to our cars, but instead we kind of stood awkwardly, trying to figure out what …
Just start.
A good friend and I have been saying this to each other lately—“just start.” There are a ton of quotable quotes with this idea at their core— The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. (Lao Tzu) The secret of getting ahead is getting started. (Twain) The way to get started …
When you’re talking to no one
I participated in an online cooking class last week. A chef was leading about 50 of us through cooking a meal (fish tacos and margaritas) that had many steps and a lot of chopping. I think the whole class was about 90 minutes. The chef is a woman who usually teaches in a big kitchen, …
Kind of
The phrase “kind of” or “sort of” has crept into the common lexicon. I know I say it, and I hear it frequently in conversation, presentations, even from radio and TV announcers. What does it mean? Literally, it’s a modifier. “It’s kind of green” tells you that the color is green, but not completely. …
The birds in the attic
This morning I went out to my garage to work out, and I discovered that two wrens were in the loft attic over the garage. There’s a short staircase from the garage to the attic through a large opening in the attic floor; I supposed that they had flown in and up. They were …
