The Resolute Woman

Category: families

  • Pure good or pure bad?

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    resolutewoman
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    I just finished reading all 771 pages of Donna Tartt’s book The Goldfinch, and I’ve been thinking about something Boris said: “Maybe this is one instance where you can’t boil down to pure ‘good’ or pure ‘bad’ like you always want to do. Like, your two different piles? Bad over there, good over here? Maybe…

  • Don’t take it personally

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    resolutewoman
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    When I was confiding to my sister-in-law Jeany about something a friend did that hurt my feelings, she reminded me of something very important. “Don’t take things personally,” she said. And, then, Jeany told me about an interesting book she re-reads periodically. It’s the The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. “Personal importance, or taking…

  • The best part of a wonderful weekend

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    resolutewoman
    in

    I just spent a wonderful weekend in New Mexico with my brother James and his wife Jeany. We visited the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History and saw an exhibit of art displayed in Spanish American homes from 1492 to 1898. Then, we strolled in Old Town and discovered three gray-haired Native Americans, with magnificent…

  • 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…

  • Yesterday

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    resolutewoman
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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…

  • The big pile on my desk

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    resolutewoman
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    My brother James and his new wife, Jeany, came to visit. Although James and Jeany have been married almost exactly one year, this was the first time Jeany has visited our house. So, I had decided to impress her with my cooking and my clean house. I decided immediately what to cook. I baked my…

  • September—Osage County

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    resolutewoman
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    When I heard the woman crying in the bathroom stall next to me, I remembered what I had read in one review of “August—Osage County.” The reviewer said the movie could be funny, but it might not be humorous at all to people who grew up in dysfunctional families. A few minutes later, as I…

  • The first act of love

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    resolutewoman
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    I just took the time to read the introduction to Cheryl Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things—Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. In the introduction, Steve Almond says, “I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness.” Almond praises Strayed’s online advice column because “she understands that attention is the first and final…

  • So many amazing things

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    resolutewoman
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    I just read Wild by Cheryl Strayed again before my book club discussed the book. I was impressed by Strayed’s tenacity. Even though her boots were too small and her backpack was too heavy and the snow was too slippery, she kept hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. On her journey, she remembered her mother’s death…

  • Pay attention

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    resolutewoman
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    Linda Stone coined the term continuous partial attention to describe “the modern predicament of being constantly attuned to everything without fully concentrating on anything,” says James Fallows in an article called “The Art of Paying Attention” in the June 2013 issue of The Atlantic. In the article, Stone describes how play can help both children…