Nature Walks and Talks

Dear Meg, Your heart is so good. It takes only a moment of relief from your own burdens to get you ready to conquer the world. (And, of course, you were always concerned about others even when you were suffering.) The quote you shared is a new concept to me, but it resonates. We do seem to rally around suffering and shrug off joy. We all crave peace and joy, and those of us lucky enough to have a good amount of those things in our lives feel a desire to share that with others. But when we see the depth of the suffering in the world it can feel indulgent and selfish to enjoy our blessings. It's important to remember that hope brings solutions, despair only brings more despair. I deal with this so much in my own struggle with depression. I tend to see what's wrong and want to solve it. The more I focus on the problem, the larger it seems. What really gets me out of the rut is to find something I can do and do it with all my heart. Whether it's sitting in the sunshine, pla

Dear Mal,       I'm writing this on my phone while laying on my couch. It's the first 10 minutes of silence I've had all week.  Even despite the business of motherhood,  I always have a lot on my mind.  For the past year of my life,  I often come back to the same question: With all the suffering that always exists in the world,  am I allowed to be totally happy?     I have a memory from my childhood of being in my backyard.  I would jump on my trampoline, feel the blood pumping through my veins, and the breath coming and going from my lungs,  and I would stare at the blue evening summer sky.  I would think "This must be what heaven is like." Moments like this happened to me all the time.  Thinking about it,  I could follow those same steps now, and probably really enjoy myself.  Yet for me, at least at this point in my life,  it would probably be somewhat tainted by the bitterness in the world that my adult self has tasted.    I get so frustrated,  I want to he