March 2018 – the unSecret Garden

(or Who Are You?)

The other day I received this notification from WordPress: Your stats are booming! the unSecret Garden is getting lots of traffic.

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It wasn’t that a blog post had gone viral or that I was lucky enough to be featured on the WordPress Discover site. It was just that someone had found my blog and was busy reading their way through nearly the whole thing – which at current count stands at 40 posts and 62,625 words.

I continue to be amazed and heartened that anyone even wants to read what I write. It becomes more compelling when others find my experiences and reflections to be meaningful and helpful. It makes some of the nonsense of this world seem less senseless.

Continue reading “Anonymous” →

(or What’s Love Got to Do With It?)

My absolute favorite part of the New York Times is the Sunday Style section. It’s where I get to read my favorite column “Modern Love” and an advice column called “Social Q’s” and usually some juicy celebrity gossip. It’s the one section that I love to read in print and will avoid online, even if an article pops up in the “Most Popular” or “Editor’s Picks” sections.

So last week, as I quickly perused the headlines over breakfast, an article on the front page of the Style section immediately caught my eye. It was titled “Still Talking After All These Years” and it was a recap of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s annual conference held at the New York Hilton Midtown. If I had known, I would have seriously considered crashing the “new attendees’ cocktail party” just for a laugh. Although the mere thought of 1,600 analysts hanging out together for a week is somehow deeply disturbing, even if the Times writer described the mood as “effervescent.”

Continue reading “So an Analyst Walks into a Bar…” →