Nancy's Musings

It's my instinct to be deeply hurt and totally dismissive of what used to be called "fair-weather" friends. By that, I mean friends that hang around as long as you're fun and independent, but who disappear or back out when it gets difficult. Look, I can't even describe them without getting all judgy. How is being a Fair Weather Friend different than distancing yourself from toxic people? I know a lot of people who don't know the difference at all - who think they just want to surround themselves with positive people, when what they're doing is moving on as soon as (or when) the friendship asks for more than you're used to, or more than you're comfortable with. How often do depression sufferers hear that they're just too depressing to be around? I think every person has the right to choose who they spend time with, or give friendship to. For any reason at all. Nobody has to justify their decisions to anybody else. In a flash of gratifying irony,...

Antoine de St. Exupery was an amazing soul, and he wrote the most beautiful book in the universe called  The Little Prince . I have read it in three languages, but it's best in the original French. The most fascinating passage to me is the chapter where the little prince meets the fox, and the fox asks the little prince to tame him. "My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Thin...