Reschool Yourself

Even if they’re not always recognized for it, children and senior citizens are some of the wisest people you’ll meet. Children still have a fresh perspective on life, and seniors have seen it all and tend to give sound advice.
Author Roger Fishman decided to collect the wisdom from both sides of the age spectrum, interviewing [...]

Food, glorious food!
Hot sausage and mustard!
While we’re in the mood –
Cold jelly and custard!
- “Oliver”
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about food. OK, so that’s not news. I think about food a lot. What I’ve specifically been thinking about is a common way that Americans see their food, and it makes me sad.
As we’ve gotten [...]

Even if you’re not religious, I’m sure that you recognize the wisdom of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” I tend to have no trouble with this. My friends, many of whom work in social services and small businesses, don’t either. We work long hours for little [...]

Aside from “So how’s Mississippi?”, the most common question I get these days is, “Are you still reschooling yourself?” I’m never quite sure how to answer that.
The project completion date is technically June 15th, marking the end of a full school year, so yes, I’m still officially reschooling. I think the question gives me pause [...]

Flying into San Francisco Airport last month was a surreal experience. I’d landed at SFO dozens of times, from cities as far afield as Barcelona or Guatemala City, and every time the plane’s wheels hit the tarmac, I knew I was home. This was the first time that I didn’t feel that way, because I [...]

Since I got back from a six-day, cross-country trip on Tuesday, I’ve been craving the open road. Last week Darren and I left my hometown of Sonoma, California, and drove my Jetta and most of my belongings to my new home in Jackson, Mississippi. Each day of the trip was so exciting that it’s felt [...]

I’ve decided that there’s no better way to say goodbye to your past than to commit it to the flames. Ancient cultures like the Celts used bonfires for purification and consecration, and it turns out that knew what they were doing. Tonight I had my first ritual bonfire, and I feel an unexpectedly strong sense of [...]

I spent last evening sitting on the living room floor of my childhood home, letting go of hundreds of pages of old letters. This is something that I never thought I could do.
For most of my life, I have been exceptionally sentimental. I suppose it comes with the writer’s temperament, because you’re always collecting experiences [...]

Since I now live in a state that has very few Catholics, I’d forgotten that today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I haven’t seen a single person walking around with a smudged black cross on their forehead to symbolize repentance. In fact, Lent wouldn’t have been on my radar at all if it [...]

My mom has close to a hundred personal narratives sitting in dusty binders at home. I didn’t even know that she had even written them, over a decade ago for a friend sick with cancer, but one day I came across them and began reading. Every one resonated with an experience that I’d had and [...]