Historic Marker New Hope AME Zion Church Historic Marker

Let’s Stay The Same And Make Our Gifts Magnificent

Thanksgiving is around the corner. Before you know it, we’ll be making New Year’s resolutions to lose the holiday weight, or just the weight. Or exercise or be more organized. There were years I made lists, imagining I could accomplish more than one thing. After careful consideration, I decided to cast off making resolutions last
Continue reading...

Big Love

My mother’s love was big. Rita was the parent waving wildly from the audience with a toothy smile. In high school I messed up my solo in Oklahoma when I saw her arms fanning above her head. Other parents sat patiently, palms in their laps, and looked at the stage with neutral expressions. Rita couldn’t
Continue reading...

Losing My One-Track Mind In My Rocking Chair

Praying for Hearts

I spoke to a customer service representative recently who was working during a natural disaster. Flooding in her community had reached historic levels. She filled me in on the areas affected and shared a story about a friend not being able to reach her elderly father because the road was washed out. She said they
Continue reading...

Our family and our dog Clarissa sitting on the couch

Family Dinner Is Our Favorite Hobby

Family dinner is good for the soul. When my children Matt and Emma were young, I read articles about the value of sitting together for meals. Family dinner saves lives, preventing drug abuse and reducing the likelihood of all kinds of social pathology. It even boosted IQs so I devoted myself to the ritual, using
Continue reading...

Blog Author Maureen Goldman

Turning Death Into A Celebration of Kindness

“Today is the anniversary of my mom Rita’s death. I was 22 when she died so this year has special significance as my daughter Emma is 22. We are going to do 22 kind things together in honor of my mom. The first is asking people to join us in honoring this day with an act of
Continue reading...

How To Choose A School

I have the privilege of being a substitute teacher at the Atlanta Girls’ School school where my daughter Emma attended middle school and high school. The word privilege sounds like hyperbole when you’re talking about being a substitute teacher, but it’s not. When Emma was a student at the AGS, I was a vocal fan
Continue reading...

Uncle Tony and My Daughter Emma

Sometimes You Have To Dig To Find Goodness

My uncle is 87 and a very difficult man. Sometimes I struggle to find goodness in him. He has an iron grip on his routine, a powerful sense of entitlement, and no filter. He’s lived alone since my father died last year so I fly up every few months to check on him. Yesterday I headed
Continue reading...

zpots gratitude bowl

Gratitude Seeped In When I Slowed Down

I woke up this morning with a foreign feeling of gratitude. The object was my backyard. It’s one of the first things I see. It’s big and green and landscaped with curves like a winding stream. I love it. But I’ve seen it ten thousand times. Why so grateful now? I’ve been trying to be
Continue reading...

wrapped in daisies

Let’s Share Our Story Of Living With Mental Illness

Remember Oprah Winfrey’s amazing acceptance speech at the Golden Globes Award Show this year? It was a call-to-action for girls and women to continue the fight for equal justice. It’s thrilling to see that sexual harassment, something I took for granted when I was young, is in the light and that things are changing. I
Continue reading...

Finding Your Power

I Realized That Sharing My Mental Illness Is An Act Of Love

“I share being bipolar because it is an act of love.” This just came out of my mouth last night while I was talking to a friend of my husband. She was telling me about her daughter’s struggles without sharing intimate details, so I told her I was bipolar. This usually makes people more comfortable
Continue reading...