LETTING GO

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us. ~Joseph Campbell

GHOSTS IN THE DUST
Ellie Searl

I don’t like to go into the basement and look at all my old, grimy stuff. I have intended to phone 1-800- GOT-JUNK for months now. But there are some items in the basement that hold stories and are ripe with nostalgia. I can’t part with them. I’d be throwing away the stories that go with them.

Old-fashioned cross-country skis and boots, long ignored and covered in layers of soot, reminders of frosty afternoons in the Adirondacks, ski-skating over snow-covered pine needles and moss. MORE. . .


NOT THE WORST WAY
Carolyn B Healy


The first time it hit me was a Sunday morning in April, the year my first-born son was a junior in high school. My husband and I were on our usual outing, grabbing bagels for the kids and time for coffee and conversation on our own. There was no hurry as both kids were still sprawled in their beds, sleeping the sleep of the adolescent - truly exhausted and deeply entitled.

We sat in the middle of Einstein’s and idly discussed our recent college visits– the schools we could picture him adapting to, or not– when the earth tilted and I understood for the first time that he would really leave – and break up the happy home I had poured my heart and soul into for all those years. MORE . . .