lux et amor

Each winter, for no real reason I can pinpoint, I get out a puzzle and start it on our enormous dining room table. It turns into a massive group project, with pretty much everyone who sets foot in our house seeking and finding a piece or two. As people shift through pieces, looking for just the right one, conversations flow. Aside from the typical holiday traditions, the puzzle has become one of my favorite parts of winter. No one is on their phones, aside from possibly playing some music in the background. There is a common goal, and because there is no direct eye contact, the conversations tend toward deep and serious topics.  (Brain science tells us that direct eye contact can intimidate people, especially those in dysregulation. This is why some of your best talks with your kids happen in the car or when you are walking somewhere, side-by-side, without eye contact.)  This Christmas, Gene gave me the Cadillac of puzzle tables, complete with little side drawers that pull out...

I remember my teachers using the phrase "undivided attention" a lot when I was in school. I was expected to give them my "undivided attention" as they pontificated from their podiums, bestowing their wisdom from on high.  These days, though, I wonder if "undivided" attention even exists. In fact, if we are able to singularly focus on one thing, we are likely considered slow or behind the expected productivity. We are a society that reveres multi-tasking, task-switching, and juggling while hustling. Do you remember learning how to open a new tab in your Internet browser and thinking, "Woah!"? That seems a lifetime ago, doesn't it? Now, you likely have no fewer than three tabs open. Many people have multiple monitors going at once.  This emphasis on divided attention is well-intentioned, isn't it? How else are we to compete in this modern, hectic world we find ourselves in? Everyone wants us to respond 24-7. Everyone wants a slice of our ti...

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"  -- Walt Whitman We tend to celebrate steadfastness. We lift up those who "stay the course," who stick to their resolve, who dedicate themselves to a singular purpose in life. I see value in this. Where would we be without the 35-year veteran teachers? The doctors and researchers who spent decades of their lives in search of a cure? There is a lot to be said for steadfast determination.  However, when we find a groove, we also run the risk of creating a rut, don't we? We can become creatures of habit, more stuck in our ways than stuck to our resolves. We can find ourselves saying things like, "But this is how we've always done it." Our ego can keep us from admitting that there may be a better way than we've always done. We might become so stubborn that we don't even look around for other perspectives or ways to improve.  Sometimes, when we do ...

Earlier this month, Martha Beck released a new book called Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, & Finding Your Life's Purpose.    The premise for this book is that anxiety plagues us all to various degrees, but that we don't have to remain captive. Instead, freedom is found through understanding where our anxiety comes from and what purpose it serves. Once we understand it, we can respond intentionally and creatively. I'm only about halfway through this book, but a section I recently finished on Internal Family Systems has me thinking.  Dr. Robert Schwartz developed the theory of Internal Family Systems (IFS) in the 80s, but like many theories, IFS is enjoying a revival these days. Essentially, IFS is the concept that different parts exist inside each of us, and those parts function much like a family. Now, this is not to say that we have a disordered, so-called split personalities. Not at all. It's more like we have aspects of our personalities with sometimes com...

In October of 2012, when I was 32 years old and the mother of three children, I ran a half marathon. Now, I totally get that there are people out there who run half (and full) marathons every day. For me, though, this was huge. I do not come from a family of athletes. My dad grew up on a farm and is an Army veteran; my mom grew up in Philly but ended up loving to ride horses. But running? Nah. Sports? Nah.  When I was a kid, my PE teachers were, umm...shall we say, less than inspiring. Back in my day (circa late 1990s), we were required to wear gym uniforms. We had these terrible red shorts and these bulky reversible cotton shirts (red on one side; gray on the other) so we could easily divide into teams should the need arise. What do I recall from PE class? An endless monotony of volleyball. I'm talking at least 2 marking periods, maybe more, of playing volleyball. This never-ending volleyball tournament would be interrupted twice a year: once by an obstacle course, and once by ...

