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LIFE & LIVING

A good story can change the way you see the world!

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Living Out This Idea of Love

stephanieraffelock

Sep 5, 2019
4 min

Living Out This Idea of Love

It seems to me that the universe is bound together by dancing molecules of love. I’ve had a couple of rough weeks. Free floating anxiety. Restless sleep. Self doubt. It was as if my psyche developed little cracks and all of that seeped in. I didn’t immediately recognize that I was in distress. Then, this morning, I was awake at 4:00am, swimming in worry and anxiety that wasn’t attached to anything real: would I lose my wallet in the airport when I travel next week? Is my

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Is Age Just A Number?

stephanieraffelock

Jul 27, 2014
4 min

Is Age Just A Number?

The impervious feeling of youth is a delicious drunk of newness and firsts: first apartment, first true love, first heartbreak; the delight of garage sales and thrift shops, that furnish the backdrop upon which one begins to build a life, blissfully unaware of the baggage of childhood that follows them into independence and self-sufficiency. In my twenties, I surfed in the mornings with Bernie, napped in the afternoons and then waited cocktails at night to pay for a life styl

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Musings on Living Fully

stephanieraffelock

Apr 12, 2013
4 min

Musings on Living Fully

Twenty-five years ago, tennis was my game. I loved the feeling of getting up early and hitting for an hour before work. I loved the cute little tennis outfits. It was a vibrant game and it made me feel vital. But as nature sometimes compels, that particular sport was finite in my life. A scoliotic back and disc degeneration saw to it. Those two physical messengers had their way with me. Eventually I would stop playing tennis, downhill skiing, or any type of aerobics where my

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Doing the Leibster

stephanieraffelock

Apr 1, 2013
3 min

Doing the Leibster

Some mornings, most mornings, I wake up with the committee blaring in my head. There is the usual to-do list, then a tremendous amount of junk-copy enticing me to grab and chew on it. I have to sit for a while with my tea and stare into space before everything calms down enough to prioritize the chatter. Some mornings I read something inspirational. Right now that would be Brother David Steindle-Rast–“Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer.” I like the focus of the book. I fin

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The Story You Are In

stephanieraffelock

Mar 26, 2013
2 min

The Story You Are In

Sometimes it seems so clear; where I am and who I am and what story is unfolding. I had grandparents that slept in separate bedrooms; that spat and grunted communications that were interlaced with whiskey bottles and wooden rosary beads. I vowed to never be like them. My husband and I dance a different dance. We will not, cannot sleep apart. I love this story. It is punctuated by small acts of tenderness that reach out like vines into shared cups of warm ginger tea, someone t

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A Smith Corona and Wild Weeds

stephanieraffelock

Mar 23, 2013
2 min

A Smith Corona and Wild Weeds

Spiral journals came after that, more poetry and lyrics to songs, short stories about my parents divorce. I swooned over Anis Nin and May Sarton; fell in love with T.S. Eliot and Yeats. Discovered Margaret Atwood and imitated all of it in notebook after notebook. I signed up for classes at the Adult Learning Center and got to be the best one. I sat around writer’s tables and dove into short stories, had lengthy conversations with a man old enough to be my father who gave me b

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Blogging Practice

stephanieraffelock

Mar 21, 2013
3 min

Blogging Practice

Women’s Voices – Natalie Goldberg The new Natalie Goldberg book arrived from Amazon yesterday. Before the sun came up, I made a cup of tea and crawled back into bed to begin reading. An excerpt from a letter appears early on in the book: a man was sitting with his Zen teacher and the teacher says “you know what’s wrong with you?” The ultimate question from the teacher, thought the man edging forward to catch the answer. “You need to write.” That was it, “you need to write.” I

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More of the “Sad” Same

stephanieraffelock

Mar 14, 2013
2 min

More of the “Sad” Same

New Pope. It was the big world news yesterday. For me, it was curious and sad. Even though I was raised a Catholic, I want nothing to do with institutions that exclude women, or anyone for that matter. An all male church that worships an all male God cannot ever be in balance. Period. And the argument that Jesus didn’t have any women disciples is not necessarily accurate or true. But supposing for a minute that he didn’t, do we really take the message of love and twist it int

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Details

stephanieraffelock

Mar 12, 2013
1 min

Details

Why should it matter that wet, March snow makes your boots create a squeaking sound when you walk around the lake in the early morning hours? Why should the carrion of geese make you lift your gaze to the sky and smile? It is the observance of the small details that fill my heart with appreciation. I love this. I belong to this and it belongs to me. We are each other sings the sound of snow boots and wintering geese, muddy paths from the quick melt, promising spring. #spiritu

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For the Love of Sunday and Rilke

stephanieraffelock

Mar 10, 2013
2 min

For the Love of Sunday and Rilke

Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke Sunday is the best day of the week. It stretches before me without schedule or obligation. It makes no demands. I pour a mug of hot black tea with honey and return to bed, sitting among pillows and comforter with my books and my laptop, the accessories of Sunday morning. A spring snow fell most of the day yesterday, a heavy grey shawl that wrapped itself around the house and closed us in, leaving my husband to work at his desk an

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