Under the Banyan Tree

I have very poor eyesight. In fact, I'm myopic. Or myopic plus. So when I recently determined I would have Lasik, after years of hesitance or fear or straight up refusal to allow even the most skilled surgeon to take a stab -- literally -- at my cornea,  a generous doctor (who performs pro bono cataract procedures in Ethiopia every summer) informed me, nicely but firmly, that I was not a candidate. I am what they call hyper-myopic. My sight is beyond Lasik correction. There is, Dr. Nice Guy mentioned while removing a brochure from the pile on his desk next to the framed picture of him and a smiling cataract surgery patient, an option, a refractive surgery that entails folding a lens -- like a taco, he said -- and inserting it behind my iris. But I'm too young to opt for the procedure yet, so I'll have to wait. Damnit. In the meantime I'll continue to order boxes of six pairs of contact lenses that I change every two weeks and confront, or at least deal with, the insec

With clothes and books and papers strewn around my bedroom and across the open suitcases on my family room couch, I prepared to return to Taiwan last month. As I made piles of 'yes, take,' and 'absolutely not,' I braced myself for the thing I remembered about the country even more clearly than the ecstasy produced only by a claw machine win, the beautifully joyful taste of pomegranate green tea, and the gregarious people whose complex language with its complex tones I still didn't understand. I'm talking about the heat. The oppressive, humidity fueled heat. I know nature's joke on my pores is in part what allows for the island's lush landscape that I fell in love with last summer, but still I despised it.  So I packed -- masterfully, I thought -- only light cotton skirts, short-sleeved shirts and three pairs of the prettiest flip flops I owned. I added one pair of new running shoes in case I ever got up early enough to beat the heat to the track, an

When I craft a story, I often labor over the beginning only to change it completely, revert to the original idea, then labor over it some more before removing a few words, scrapping a few things, and determining it's good enough for now. Because I can always create another beginning when the time feels right. Or maybe I'll keep that one. Or make additional changes later. Or not. The idea of creating a beginning, this sometimes complicated and tedious process, is something I've been thinking about lately. I find beginnings almost confounding, certainly noteworthy, and even cosmically mysterious. All of the stories we tell have a beginning chosen by the storyteller -- that's how stories work -- but I'm not certain even the protagonist of her own story knows exactly where the tale begins or if defined beginnings even exist. So here's my story. . . The last few weeks have felt like a summer hailstorm in the Bahamas, filled with a sense of 'how is this poss

I'd like to credit Mark Zuckerberg for creating all the evil in the world, but I can't. Despite philanthropy that may be as disingenuous as his awkward smile (sorry, Z -- you're an easy target), he can't be blamed for everything that's wrong with western society. Because, truly, while lollygagging (or lurking) on social media swallows too much of our time, before Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat, we had mind-numbing reality television, and before that, Pacman and Donkey Kong with our best friends at Straw Hat Pizza. Or was that just me? Anyway, the art of wasting time has antecedents in the 20th century and, I'm sure, the 19th and 18th, etc. The admonition to live in the moment has become so ubiquitous that it seems trite, even cliché. And yet it's not. We all know not to take a moment of our lives for granted, but we don't always realize or recognize how best to live those moments, how to appreciate each one, how to crea

As I sit in the dental office waiting for my son's treatment to be completed, I want to sink into my chair, place my head in my hands, close my eyes and exhale loudly. But I won't. Because while I mostly despise dentists, I think I should respect the space and remain calm -- the 10 X 10 waiting room with three faux leather chairs and one plastic treasure chest of goodies for children who successfully complete a check up without crying or asking Siri to phone 911 is not the best place for an I'm on overload breakdown. Plus, the door is made almost entirely of glass, so anyone venturing to another office in the medical building would see my sorry why-me-why-now self. So I'll remain calm. And instead I'll visit Starbuck's after the appointment and devise a plan while 80's soundtracks play on the audio system. I'll try on new perspectives, integrate a coaching technique I learned over my most recent amazing and amazingly busy weekend at CTI. First I'l

I was going to blog about social constructs today because these constructs shape our behavior and determine much of who we are or who we think we should be, but I need, instead, to write about psychics. You know, fortune tellers. Without the fake accents and the scarves and the crystal balls but with the intensity and weirdly maternal energy. I'm pretty sure having consulted one (or two) reveals something about where I fit into one social construct or another:  female, mother, middle-class, confused, limited by design, I don't know. But there are a few things I do know. And insights I learned from the fortune-telling experience. I consulted my first psychic ten years ago, stepped, on a Tuesday night, into her single-room, house-like office that has since been sold to a tax firm whose signage is larger but less intriguing than the psychic's welcome message (I'm pretty sure those tax letters don't flash). When I knocked on the woman's door after having opened th