Have fun is my message. Be silly. You're allowed to be silly. There's nothing wrong with it. — Jimmy Fallon A few days ago, a friend said to me, “Maria, you have got to start going out more! You have got to start having more fun!” Her words landed like a thud because I knew she w...
I could sense the woman behind me, waiting respectfully for my conversation to end. “I hear your foundation helps couples with fertility issues,” she said softly, her eyes flicking around as she searched for her husband. He was rolling up in his wheel chair, the pant legs of his Marine...
Perhaps best known for his performance as Lt. Dan Taylor in the landmark film Forest Gump, actor Gary Sinise has made it his life's mission to support the men and women who serve and defend our country. To further his efforts, Sinise founded the Gary Sinise Foundation in 2011. He also recen...
The following is an excerpt from The Second Mountain: The Quest For a Moral LIfe by David Brooks One of the most sophisticated methodologies for convening that I have seen is in Baltimore, in an organization called Thread, co-founded by Sarah Hemminger. When Hemminger was a girl in Indi...
We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.” — Anne Lamott Earlier this week, I had dinner with my friends Martha and Ro. They used to live just a short drive away from ...
Like millions of women, Eve Ensler has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father, Eve has struggled her whole life from this betrayal, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an anti-violence act...
The statistics speak volumes. Women are twice as likely to face depression, insomnia, and Alzheimer’s compared with men. We experience significantly more anxiety and autoimmunity, including four-fold increased rates of multiple sclerosis and at least eight-fold rates of Hashimoto’s aut...
Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” — Barbara Kingsolver I love Mother’s Day because I just love, love, love being a mother. It’s such an honor to bring a child into this world. It’s such a humbling experience to try to get it “right” an...
The following is re-posted with permission from the parenting blog Grown & Flown Last year, in a fit of hubris, I wrote a piece about all the things there were to love about the empty nest. I was not yet an empty nester when I dropped those pearls of wisdom. In my defense, I had polled a...
This week, walking through the card aisle of the local drug store, I stopped and decided to pick out a card for my mom. I bought one that said, “From your daughter,” because not only do I miss having a mother but I miss being a daughter. It’s been 23 years since I’ve bought a Mother...
