cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
A week after graduating from college, I sat in the waiting room listening to classical music drowning out all other noises. I was extremely anxious and did not know what to expect. My stomach was in knots. When the door opened, a tall, professor-like man walked out and greeted me. He introduced himself, “Hi, I am…
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Her eyes feel heavy as she comes into consciousness. She rolls her head a bit and feels the soft, silk pillow against her cheek. Her mind tries to locate where she is, but all she can muster is the thought, “What a long sleep this has been.” Little does she know that she hasn’t been sleeping for…
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I remember the room well. It was somewhat outdated with older speckled carpet and ten to twelve cushioned metal chairs lined up along the exterior of the space. A padded divider separated the area from a little kitchenette. The receptionist’s desk was visible through the narrow opening in the wall on the far side. It…
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Weeks before the collective pandemic upheaval in March 2020, I found myself stepping off the Seattle-to-Bainbridge Island ferry. I am carrying a backpack chock-full of books. Some of the books are mine; others are not. Books are friends, holding words I want to remember. Piles of them are stacked in both my home and therapy…
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“Where do your boys think you are right now?” my counselor asks. I am surprised by her question, which seems out of left field. “I told them I had an appointment,” I reply. It’s vague, I’ll admit, but it’s not a lie. “What would happen if you told them the truth?” she asks, interrupting the…
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The computer keyboard looked alive, warped and waving as my eyes roamed over the keys. They were everywhere. Ants crawling in and out of the space between the letters and numbers, piling over each other to get to…Where were they going? Wait, where were they coming from? I searched frantically around the desk, my heart…
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You know you have an internal critic when your therapist tells you that you have an “Integrated Self” and a “Critical Self.”
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Truth in love. I wait for you Not very patient Confused, battered, Ramming my way along.
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I want to hold her in my hands and look at her face. My eyes scroll over the pictures that haven’t moved from the self-adhesive plastic covered pages for years. I am looking for her. As I turn the page, I take her in and notice a tightening in my stomach. “She’s a pistol,” I…
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Sometimes, it seems like a dream – a bad dream, catalogued in three years of notes in my therapist’s office – but a dream nonetheless. Other times I wake up, my brain dull and fuzzy.
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