Over the years, we’ve come to to view illness as a path that can, if we are lucky or open to it, provide a lot of illumination and healing. When we mentioned this to our remarkable physical therapist Rachel Miller Williams she nodded and offered this surprising view.
Read MoreWith Poetry as Balm for Dire Straits, We Are Taking Time Off (Mary Oliver, Su Tung p’o)
This week, my dearest friend will have open-heart surgery, a territory whose outcomes and demands defy prediction. So I will be taking time off from writing Improvised Life. But I will be carrying its lessons with me as I navigate waiting, hospital, ICU…
Read MoreProductivity Principle: Doing Nothing Can Help Get Things Done
My big lesson in productivity, learned the hard way, flies in the face of the accepted wisdom.
Read MoreHow Cures And Answers Arise (Thomas Ashcraft)
Whenever we hit a period of illness or depletion, we think of this artwork our friend Thomas Ashcraft made many years ago, with its powerfully healing reminder.
Read MoreHow to Have Patience (Mira Keras)
Last summer I fought long and hard for a new prosthetic leg after a surgery drastically changed the shape of my residual limb. Getting a new prosthetic required dozens of hours of phone calls and pleading with insurance company phone reps. I was waiting in doctor’s offices and waiting on hold with my insurance company…and all this came while I was really waiting to heal. This extended lesson in patience actually helped me to be more patient with others.
Read MoreWhen Normal Equals Perfect
Our readers know Sally has been occupied lately with the serious illness of a close friend – namely, myself. Now recuperating, we’ve realized something about perfection: it does not mean being super-human or doing everything exactly right. It simply means means being normal. This revelation was amplified by our friend Thomas Ashcraft, a remarkable artist/science.
Read MoreEmergency Medicine: Love, in It’s Many Forms, Heals
This past week, after we accompanied a dear friend through a dire emergency in the hospital, we witnessed the many ways that friends and strangers “lent a hand” with what seemed like an overwhelming amount to handle. Neighbors put groceries in our fridge, friends brought dinner to the hospital, some, like Maria Robledo, sent us images that…
Read MoreEmbracing our Mortality to LIVE MAKE GROW
In a recent New York Times, 36-year-old Paul Kalanithi wrote How Long Have I Got Left about his diagnosis of terminal cancer, and coming to terms with his doctor’s inability to tell him how much time he had left. Kalanithi eloquently addresses how he learned to live aware of but NOT knowing, with the gravest of uncertainties, as did Stephan Girard.
Read MoreAn Improvised Goodbye to Gilda, from Bill Murray and Friends
How do you say goodbye when you know you might not see someone again? Bill Murray tells the tell of an unexpectedly improvised, completely perfect goodbye to his friend Gilda Radner: Gilda got married and went away. None of us saw her anymore. There was one good thing: Laraine had a party one night, a…
Read Morefern berman: “turn loss into something else”
Finding her capacity to walk diminishing due to MS, artist Fern Berman’s practice became to “turn loss into something else…and generating creativity”. With each photograph she wants to make, she must ask: How can I make that happen?
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