“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” — Mary Oliver I have always loved this poem by Mary Oliver. I think I’ve done okay-ish at the first two. But the “tell about it” has always made me uneasy. Partly because, to me, it came to
So difficult to reduce all of my year's reading into 10 quotes. So instead, here are 12 (in no order!!!!) +++ Middlemarch This book, all of it. The recognition of the sacredness of daily life, and Dorothea’s simple, earnest journey inward, for God and for religion. ++++ The Melancholy
I had to interrupt the stranger's narration. "Will you excuse me for a moment? I'll be back. Very nice. Welcome, welcome" I ran inside my mansion and called on my servant. Said in a low voice: "Go call the police. Or even better,
Here are some random thoughts I had recently. * Letter writing creates a unique four-way conversation across time: There's me writing to you now (before you've read and received the letter), future you reading it (connecting with past me who wrote it), while simultaneously thinking about present
I can't imagine any more beautiful way to be described by a lover... He describes her body, but perhaps the illogic in his description is what makes the poem so deep and pure. I bolded my favorite parts in the poem. +++ My wife whose hair is a brush
Among the many things I track in my reading are extraordinary things described in extraordinary ways. I have a collection of them, which I'll share in three or four quotes at a time. But I'm starting with just one today because it's so stunning.
It is my thing. I'm not going to lie. I love making videos for my family or friends or people I love. Canva has helped me improve my still mediocre video production game. +++ Here are two videos I made this month that I love! My younger sister ran
The ney is a musical instrument made from bamboo (reed flute). But Rumi uses it to explain the human condition. The voice of the ney is the voice of every human soul that has ever felt the ache of longing for home. And that home is Ney-stan. This is how
The question I get asked most when I meet people is: What was it like growing up in Saudi Arabia? It used to bother me so much. I could never tell if people were genuinely asking. It's such an open-ended question and hard to answer. Where to start?
I just finished reading Middlemarch. I think this is my favorite novel? The narrator has an extraordinary range in the novel that I haven't seen before. I genuinely wish that this is how God talks about us or narrator our stories? No judgment. Lots of attention, understanding, and
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. – Howard Zinn Love the most powerful force we have. Many of us love deeply (which is good) but we don’t love widely. Loving deep but not wide can blinds us: we excuse the cruelty of
Oh, I've been running around like a headless chicken! It's that time of year again: New York Climate Week and the Brooklyn Book Festival. Last fall was probably one of the best eras of my life, and I'm excited to create many new memories