The Resolute Woman

Author: resolutewoman

  • Good work doesn’t come easy

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    “I hate to write,” Anna Quindlen told the audience at a recent Arts & Letters Live appearance in Dallas. “That’s what I always tell students first. They think that, if you’re good at something, it comes to you easy.” Good work doesn’t come easy, stressed Quindlen, the author of seven bestselling novels, four nonfiction titles…

  • Spring brings hope

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    resolutewoman
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    My daughter, Ranna, who battled breast cancer for three years and conquered it, has another battle to fight. On April 7, doctors will insert two or three stents in her heart. Because I am very concerned about her and I am feeling very stressful, I am spending more time outside in my yard. I am…

  • Do what you love?

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    “Do what you love, love what you do” has become the unofficial work mantra for our time, writes Esther Cepeda in the January 27, 2014, issue of The Dallas Morning News. But there are problems with this love-and-passion philosophy, Cepeda says. “It substitutes easy, positive emotions for the physical acts of courage, determination, discipline and…

  • The ledger of daily work

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    How do we define success? Am I successful if perform an act of courage? If I climb to the top of my profession? If I have collected things that money can buy? Beryl Markham, in her autobiography West with the Night, has another definition. I like it even though I’ve edited her words, written decades…

  • Contemplative at the eye of chaos

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    Sister Joan Chittister, author of many books and a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, talks about “being contemplative at the eye of chaos.” Contemplative in the midst of chaos? We like that image. It’s easy to be contemplative when you’re outside in a quiet garden or alone listening to music. But, to…

  • Sing your song

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    It was big news. In Canterbury, England, in the Canterbury Cathedral, where boys’ choirs have sung for more than 1,000 years, a choir of 16 girls was singing for the first time, The Dallas Morning News reported in its January 24, 2014, issue. A female choir “Is a natural development” that adds “diversity and richness”…

  • Applause for Lupita Nyong’o

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    Lupita Nyong’o was beautiful and black when she accepted an Oscar award recently for best supporting actress in “12 Years a Slave.” In her pale blue Prada gown, she was stunning—even though she did not fit into the long-blonde-hair-blue-eyes-anorexic-with-large-breasts stereotype that long has been glorified as the ideal in our culture. “When a woman with…

  • How to get ahead

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    “The secret to getting ahead is getting started,” Mark Twain once said. I discovered that quote recently at a Weight Watcher’s meeting. And, when I looked it up online, I found another great quote from Twain. “The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.” –Joy

  • A second chance

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    Today we’re living long lives—long enough to give most of us a second chance, explained Anna Quindlen, author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs, during a recent visit to Dallas. In her new book, Quindlen gives Rebecca, the main character, a second chance at success in her career and in love. As the book jacket…

  • Yesterday

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    For Bela, who was four years old, yesterday “was a receptacle for anything her mind stored,” writes Jhumpa Lahiri in her book The Lowland. It contained “any experience or impression that had come before. Her memory was brief, its contents limited. Lacking chronology, randomly rearranged.” Even though it had been many months since her hair…