It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy seeing Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin at the Lensic in Santa Fe, or Gillian Welch at the Orpheum, or Taj Mahal, or Melissa Etheridge at Fort Tuthill—worthy performers all—but in the big balancing act of my wallet and the world, I want always to keep a 20 dollar bill ready for a tip jar. If I too often buy the...
Read MoreEmpty that pack! Lighten up and move on
Recently I had dinner with a woman who arrived in Flagstaff on foot from Mexico. Passersby on Aspen who peered into the window of Mountain Oasis could hardly guess that gal savoring forkfuls of Greek salad had been hungering for feta cheese for more than 30 miles as she goosed herself along the Arizona Trail to get to Flagstaff ahead of a snowfall. We’d...
Read MoreWherever I am, I can be somewhere else
I used to pull picture books off library shelves to decide what vistas I longed to inhale, what routes I’d take through foreign lands, what hotel lobby would be just right for making a phone call to get a room at a youth hostel. Like me, perhaps you have furtively rifled through expensive guidebooks in the bookstore trying to memorize the 800 number for a...
Read More“Love u 4ever” revisited; When ‘our song’ is long gone
Dear Reader, the sweet nothings have been murmured, the roses delivered, the valentines calculated and expensive dinners put on plastic. Now that the yearly ritual created to warm up winter with romantic gushing is behind us, let’s spend a little imagination on creating a new holiday; let’s have one to honor ex’s. How might we celebrate keeping connection...
Read MoreThe Deep Listening Tour: Why I Am Not at Home
What if you didn’t owe any money, and all your stuff was in a 10 by 15 foot storage locker, and you were single and not desperately lonely—in fact, it feels like you might never be desperately lonely ever again—and your truck runs good enough, and your body works well, too. No prescription drugs necessary, no surgery pending. A little work on the...
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