Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
Rumi
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Latest Reflections
Flown the Coop
Last week our eldest child flew the coop. Empty nester stage looms large. But that nomenclature annoys me. I’m renaming it Graduated, and thinking of parenting as flight school, instead.
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Reflections on 21 years of marriage
It’s our wedding anniversary this weekend. From the vantage point of kids almost out of school, looking back across our lives together, I’m reminded that life is a winding, undulating road with ups and downs. And it takes commitment to the relationship, and respect for the individuals within it, to keep walking it together.
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Wise up chicken, said younger me to current me.
Something strange has happened to me since I turned 50. I feel quite disconnected from my old self. I’m finding myself breathless on occasion, struggling to work out who I am and what I’m good at. But then, my younger self said – wise up chicken, embrace joy. So wise, younger me!
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What is love, anyway?
The air last week reeked with overpriced roses and heart-shaped chocolates. Not in my house, as paying a $100 for 12 rose is legitimately ridiculous, plus it’s fun-free February, where champagne and chocolate are vorboten. … Still all these renditions of “love is in the air” got me thinking – what is love, anyway?
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How to be less anxious: Lessons in life from the ski slopes
Coming into Nozawa-Onsen we are confronted by a slope that sets my pulse racing. It’s below the ski lift, and although covered in deep drifts of white snow, it’s as black as they come. Immediately, despite having zero intention of going down a black run, I’m swamped in anxiety about this whole skiing malarky. Before we’ve even stepped out of the taxi, I’ve imagined a hundred things that could go wrong.
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New year, new resolutions, new you?
New year… new resolutions, new plans, new you? Even if you don’t tend toward that sort of thing, there is an impulse to think about starting fresh post the midnight fireworks. Of course, every day is the start of a new year. Each new dawn a full twirl around the sun since the last time the 12th of January or the 25th of March, or even the very next moment, came around. The discussion around the table at New Year’s Eve this year reeked with a sense of time running out and, to quote, a need to get cracking. That’s…
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The power of perspective – refocusing on the upside.
Last month it was my dad’s birthday. This is the first time since he passed away (11 years ago) that I haven’t written some sort of a birthday tribute to him. I’ve been wallowing in a funk of negativity that has made it hard to write something meaningful. All around us humanity seems to be falling apart at the edges. I say seems because that’s all we are fed by news and social media. Selfishness, fear, and tribalism seem on the rise. From the no vote to jihadi terrorism to acts of war. Drone attacks, displacement, rape, kidnapping, children killed…
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The times they are a changing…
This week our eldest child graduated from high school. There are still a set of exams to complete, but formal schooling is done and dusted. It is a momentous milestone in the life of any child. But it’s also a pretty huge “WTF??” for us. You don’t really notice time passing. You just notice the effects. The lines on your face in the mirror, the padding on the belly. The fact that your child is suddenly an adult and using your Uber account to get home from a club at 2am. My attention seems captured by beginner parents at the…
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My name is Sharlene. I write reflections of my life as a mother (without a manual), a middle aged woman, a traveller and a member of this strange species of primate we call humanity.
Here is what I know. Life will flow past you, if you are not careful. It’s precious and fleeting, and is not a rehearsal. But for a moment in the vast history of existence we have sentience, we can look around at the world, at the stars and at our own existence, and wonder. And in that wondering I find meaning.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Onwards,
Sharlene
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Reflections from Middle Age 
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