Archive | Spirit Matters

A Mary for Our Time

It’s not just that I loved Mary Tyler Moore. It’s that I needed her, especially when I was a confused little person growing up in the 1970s with no desire to be a housewife and very few models of women working in TV, which already was what I wanted to do. There were the beleaguered mothers in my neighborhood and also the office secretaries perpetually bemoaning their single-girl status, and then there was MTM on her eponymous show, living in a cute-as-pie pied-à-terre with no husband telling her to make dinner and a great gig and no apparent regrets. Mary had the greatest best friend in America–who wouldn’t want to live downstairs from wise-cracking, warm-hearted Rhoda?—and Mary loved everyone she could, including her gruff boss (oh, Mr. Graaaant!) and her simpering coworkers. She was gorgeous and hilarious and idiosyncratic and sharp, a vision in pantsuits and clever retorts and triple-take stammers and and just the best, best legs. She organized her medicine cabinet alphabetically and served cognac and coffee and didn’t pretend to be dumber than she was, even if she did suffer too many fools. (Even at age 6 I felt this strongly.) She was made for TV–movies never quite captured the scope of her down-to-earth elegance—but she also made over TV. Through Mary, we got used to women who lived alone joyously–ones who presided over a newsroom unapologetically, who knew how to be good friends with women and men, who Long Tall Sallied everywhere with compassion, confidence, and clarity. Continue Reading →

The Sun Doth Move

I wake and Trump is still president and our basic rights are still being violated and sacred native ground is still being plundered but the sun is shining for the first time in days and so human nature being what it is I start smiling.The dystopia is now, and I can’t even imagine what our country will look like by spring, but today the air smells sweet and my permakitten is cupping her chin in her tiny paw and I accept that beauty flourishes as stubbornly as a weed in a city sidewalk. The key is appreciation for what remains beautiful, not dissociation from the many horrors we now must address. Otherwise, we’ll go madder than the madman who’s seized the reins of this country I love.

Salutations and Solar Returns

Today is my solar return, though according to the Christian calendar my birthday is tomorrow. I share this day (technically January 19) with three women whom I consider geniuses, cultural alchemists, phoenixes who make art from their ashes so as not to waste an inch of this Earth’s precious resources. Sweet and sour Janis Joplin died young—she burned herself right up at age 27, talk about economical—but Dolly Parton and Cindy Sherman keep reinventing themselves with a pixie purity and a fulsome smarts that I only hope is my true legacy. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy