Enneagram: Earthquakes and Hurricanes
How do people respond to crises? What brings out the best and the worst in people? Who stays calm? Who barks commands? Who screams and panics? Recently, a friend of mine told me a story about a workshop where attendees were grouped by Enneagram and given this...
What if Dallas?
Last night, I had a "what if" dream. What if I had accepted that much-coveted job offer ten years ago? What if I had stayed in Dallas? What if I had ignored the Voices telling me that this was not home? Last night’s dream was a partial answer. There I was, walking...
Enneagram: Eight wings to Seven, a happy place for One
When first arriving at Vanaprastha, we routinely take inventory: trees still standing guard, new vegetation growing? What's in the refrigerator, what did we bring, and what do we need? I'm a relatively good day-to-day maintenance person, but can honestly say that I...
Settlement in Main Street, USA
We waited in what was once a formal living room located to the right of the entrance hall in an old Victorian house on Main Street. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases with stern-looking volumes now defined the space, the law firm's library. Sitting opposite one another, my...
My First Dog Part 2: Heathcliff
For years, I was a cat lady, but that changed when I married a man with cat allergies and we adopted My First Dog. No fluffy, cat-sized critter for me, I chose the biggest guy at the shelter, a sweet-tempered 8-month old black lab mix, 75 pounds, all tongue and...
First Dogs Part 1: The Death of Beauty
When I was ten, Beauty died. “It’s time,” my parents told us three girls. Mother shuttled my younger sister Leslie and my older sister Jane into the old purple Studebaker and drove off leaving my father and me to take care of Jane's first dog. Looking like a bald...