The last year has been difficult across the board, for men, women, children, and everyone in between. As the pandemic continues, our challenges have become compounded by what is largely recognized as a women’s recession. Today, on International Women’s Day, I’d like to recognize all the women that are keeping families, business, economies, and nation states running smoothly.
Letter to My Daughter: Yep, This Year Sucks
Dear Warrior Princess, 2020 has been a memorable year, in mostly the worst ways. It’s hard enough for adults, but kiddos like you are really getting the short end of the stick. I agree – this year sucks – but I’m here with you, and better days will come. We had a great spring break – a low-tech week of friends, projects, relaxation, and focused fun. But it never ended. You didn’t go back to school, I didn’t go back to “work,” nothing went back to normal. The function of our home office was really tested for the first time […]
Every day’s a party at 40
With a 40th birthday a few weeks away, there will be no big gala, milestone trip, photo session, or other reason to torture my friends. You can keep your midlife crisis – this year, I’m very grateful.
Letter to My Daughter: Keep Kicking Butt
Dear Warrior Princess, You’re another year older – a year full of surprises, fun, love, and sometimes challenges. You are cuddly, caring, and sweet, and also increasingly self-assured and terrifyingly independent. Like your mama, you don’t need validation from anyone else (including me!), and you don’t like being told what to do. Your personal strengths and inclinations won’t guarantee you an easy life, but we were made like this for a reason. They will call you bossy, and when you also have authority, they’ll call you aggressive – it comes with the skirt; but follow your heart, do what you […]
Super Woman Rx: Busy Women’s New Bestie
I haven’t yet decided whether it was a lie when they told us we could have it all, or whether it’s true you can have it all, just not at the same time. But for those of us deeply entrenched in being everything to everyone, I have just the thing for you: Super Woman Rx. In a previous career, during the course of seven years, I had the privilege of working with some of the world’s top doctors and health experts, creating and marketing integrative medicine programs, educating medical professionals. Many of the physicians I worked with were women who rose through the ranks […]
Blindspotting: Film Will Shake You in the Best Way
I was invited this week to a private screening of Blindspotting, out in theaters on Friday. The trailer looked interesting, so I went in with high hopes, but I was not prepared to be grabbed by the heart and rattled around a bit, then set down gingerly to sit with my thoughts. Just my kind of film. Blindspotting was co-written and stars longtime friends and collaborators Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. It’s about two men in Oakland surviving, and about how where you’re from can be a source of pride and also your demise. As the world changes around you, do […]
Loving Someone With Lymphedema
As many as 200 million people worldwide suffer from Lymphedema, but diagnosis can often leave patients feeling alone and stranded. If you love someone with Lymphedema (LE), there are a few regular habits you can establish to help them feel comfortable, understood, and loved. LE is a dysfunction of the Lymphatic System – the body’s network of filters that helps the Circulatory System clear bacteria, infection, and by-products of blood circulation. Lymphedema can be primary (genetic) or secondary, as the result of trauma or damage to lymph nodes, often as a result of cancer treatment. Fluid back-up in the limbs makes […]
5 Self-Care Hacks for Busy Parents
I think I’ve passed the point in my life when resolutions are important. Every year I want to lose weight, eat better, sleep more, be a better person. But in the last few years, the journey has become exponentially more important than the destination: why do I want what I want, and how do I move in the right direction? With a very limited budget of time for myself, I’ve devised a few self-care hacks which I hope will serve you. Last year about this time, rather than resolutions, I set the intentions for myself of making space, finding balance, being […]
Pixar’s Coco, Hard Conversations, Colorful Memories
Lately, my four-year-old has been asking some hard questions, perhaps a testament to the times we’re living in: Why do we fight wars? Why do soldiers die? Are you going to die? Does everyone die? We’ve been seeing trailers for Pixar’s Coco for about a year and were anxiously awaiting its release (today!), but given her inquisitiveness, you can imagine my concern. We were invited to an advance 3D screening of the film, so we drove more than an hour across town and arrived on Mexican time…but they let us in anyway. I don’t know who between my daughter, husband, […]
Letter to My Daughter: Remember Our Love
My dearest Warrior Princess: The last four years of life since you joined us have been transformational, full of wonder and surprises, and they’ve gone by way too quick. Each day that I get you ready for school, pick you up, and get you ready for bed, with many laughs in between, passes with the blink of an eye. Enough blinks have become another year of life. But with each passing year, I think to myself, this was the greatest. Each new phase in your development is the most exciting, and every moment with you is better than the one […]