My kids and I recently spent a few days at my sister’s house and my parents’ house. We visited in order to see my nephew Jonah in a middle school play and to help my parents move into their new home. The play was adorable, Jonah was adorable and watching his siblings and cousins support him was adorable. It was good vibes overload. We all made a huge deal of Jonah and I know he felt the love.

I had my colonoscopy last week and of course had to do the icky prep that so many of us have had to do (isn’t getting older fun?). I had to drink that disgusting drink and a ridiculous amount of water within an hour. I decided the best way to do this would be to watch an episode of Hacks (HBO Max) while drinking the prep drink. I figured this way I would be a little distracted and watching comedy would likely to make the whole process a little less painful. It’s hard to believe I could laugh while doing colonoscopy prep–but I did.

My 23 year old daughter Gabrielle was in the recovery room after ankle surgery as a result of a falling and breaking her ankle a few days earlier. She had not eaten for many hours prior to the surgery so when the nurse brought her bags of chips and cookies, Gabrielle announced with a big smile “this is the best day ever!” This is not what you would expect to hear after surgery.

This past weekend we celebrated my mom’s 80th birthday. During the chaos of a family vacation, I was able to spend a little quiet time with my dad hanging out by the pool. He told me a heartwarming story about my great grandmother, Mom Mom Miller. When I think of my great grandmother, I think immediately about her green thumb. Friends and neighbors would bring her their struggling plants and she would magically bring them back to life. But it turns out what I don’t remember is that she was also an incredible baker

I participate in a writing class several times a year. In the class, my teacher, Anna Guest-Jelley, selects poems as jumping off points for our “wild writing”. Wild writing involves writing for 10 minutes straight without worrying about our handwriting, grammar or that it even makes sense. We are accessing our subconscious and bringing it into awareness through the act of writing. During one of the classes, Anna read a poem about small kindnesses.

For our 25th anniversary, my husband and I rented a beach house for three weeks. Every day, for three weeks, there was a threat of rain. The weather report consistently predicted rain every. single. day. And over the three weeks it actually rained only a handful of times. Never once did the rain actually get in the way of our plans. But the possibility of rain was always there.. threatening to ruin our fun.

One of my primary jobs as a coach is helping my clients have conversations. Together, we brainstorm who to meet with, how to reach out to them, what to focus on during the conversation and how to maintain the connection. Clients come to me having sent out a million resumes to no avail, or are stuck with their next step in life or are having a hard time managing it all. I almost always prescribe conversations as part of our plan.

There have been times throughout my life where my expectations around what would be a safe space did not match the reality. There were times where I expected a safe space was not in fact that safe for me and, conversely, places where I wasn’t sure I would feel belonging and I actually did. I have found I am not always a good predictor of where I will feel most welcome and included and I need to pay attention to how I feel in the situation before deciding.

I met my friend for lunch in NYC last week. I took the train in to Penn Station and then took the subway to 72nd street. My friend and I had a wonderful lunch and then I met my daughter for a quick cup of tea before heading back. I took a subway I am not that familiar with to Penn Station. When I got out of the subway, I was all turned around and ended up heading East instead of West (I never should trust my first instincts when it comes to directions). I was already running a little behind schedule and when I saw that I was heading to Fifth Ave instead of Seventh Ave, I was pretty sure I was going to miss the train. I kept going at a fast pace just in case. When I arrived at Penn Station I was “on time” but the train was already off the departures board. I missed the train. I felt angry and sad and frustrated and hopeless. I know this sounds dramatic, but it’s the truth.

There is a beautiful scene in the final episode of The Crown (*spoiler alert*) where Queen Elizabeth is contemplating resigning from the crown so that her son Prince Charles can take over. She appears to be handling this enormous decision on her own. Her husband keeps checking in to see if she wants to talk about it, but she says she is fine. There is much speculation in the country and those closest to her wondering what she will choose. She has consulted no one. Then, we as the audience, are invited into her secret world where she is contemplating her decision. Younger versions of her (played by the actresses who played the younger versions of her in the show) visit her. They remind her of her true calling; that she was meant to be the queen until the end. One of her younger selves reminds her of something Queen Mary had said. It turns out for this particular issue the answer was within her.

