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It’s really silly. But it’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. While we grew up, Mom was pretty strict about how much time my brothers, my sister, and I spent watching TV or playing video games or the like. So, like all things limited, when you get a chance to indulge, you want [...]
I have made myself way too busy in the last month, and have neglected more important things. My need to check in with the VTH finally overcame the intertia of administrative stuff and has led me to write about a book I just finished. I realize this isn’t necessarily the venue for book reviews, but [...]
Look at your hands. They may hold nothing. Yet they hold the planing of wood, and the picking up of a stone To skip three times across the river And the holding of another hand, dry and cracked, but comfortable Across a divide. They certainly have no issue with pulling the husks off of the [...]
At age three and a half to four and a half Regardless of what the weather appears like to me Everyday he wakes up Patters into my room if he’s not already sleeping with me and says, ‘Grandma Beth! Grandma Beth! It’s a sunny day outside! Let’s go play!’ Edan waking up next to me, [...]
Trust Women Blog for Choice Day 2010. I’m a day late (January 22nd is THE day…) but I wanted to join my voice to this important dialogue, birthed by the 37th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. I started my career in Planned Parenthood in the early 1980’s, after a horrendous abortion experience from [...]
I’ve learned that karma comes around more quickly the more open I am to learning life lessons. I’ve learned that sleeping outside around my firepit can push my reset button from just about any disturbance in my peace of mind. I’m learning that working away at a craft like watercolor teaches me things that [...]
I am living your dream. At least the one we talk about at parties I’m an architect You’ve always wanted to be one I’m a drummer You’ve always wanted to be one I’m single You’ve often thought that there were some benefits to that (don’t tell Roger, the one over at the grille flipping hot [...]
tonight i drove back from chicago eating two tangerines in the dark spitting seeds into the palm of my hand returned to laundry the cat demanding her due attention clean dishes stacked on the counter like mayan temples and a new space and perhaps you’re already here ahead of me. thanks, beth patterson for inviting [...]
Like molecules in a heating beaker Like stars moving centripetally A glimpse of the patterns of their journeys Might chink into the solidified fluid mystery of our own. Nothing is random Only poorly comprehended. Reflection at the Japanese Gardens, Portland, Oregon, June 2009. Taken with my T-Mobile cell phone! Thanks to intense but usually elegant [...]
This past week, many of us have had sleepless nights over the horrors in Haiti. This poem by Gary Snyder has arisen in my mind as I’ve considered personal and communal responses. For the past 15 years, I have lived my life to the rhythm of this poem; do my spiritual tune-ups to the calibration [...]