Jo’s Blog

This story about yellow flowers makes me look like the Good Guy, but that’s not why I am telling it. I’m telling it to inspire you to go ahead and do that amazing thing you know you want to because 40 years from now (maybe 42) you [...]

A loved one dying at home is not a small thing. My own culture teaches us that people should die in hospitals (in a study some years ago in America, while 88% responding said they wanted to die at home, 56% actually died in a hospital). Here in [...]

Two of my oldest friends came to visit last month. We had been together in 1982 at a pivotal time in all our lives: in India, learning Hindi, before we had children . . . all three of us remember that time as magical. We met in Mussoorie (the [...]

2016 – The Year of The Wall, The Year of Exclusion, The Year of Us vs Them – is over. Thank God. 2017 can only be better. Or so we all hope. We keep that hope alive by continuing to do what we do, whether it is writing or teaching or [...]

My friend Vibha and I attend many conferences – both separately and together. They all have a lot in common. Speakers are typically over-informed and under-prepared; eager for recognition, unwilling to listen to others, convinced of their [...]

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. ~ Thomas Merton It’s hard to improve when everyone keeps telling you how great you already are. Walk around with a disability and everyone finds you amazing. Have a child with special [...]

I guess we all have a litmus test – a secret standard by which we measure (even judge) others. The veteran may wonder how that young guy – so macho and cocky – would behave in battle. The grandmother wants to know how that girl [...]