Please listen to Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence (click here) while reading my musing… I have been thinking on and off about different types of silence… Have you noticed how not all silence is the same? Or feels the same? …When silence feels like a wonderful experience; When it is relaxing, scary, sad, traumatic, [...]

I am fortunate to be ‘home-full’ – I have many homes around the world I am welcome. And I have lived in quite a few places… As such concepts of ‘home’ are sometimes a bit abstract for me…Home can be where I am, where my family and friends are, where someone or something I love [...]

…thinking about fabric, and the fabric of our lives…   Fabric image (c) Natalie Shell 2007

The other day I thought "Mondrian". And as I sat to write today it came back…  At the same time, this very morning, I mapped out my family story project "the family forest" as if it was a patchwork quilt.   The quilt/grid I mapped out by hand had 24. 4 rows, 6 columns. I [...]

Once upon a time… McLuhan’s ghost is at work again. There is an oddly disturbing yet fascinating emergence in storyland "The Proppian Fairy Tale Generator" – based on the work of Russian structuralist Vladimir Propp…(thanks Paul and others) His idea, and the idea behind the generator is that all fairytales have basic elements – so [...]

I am sitting in an airport connected to free (but-who-knows-what-data-they-are-collecting) wireless and I am speaking to you – whereever you may be? whatever you may be be-ing?  And I am thinking about this year and my world. I’ve had the opportunity to live in 5 countries. Meet wonderful people. And travel to a few more. [...]

I repeat: You are not your resume! Please repeat, out loud if necessary, like a mantra. If you are not up for the whole spiel, You Can Find 7 Steps to Less Stressful Resume.doc Writing under Actions, below. Other people have written much nicer better things on how to be creative and not average. Here, [...]

Verba Volant / Scripta Manent = Spoken words fly away / but writing remains  via The Treehouse  – Naomi Wolf  “…This is one of the … words. Its roots sink deep and stretch out far…There is a great moving force therein. A great moving force and yet again, only a lost sound. It is a [...]

                                Image: Perseverance (c) Harry Araten  Backstory / Story with image  Please note: not all this backstory relates to image/notion above – you may prefer to scroll down to ‘related stories‘ section…   *** "When is the best time to plant [...]

I was speaking to Simon the other night and given his background – expat parents, international school, two passports, religion, friends living in geographically disparete places and so forth…- and my own multi-natonal background and movements around the world, we had a conversation on identity and home…and how we feel parts of lots of places: [...]