Janna Marlies Maron

Hi Reader, I’m back this week with another story from yoga class. Last week the teacher shared that no matter what has happened in the past, a shift and change are possible at any moment. Healing is possible. Some people call this grace, she said, and it is always available to us—if we are open to receiving it. It didn't take long for the tears to come. Of course my mind darted immediately to my body and its physical healing. But there’s also a host of other things happening in my personal...

Hi Reader, I don’t have any deep words to say today in the wake of the US election results. Regardless of how you voted, I hope you know and understand how profoundly many, many, many people will be adversely affected because of who we elected. So what I do have for you today is a writing prompt for self-care. It’s two parts: What if . . . (fear): Write out all of the fears, worries, doubts, anxieties you have. Write without stopping. Get out as much as you can. This is an exercise in...

Hi Reader, A few weeks ago I wrote to you about a conversation I had with a woman who told me that she’s afraid she’ll ruin the experience of her life story if she writes about it. It must have hit a chord because I received a lot of responses. One person wrote to tell me that she knows she could write an awesome book, that’s not the problem. But she thinks it would be a waste of time because no one will publish it. “So why spend all that time and hope and love for nothing?” she said. Oof....

Hi Reader, It’s Monday evening as I write this, but it’s the end of what feels like a long week for me because I had to get an MRI today. Actually, I had to go back to finish my annual MRI. Getting MRIs is nothing new for me. Since being diagnosed with MS in 2012, I’ve been getting them regularly. But every time it still feels like an ordeal. And this time was no different. Usually I go to the same medical facility where my neurologist (and all of my providers) is located, but because that...

Hi Reader, I’m late to the party on this topic, but what about the Paris Olympics opening ceremony? OMG! I missed it live (I know, I KNOW!), but, we pay for SO.MANY. streaming services, and, alas, NBC/Peacock/Whetevertheheck is not one of them. Instead I’ve been catching up with YouTube highlights, the online chatter, the sheer joy of it all, the unabashed excitement that everyone needs right now after the shitstorm we’ve been living through, and, yes, the conservative criticism—it was the...

Hi Reader, I saw a post on Instagram last week from someone I follow sharing a mini-story about her dating life. She is a woman in her sixties and a recovering alcoholic who has been celibate and not dating for “a couple of decades,” she says in the post. Her reason for not dating for so long is that in the past, when she had attempted dating after getting sober (online or otherwise), she had bad experiences with “narcissists, love bombers, and immature boys,” and, she says, “my general...

Hi Reader, There’s a trick that I use sometimes to get started writing. Actually, I use it every time I sit down to write these weekly emails and sometimes when I’m doing other writing. I’ll tell you the trick, but first I want to tell you about my friend Deborah. Deborah’s birthday was over the weekend, and with my birthday being the week before, we are almost exactly 20 years apart in age. Five years ago when I turned 40 and she turned 60, we hosted a joint 100-year-old birthday party with...

Hi Reader, Last week I went to my favorite coffee shop in Sacramento and ran into an acquaintance, a friend of a friend who I don’t know very well and haven’t seen in years. I almost didn’t recognize her, but she recognized me and said hello. We were chit-chatting for a few minutes while we waited in line for our coffees and she said she had seen a video that I had recently posted on social media. She said it felt like I was talking directly to her (which of course was great to hear because...

Hi Reader, Last week I read an interview that Anne Helen Petersen did with Sara B. Franklin, author of the newly released book The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America. Maybe you don’t know who any of these women are, but Anne Helen Petersen’s Substack newsletter, Culture Study, is one of my favorites (she also wrote the article about millennials being the burnout generation that went viral a few years ago). I didn’t know who Sara B. Franklin was before reading...

Hi Reader, In a recent yoga class, the teacher told us about a lesser-known Hindu goddess. Her name is Akhilandeshwari. She hops on top of her fear, the alligator, and steers it down the river of life, breaking apart and recreating herself at all times. Her name translates in English to: She Who Is Never Not Broken. When I search for this Goddess online I don’t find much more than this little bit my yoga teacher shared, but one point is emphasized in everything I read: the double negative in...