Dear President Trump, The days are blurring together. When we picked up our brother-in-law’s (BIL) cremated remains earlier and Laura’s brother signed and dated the release form, it was awfully disconcerting to realize BIL died just four days ago. It seems like infinitely more time has passed and it feels like it was just yesterday. … Continue reading More on stories
Mental Health
“Dear Racism”
Dear President Trump, I told you yesterday that I took a class over the weekend on allyship and shared an initial take on my manifesto for wholeness based on one of the writing exercises we did. Another of the exercises involved writing a letter to an ‘ism or ‘ism-like construct; sexism, racism, classism, ageism, able-ism, … Continue reading “Dear Racism”
Make it so
Dear President Trump, Yesterday I went to a writing class for people who want to become better allies both through their writing and in real time encounters. I left quite humbled and feeling as though I have a lot of remedial work to do. One of the exercises involved writing a manifesto framed by the … Continue reading Make it so
May the Holy Fire not be a harbinger
Dear President Trump, Yesterday evening I saw an HP piece on the man, Forrest Gordon Clark, who is accused of intentionally setting the Holy Fire in California. Intentional fire setting is something that deeply freaks me out, and this particular act of arson, should it prove true, has me even more unsettled than most. Clark’s … Continue reading May the Holy Fire not be a harbinger
Be careful who you hate
Dear President Trump, By now you should know that I’m someone who actually reads and is often affected by bumper stickers. Part of it is that they are usually short and pithy; easy to digest. More importantly, though, is that someone has chosen to adorn their car with one or more statements that will be … Continue reading Be careful who you hate
Aspiring to safe and sound
Dear President Trump, The phrase “safe and sound” came to mind this morning as I was doing my loving-kindness meditation for everyone (including you). I’d not stopped to consider its meaning before and wondered what was intended by the “sound” part. My first thought was that it’s not enough to be safe in a physical … Continue reading Aspiring to safe and sound
Peacemaker
Dear President Trump, The other day Laura was late getting home from an outing that seemed unlikely to stretch long so I was pretty sure there would be a story, and there was. On a main arterial that crosses over a deep ravine she saw a young woman standing in the middle of the bridge … Continue reading Peacemaker
Don’t Live Lies
Dear President Trump, “Don’t Live Lies” is the message spray painted on a large concrete trash bin container at the edge of our daughter’s high school campus. I have no idea whether the trash container surface was deliberately chosen over the nearby retaining wall, but it does make the message more poignant and poetic since … Continue reading Don’t Live Lies
COAL → diamond → CURE
Dear President Trump, When we teach veterans mindfulness skills so they can better cope with stress, pain, depression, and PTSD we address both specific strategies (e.g., mindfully attending to one’s in-breath and out-breath and corralling one’s attention back to the breath over and over) and the cultivation of certain attitudes towards oneself and one’s experience. … Continue reading COAL → diamond → CURE
Swallows, roosters, and “Darth Becky”
Dear President Trump Sunday we took the dogs to the Union Bay Natural Area on Lake Washington. About a quarter mile into the walk one of our dogs apparently got too close to a swallow’s nest because suddenly two swallows came at me, screaming and darting around my head. I was furthest away from where … Continue reading Swallows, roosters, and “Darth Becky”
Daily Trump Letters 