Lifestyle

  • The other day I heard myself say the following words aloud: “I feel like my life hasn’t really started yet.” I might have been walking beneath the gradually changing leaves or driving with my hands clutched tightly on the steering wheel. I might have been staring into space, mind preoccupied with future things, faraway things, abstract…

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  • “Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.” -Rumi. When we were little, pain was as simple as a skinned knee or a vaccination at the annual doctor’s check-up. Pain was occasionally stomping our feet because we weren’t allowed to have any more candy. It was having to share our coloring books or our dollhouses, or…

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  • Yesterday, my oldest friend passed away. She did not walk on two legs, nor did she speak. She didn’t have to. She had four paws, a perpetually wet nose, and a big heart. She was more than a four year old could ever ask for. The day we brought Emmy home, she had her shaggy black…

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  • I am a folk and indie music enthusiast. If you do not have an ounce of appreciation for songs that contain thought-provoking lyrics, soul-stroking acoustic arrangements, or chillingly smooth voices that may or may not remind you of butter, you might as well stop reading right now. But I think I can bring you over to my…

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  • “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” -Mother Theresa. One of the most dangerous fallacies we often give credence to is that at some point our hearts reach a maximum capacity. We place a ceiling on the amount of love we are permitted to spread, and once we hit it, we resign ourselves…

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  • Standing at the threshold of major change, I find myself perpetually engulfed in the heart-rending current of nostalgia. Why is it that forward motion often compels us to turn around and check the dust flying up in our wake? If there is one granule of wisdom I wish to share with those still floundering in the paradoxical swiftness and sluggishness that…

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  • “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” -Seneca. Oxford is the kind of beautiful that places a gentle hand on your shoulder and urges you to take a seat, your eyes cast to its fawn colored edifices all the while. It’s the kind of beauty that coalesces past and present with such…

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  • “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you travelled.” -Mohamed. I believe we all possess the capacity to be magnificent story tellers, but perhaps those of us who have lived through daring adventures are the most proficient. It is not a measure of practice or skill; rather, it is a measure of life well lived. The…

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  • “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” -Dagobert D. Runes. I have a bitter tendency to demonize the familiar by claiming that there is nothing here for me. Once I’m out in the world, life will truly begin. There’s no beauty here, because it’s too close…

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  • “If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.” -Cesare Pavese. Traveling — really traveling — is daunting. It should scare you just enough to leave your fingers trembling against your plane ticket, just enough to leave you entirely unaware of what lies ahead, just enough…

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