My daughter Gabrielle and I decided to take the dog for a walk before she travelled back to her apartment in NYC. We had just returned from a week-long family vacation in Florida. During our walk, I started making conversation (as one does) and she responded, “is it ok if I just daydream in my head now?” It reminded me of something she might have said when she was a little girl when she wanted alone time to just play with dolls or make up a story.

We are coming upon the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and we can feel the optimism of what is to come. Each day will begin getting longer. It is a small incremental change—each day adding a few seconds and then compounding to a few minutes until we reach the longest day of the year in June. These tiny changes add up and make a noticeable change, with sunlight lasting longer each day.

While taking a long drive with my sister, Danielle, we listened to Howard Stern interview Dolly Parton. In the interview, Dolly tells the story of how she heard Whitney Houston’s version of her song “I Will Always Love You” for the first time ever while driving in her Cadillac. When she heard the song, she was so overcome by Whitney’s voice and interpretation of the song that she had to pull off the road to listen to it. 

The other day I listened to the podcast “We Can Do Hard Things” where Glennon Doyle and Abby Wombach interview Priya Parker, the author of the Art of Gathering. If you have read my blogs and newsletters, you know that I am huge Priya fan. She is an expert on how to create more meaningful gatherings. In this podcast episode she talks about how we must focus on the math and the poetry when planning a meaningful gathering. We should ask ourselves, why am I bringing these people together? And then we need to break down the structure to support that objective. “What is the infrastructure? What’s the coordinating mechanism? What’s the math and the poetry to coordinate this community to have something that they haven’t had before.”

Anger is an emotion I am not very comfortable with. In fact, I usually try to suppress it. I dislike conflict, debate, fighting, trying to convince others to see the world the way I do. But if I am being really honest, I am feeling an intense amount of anger right now.

I recently joined a writing group. Once a week we meet virtually for an hour and a half. Our amazing teacher, Anna Guest-Jelley, selects three poems as jumping off points. After she reads a poem, we free write for eight minutes using the poem as inspiration. Then we read what we wrote out loud to the group. There is no discussion about our writing, no critique, no questions and no apologies that our work “isn’t that good”. At the start of class, our wise teacher reminds us “we are not trying to impress anyone, not even ourselves”.

I am realizing that my anxiety is here to stay. I am not going to outgrow it anytime soon. But all is not lost. There are ways I can live with my anxiety in a way that is supportive and loving.

For me my anxiety is often visceral and embodied. When I feel anxious, it’s not easy to talk myself out of it. My anxiety can be situational (e.g. getting medical test results), it can be seasonal (rainy, stormy days flare up my anxiety), it can be hormonal, (which is really *fun* in perimenopause when hormonal shifts are less predictable).

I like to think of myself as a balabusta in training. A balabusta is the yiddish word for someone who is a good homemaker. Something I would never remotely claim to be. For now, I am translating this term in the realm of the kitchen–someone who is good at feeding their family (baby steps).  I’ve always wanted to be the type of person that could cook anything at the drop of a hat. For several years I watched Ina Garten, aka The Barefoot Contessa, on the cooking channel religiously. I loved her beautiful kitchen, relaxed approach to cooking and desire to feed her Hamptons neighbors constantly.

For several years now, when I write a text, my keyboard on my phone will switch midway through from letters to numbers. For instance, instead of the word “At” it will say “A5”. It was really quite infuriating and made sending texts or emails from my phone much less efficient.

I assumed there was something wrong with the phone. On multiple occasions I called the help desk or went physically into the Genius Bar. But nothing worked. The problem even continued after I upgraded my phone last year. Once again, I called for help and nothing they suggested worked.

When working with clients, I often run up against a situation where they question a decision they made in the past that they believe negatively affected where they are now. This thinking is not only impractical (we cannot change the past) it is usually not the whole story. There is never just one decision that got you where you are right now first of all. Second of all, decisions we made in the past seem much less complicated in hindsight