April 5th, live and in person

Live, and in-person are two different things, and April 5th is my mother’s birthday.

LIVE is the Dr. Laura Berman radio show on the OWN network, beginning at 6 pm.

IN-PERSON in New York City is the Huffington Post’s ‘Moment I Knew’ Meetup, hosted by Melissa Francis, CNBC anchor and “Divorce Wars” correspondent Where: Macao Trading Co., 311 Church St. (between Walker St. & Lispenard St.), New York, 10013 When: April 5th, 7 to 10 p.m. Cost: Free! Important: Please RSVP to [email protected] with the subject line “Moment I Knew Meetup RSVP NYC”

FREE food & drink for the first hour of the event!

Mobile Libris will be on-site, selling books by all author-performers.

Know yourself

Many people have written to me recently through this blog. I am sorry I haven’t been able to respond individually, but I have read every personal story and every note that has reached out to connect with me or with the topics in my memoir in a meaningful way.

Thank you.

There is a common thread in many of your letters. You are saying that we have a gut instinct, a personal “knowing” about who we are and what we need to live our lives, and too often, that doesn’t fit into the expectations of the society around us. We are not supported, and we struggle – sometimes against serious resistance – to believe in ourselves and trust ourselves. Sometimes we give up, deciding at last that society must be right: other people’s beliefs, decisions and rules are wiser and more valuable than our own. This is how we can come to see ourselves: that each of us, individually, is just one person, trying her best but no expert. No one special.

How can that be true?

Think about what we are saying to ourselves: Someone else knows who I am and what I need better than I do. Other people are wiser, stronger, better, more worthy than I am. 

How can that be true?

Future thoughts

A bit of wise advice:

“The point is not to fix anything.  The point is to create anew.”

I think of this when I watch the radiation leaking into vast swathes of Japan and listen to the excuses, as if to say that, if we can blame this tragedy on incompetence or a freak occurrence or strange foreign ways we do not have to worry about the caged tiger in our own livingroom.

I think of this when I see the pictures of the dead baby dolphins washing upon our Gulf beaches and read that we “may never know why so many animals are dying.”  No, in our oil-infused, dispersant-saturated waters, we may never know.

It is up to us to imagine a new relationship with our planet if we want to have a future on it.  Not in fear, but with care and clear vision.

Full Moon

Cleaning off my desk today for the full moon, I found this letter from a friend:

“Just for today remember that words are something you have inherited.  Lead with your desire to honor those who came before you.  Think of writing as an act of love.  Know that you are capable of a lot of love – in words, in silences, on and off the page.  But today, focus on how love affects what you write.”