joy

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Point of View: Ruminating on Joy

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joy - deposit photos

I’ve been ruminating (we writers don’t just think about things… we go the extra mile and ruminate) on joy. It’s no exaggeration to say that the last eight years have been a dumpster fire. Slogging through four years of an administration diametrically opposed to me and Mark and everything we believe in, followed by a pandemic from hell and years of inflation… it’s been hard to feel anything other than rank despair. This long interregnum has been punctuated by brief windows of hope – when our new President entered the Oval Office, when a vaccine let us creep outside of … Read more

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Point of View: Bring me Something Good

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In the last ten years, life has rained down a crap-ton of shit on our lives. Politics, Covid-19, income inequality, rising prices, and the endless drumbeat of climate change doom. I’m a naturally optimistic person. Sure, life sometimes gets me down, but usually I bounce back up like an inflatable ball plunged underwater in the pool, shooting toward the sky with unlikely exuberance. But lately, even I have a hard time finding my buoyancy. So when that happens, I find it helpful to seek out happy things, hopeful things, joyous things to regain my balance. I’ll share three of my … Read more

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Point of View: Holidays Past

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Grandma and Granpa Coatsworth's House

The holidays are almost upon us. These days, they are so much different than they were when I was younger. I was a child and grandchuild of divorce, which did have some benefits. At one point, I had – and I counted them – 10 grandparents, and one year I had five different Christmas celebrations, with all the attendant presents. I cleaned up that year. The main event, though, was always at my grandparents’ house – my dad‘s parents. Grandpa John was a minister in the Disciples of Christ church. He was a good man – a bit closed off … Read more