1. The moments you’ve always waited for will come. When they do, the ones spent waiting for them will feel like time wasted. Look forward but be here now.
2. The exact time I like to steep my tea, depending on whether it’s green tea or dark.
3. The antidote to a bad day is a nap, a book, or both.
4. ”Trim” the Christmas tree refers to decorating it, not clipping its branches.
5. Gratitude is not just something we give others, but a gift we give ourselves in order to savor every moment.
6. That I prefer the imperfect over the pristine.
7. That I’m a pretty forgiving person, until you put a shot of espresso in my chai latte and don’t even tell me about it.
8. There is pain but also beauty and (if we’re lucky) peace in mourning.
9. (Pointed out to me as I walked down the streets of Lima, holding my father’s hand:) What the color of the apartment building I lived in as a baby in Peru looks like. The window to my room. Where my crib was kept.
10. From a reading with Don Delillo: “There are writers who wait for the ideas, but the ideas are waiting for them. It’s in the sentences.”
11. Teaching is less about what you know and more about trying to understand where the student is coming from.
12. How to speak to a room of 300 people (practice, practice, breathe, smile, enjoy).
13. More than anything, people just want to be heard.
Note: any posts published before Dec. 2017 were previously lost and then recovered when I switched web hosts. Though the posts were recovered, the comments were not.