The Authenticity Experiment, the Julian of Norwich edition. For as long as I can remember, during difficult times, the Woman Who Gives Me Stories In Lieu of Advice has repeated to me, “All shall be all and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” This is what Julian of Norwich—an anchorite—said to parishioners as the Black Death of 1348 ravaged the town of Norwich and killed more than half the…
The Authenticity Experiment Posts
The Authenticity Experiment, the unexpected edition. We recently experienced an unanticipated death in our chosen family. The brother of one of the Coffee Girls’ died suddenly. The Coffee Girls, you may remember, are a group of five of us who used to drink coffee together every Thursday afternoon. Back when you could do that, sneak away for a cup of coffee in the late afternoon. Back when coffee after one o’clock wasn’t a problem. Back…
The Authenticity Experiment, the collage edition. I have so many half-finished posts. So many. Because I’m researching and writing essays again in earnest, I can’t seem to get a post finished. Then a few weeks ago, I got this idea to give you some select paragraphs from the rough starts of Authenticity Experiments—to let you in on what I’m thinking about. It’s random, I’ll admit that, and maybe it won’t work and I’ll get a…
The Authenticity Experiment, the end of the world edition. When I was growing up, a young, sensitive, empathic Pisces, given to reacting to sudden changes of mood in the room, my mother would say to me, Oh, honey, it’s not the end of the world. Then, I understood this as dismissive. I wanted a mother who knew her high intuitive daughter needed soothing, a hug, some tea, and the reassurance that everything would be okay. …
The Authenticity Experiment, the intimacy edition. The North Dakota Music Teacher arrived in Portland recently and almost immediately we began talking about how people build relationships. We dated briefly last fall and became emotionally intimate quickly. Partly, we are wired this way and partly we took a big breath and jumped into the deep end of the emotional pool. Texts, phone calls, and emails. Ten minute cups of coffee because often that was all the…
The Authenticity Experiment, the marmalade edition. My mother loved orange marmalade on buttered toast. She started eating it sometime in her thirties, I’m going to guess during her pregnancy of my youngest sister, Jule. Because I wasn’t in school yet, I remember what she craved when she carried Sue—toast with raspberry jam and butter. I recall sitting at this little table in our carpeted breakfast room in the yellow, rented house just 100 yards from…
The Authenticity Experiment, the tie edition. The Lyft driver picked us up at the Tampa Marriott Waterside hotel, two of the 15,000 writers who were heading out for something different on the last night of the national writers conference known as AWP. Our driver, Daniel, seemed quintessentially Floridian: shorts, a Tommy Bahama-type shirt, flip flops, and a bro-pattern to his diction. We were headed to Ybor City, a formerly independent town founded in 1885 and now…
The Authenticity Experiment, the early morning drive edition. Just five days after I’d won the Oregon Book Award, I still floated somewhere above my body. Or, if I inhabited my skin sack (thank you, Lidia Yuknavitch for that evocative phrase), my brain and emotions lingered somewhere else. You know what I mean, you do—the way your body refuses to inhabit a truth. An award for my book? Totally unbelievable. And at 7:30 a.m. that Saturday,…
The Authenticity Experiment, the velocity made good edition. Sometimes we are given the great gift of seeing the velocity made good in our lives. This is a term from sailing that describes the actual speed a vessel is making on its intended course. Because they must tack back and forth, submitting to the vagaries of the wind, sailors track velocity made good, that is: true progress based on all the zigs and zags, dog legs, and…
The Authenticity Experiment, the Snakes Edition. I don’t write much about my dad. But a story in the news made me think about the best of him, the part of him that could laugh at himself and his own foibles, and taught me how to do the same thing for myself. Right now, CES—or the Consumer Electronics Show—is going on in Las Vegas. It’s the biggest tech show of the year, the time when all…