I still have the scar on my forearm from when I touched it to the edge of the oversized sheet pan after taking it out of the oven. It happened the first week I worked in a busy kitchen, one year ago. I wear it well. At age sixty-three, after a lifetime of jobs that demanded my brains, wit, voice, compassion, and leadership, I jumped into the most physically demanding job of my life.
Posts tagged #life transitions
Green Burial: From Stardust to Soil
On a cloudy afternoon this past winter, as we stood in the muted, gray light of our kitchen, I said to my wife, “When I die, just put me in the ground, maybe wrapped in a shroud—or in a pine box, or something like that—and let nature do its thing.”
Wintering Within
As I write this the days are lengthening, the sun riding high in the sky, and the expansiveness of summer stretches before me—though the days seem to be filling fast. So much to cram in here, in Michigan, where summer is the fleetest season: lake time, picnics, parties, peony blooms, and cicada chirps, fireflies and star showers, light until late in the evening and 4 a.m. birdsong. Long, hot, humid-filled days and hopefully, lots of water play. But you will be reading this after all that has passed, and the days shorten. I am always surprised how soon the dark comes in late August, how quickly the dusk rises, how the trees begin their color change, their leaf drop.
How a Pandemic Transformed My Life After High School--Perspectives and Resources from a 2020 High School Graduate
For the past eight years, music has been my life. As I progressed through high school, I began feeling pressured to say yes to opportunities because I felt like I needed to—for college applications, for my future career as a professional musician, and even as someone that couldn’t let my teachers (who had invested so much into my musical development) down. This pressure came from what I call the “Ann Arbor Excellence Phenomenon” (A2EP) – a force that values external accomplishments more than happiness and well-being.
Rite and Recognition ~ A Crazy Wisdom Exploration of Rites of Passage
What are the significant milestones along a life’s path and how do we give them meaning? The deep human need for ritualization around life’s biggest transitions — most commonly at birth, coming of age, marriage, parenthood, and death — calls us to engage in personal and communal meaning making.
The ManKind Project — First Person with Callan Loo
The ManKind Project nonprofit (MKP) hosts a signature weekend retreat program called New Warrior Training Adventure. Callan Loo answers questions about his experience.
