Here's my latest column published in The IS Collection, found in the San Francisco Chronicle...enjoy!

“Thank goodness you’re weird.” Olivia made her opinion about me known with unquestionable confidence, and eye contact which had honesty written all over it. “We’re both weird Brookie. And it’s good. ‘Cause people who aren’t weird are very boring. And we’re not boring. And that’s good.”

And it was.

This month The IS Collection is coming clean with Soapbox Therapy! Check it out...

A funny thing happens to your authentic inner amazing fabulous self and your hopes and dreams and goals and talents and creativity, when they don’t get expressed to the world. When you keep them inside, afraid and unsure of your interest in letting them be seen and heard and witnessed and challenged. They get stuck, weigh you down, and, drum roll please…make you depressed. Yes, really.

Not the I-just-lost-someone-or-something kind of depression. Not the transition and change and new chapter of life kind of depression. Not the post or pre or during or after that new thing started or that old thing ended kind of depression. This is the I-have-no-idea-why-I-feel-so-down-and-dark-and-heavy-and-I’ve- talked-and-analyzed-and-told-my-story-from-childhood-to-now-and-haven’t-yet-found-a-clue--kind of depression.

Once in a while I learn a word, a phrase, a way to explain something I’ve been trying and craving and yearning to explain in that perfect I-get-it-and-it’s-never-made-more-sense-than-it-does-now-kind-of-way.

Last week, while having tea and catching up with my beautiful friend Rebecca, it happened; I learned the phrase I’ve been looking for.

Here's a little something I wrote for The IS Collection this month...

In my house, presented proudly amongst candles and a vase of flowers, is “The Art of Doing Nothing,” a book by Veronique Vienne. Despite being an amazing resource, this book became a decorative accessory describing ways to relax and recharge I had yet to sample. I loved having it on display, even though I hadn’t picked it up or read it for years, because simply walking past it on a daily basis made me feel like one day, preferably in this lifetime, I might just get around to learning about doing nothing. Finally, I did..

I took my always going, working, doing-something-self to boon hotel + spa, with hopes of not only celebrating travel, but practicing shifting gears, changing scenery, slowing down … and with some luck, learning a bit about nothing.

The following article was published in The IS Collection's March 2010 issue. Check out their website here!

Buying things and giving things and getting things. Affording and keeping and wanting and craving and needing things. There is a stigma about our attachment with and desire for things: Fingers pointed, judgments formed, comments made and conclusions jumped to-because of our relationship with things. But the thing is, things are not a bad thing. I wonder though, what really is the thing about things?

Some things are just things and other things represent things far more than material things. People, places, that time a long time ago and that time yet to come. Everyone has different things that matter, different things that mean something. Sometimes things are the only way to say, describe, explain, express that thing that you want to say, describe, explain, express…but don’t-can’t-won’t…without a thing--so you don’t have to say a thing.