We so often hear motivational phrases like, "Make the world a better place" or "Be the change you wish to see in the world." I don't disagree with these sentiments, but aiming for global impact can be a bit daunting, can't it? I mean, the whole friggin' world? How do we even do that?  The answer is pretty simple, turns out. Start where you are. Actor Rainn Wilson (of The Office fame) says of his father, "He made each room he was in a better place." Phew. That's a lot easier than tackling the whole world, right? But even "making it better" can be vague.  Dr. Rangan Chatterjee recommends asking yourself,  "What value/quality do I want to show to others today?" and that sounds like a concrete step toward the ambiguous goal of making things better. For example, you might make a commitment to show compassion to everyone you encounter in a day -- from the jerk that cuts you off in traffic to the co-worker with that annoying ch...

On Saturday of last week, Gene and I drove our kids to the airport to catch a flight back to California. They flew out of Newark, so we were only minutes from NYC. We decided to, you know, swing by the Statue of Liberty while we were in the neighborhood.  It was wicked cold and windy, so we decided to head home. On the way, we saw a mall. A MALL.  Guys, these still exist. Depending on where you are from, this may not be exactly news to you, but in our area, the local mall is essentially defunct, with storage rental units where JC Penney's used to be and potholes peppering the parking lots. Supposedly, a developer is revitalizing the decrepit space, but progress has been incredibly slow.  Suffice to say that when we saw an honest-to-goodness mall, we had to check it out. Little did we know we stumbled upon an upscale mall that was utterly out of our tax bracket. There were stores upon stores, most with designer names like Jimmy Choo, Chanel, Coach, and Louis Vuitton. Now, ...

As you probably have figured out by now, I love podcasts -- so much so that I used to host my own podcast called Join the Conversation with Denise Clark . Life and space limitations have prevented me from continuing that adventure at the present moment, but perhaps one day, the season of podcast-hosting will return for me.  Podcasts offer a lot for me -- new information, a wide variety of experiences and stories that I wouldn't hear about otherwise, and inspiration for living the best version of my life. I tend to love new years -- January, the new calendar year, and August, the new academic year. I also love new starts -- Mondays, new months, new marking periods. I guess you can say I'm a sucker for fresh starts.  Emily P. Freeman, host of a podcast called The Next Right Thing, is an author and spiritual director who shares reflection questions for her readers/listeners at the end of each month, each season, each year. In an episode in which she reflected on " What Worked...

I recently binge-watched Eric , a 6-episode series on Netflix starring Benedict Cumberbatch  who plays a puppeteer in New York City in the mid-1980s. Cumberbatch's character, Vincent, is one of the leading creators of a Sesame Street -esque show called Good Day Sunshine.  He's smart, talented, creative -- and an alcoholic. He and his wife frequently have arguments that send their 9-year-old son Edgar to his room, where he escapes through drawing, a talent he inherited from his dad. Edgar creates a lovable character named Eric, who is kind and welcoming and even a little scared, despite well, being a big, tall, imposing-looking monster.  One morning after a particularly nasty argument, Vincent's wife asks Vincent to walk Edgar to school. It's a short distance away, but he's only 9, and she doesn't want him going alone. Vincent is too hung up on his own agenda that morning (smoothing things over with his wife, making it to work on time, that sort of thing), and Ed...

As my winter break drew to an end this weekend, I found myself listening an episode of the Feel Better, Live More podcast with host Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. It was an episode with a common theme this time of year -- " How to Reinvent Your Life in 2025: 5 Powerful Habits that Really Work ." Now, I can't say I'm interested in "reinventing" my life this year, but I do tend toward self-improvement literature and find the study of habits interesting, as many do (judging by the success of the "self-help" industry in America).  Most of what Dr. Chatterjee had to share in this solo episode was in alignment with what I've heard from other habit-experts like James Clear, BJ Fogg, and Dan Harris. Even when Chatterjee moved into a discussion of our cultural obsession for "busy-ness," I found myself nodding along with what I've heard before. But then, he made an analogy I hadn't yet considered: our busy-ness, and the endless sharing/complain...