Episode 1
A Series of Confessions
My friend Bill went missing earlier this summer. His car was discovered in a wooded area several miles from home. His body not long after. He left a simple note with instructions for whom to notify. When the police called, they explained my contact info was also in his wallet and could I answer some questions.
Episode 2
On Being a Mystic
Back in 2003 I was arriving home from work one evening when I heard a voice say something really random and curious. I’d just gotten off the tube, London’s subway system, near where I was living.
As I entered the garden and walked toward the side entrance, I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular when all of the sudden I heard a voice say, “You are a mystic.”
I remember putting my key in the lock and thinking, “A what? Huh, I wonder what that means.”
Episode 3
My Hero Girl
In August of 2012 I left my husband and the father of my children. I rented a bedroom above a garage a few blocks away from our apartment. The kids were one and two years old. I thought I was sparing our family unnecessary upheaval.
Then one night two social workers called to tell me I'd just been indicated in a child abuse report. The next morning the bank accounts were empty. And my nightmare began in earnest. He hired a nanny. I had to find a job. Distraught doesn't begin to describe my inner world. I was being investigated for child abuse. I couldn't eat or sleep or function properly.
Episode 4
If Taylor Swift Was God
My daughter absolutely adores Taylor Swift.
A few months ago we were discussing a scenario where she would actually meet her idol. She couldn't imagine anything but freaking out and nearly having a panic attack. I asked her why and she couldn't say exactly, just that the thought of it totally overwhelmed her. I suggested that it might be that she was thinking of Taylor Swift as something other than a human like her.
The thing is, sometimes we can fixate so much on someone that they stop being real to us. They become a screen on which we project our desires, obsessions, fears... whatever lives in our own depths.
Episode 5
Tuesdays in Jail
Every week I meet with a group of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and other assorted criminal offenders. We sit around tables in a classroom on the fourth floor of a maximum security jail. And we talk about well-being.
For months I never bothered to find out why each of my participants were locked up. I assumed most were for drug related charges. Why I assumed that, I can’t say for sure. Naiveté, most likely. Or maybe because the labels “murderer,” “rapist,” or “pedophile,” invoke images of monsters, not the individuals I talk and listen and joke with.
Episode 6
On Integrity
When I was much younger I thought about integrity as a moral virtue. It meant doing the right thing when no one was looking. It was a constant reminder of the need to make sure I was behaving rightly; being a good person no matter what. It was a word that felt out of my league.
In my most authentic moments, I couldn't be confident that I had true integrity.
Episode 7
The Only Things That Matter
For more than twenty years I obsessively searched for my unique purpose, and how to live it out uncompromisingly. My ideas of what would look like always felt complicated and far off. I accepted that it would involve sacrifice and hard work. My frustration was that I never understood how to find the path I needed to be on in order to get where I was supposed to go.
I watched peers achieve impressive accomplishments while I struggled to define who I was, and what I was doing with my life. Eventually, I discovered that the answers weren’t nearly as complicated or distant as I imagined.
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Episode 8
Unscheduled Stock-taking
I didn’t know yesterday was going to be a defining moment in my life. While it was happening I was pacing between event spaces in the beautiful clubhouse of our new apartment complex, anxiously scanning the activities of a few dozen middle schoolers, and then checking my watch.
When parents came to pick up their children from my son’s twelfth birthday party I joked with them that it had been the longest two hours of my life.
A parent told me they heard a kid exclaim, “This was the greatest day of my life!”
Apparently, it was a pretty rad party. I’m glad that was their experience. I was mostly trying to hear myself think, and keep myself from looking like a cop in a mosh pit.