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Lying in bed the evening of New Year’s Day 1999 in a hotel room, I palpated my abdomen and had a sinking feeling … something is really wrong. We were on a house-hunting trip to move our family with three small children (15 months, three years, and six years old) from Ithaca, NY to Minneapolis,…
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Sister Agnes Marie greeted our class as we filed into the brand new Foods and Culture Lab. Perfect grey curls framed her face under her traditional habit. Her face was puffy with old age and her pasty lips looked like she ate a lot of Tums. A transfer student entering my sophomore year, I had…
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My attention was jolted out of my pre-speech-giving trance when the speaker ahead of me started to tell a story about taking her 86-year-old father to the grocery store. She had let him wander the aisles with his own cart because he was persnickety about his independence. After finishing her shopping, she got into the…
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“Turn off the wind!” 4-year-old Jackson hollered as we paused a short way into our first run of our second family ski trip to Red Lodge, Montana. Everyone was excited to ski Lazy M again, a 2.5-mile cruising run with spectacular vistas. Abby, Jackson, and I were getting slapped by a howling wind as we…
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Shivering by the side of the pool, my seven-year-old-self did not want to jump into the water. The pool overwhelmed my senses; it was located in the cavernous basement of a 55-year-old YMCA (built in 1909). Kids’ voices echoed off the walls and the damp, rank air assaulted my nose. My sisters were already in…
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After one of my storytelling workshops, a participant handed me his business card and invited me to call him because he wanted me to share his story. Anonymity is important to him, so let’s call him Mike. Sixteen years earlier, Mike was a rising star as a design engineer. He was being groomed for advancement…
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When I got home after receiving my lay-off notice from General Mills, I tossed my severance packet on the couch, joined my husband on the porch with a glass of wine, and started brainstorming names for the business I wanted to start. After working on the naming challenge for about six weeks, I was…
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On my 40th birthday, I told my husband (Jay), “I’d like to start lifting weights and take guitar lessons.” Surprised to hear those words coming out of my mouth, he asked me why I wanted to become a strong guitar player? I reasoned … if I’d started practicing skills that didn’t come naturally 20 years…
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Choking back tears, I shoved my grade report into my backpack as I left my English professor’s office. I was bewildered that he had given me a C+ in freshman Composition and Literature. Was it a mistake? I’d always performed well in high school English classes and had worked hard in the course. He acknowledged…
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Early in my career as a dietitian, I answered a panicky phone call from a participant in my weight loss program. Pat (not her real name) said, “Jean, I have a problem and really need to talk to you.” She had been a “perfect” participant: never missed class, her food diaries and exercise log showed stellar…
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