Literary Safari

Jim Rogers was a multi-millionaire investor who could afford to retire and morph into a world traveler before he turned 37, but it took him another 25 years to find the courage to become a father. In the introduction to his latest book, A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing (Random House, June 2009), the best-selling author of Hot Commodities and Adventure Capitalist writes:

I must admit that not very long ago I would have scoffed at even the idea of having children of my own. Growing up in Alabama, I was the oldest of five boys, and much as I loved my brothers, I spent an awful lot of time looking after them! Alas, I couldn’t help but notice what a financial burden having five children had imposed on my parents no mater how keen they were on us. Later in life, I was too busy working and traveling even to think about parenthood, which seemed like an endless drain on the time, energy, and money with which I was pursuing my passions.  …

In his latest book, Rogers takes a break from writing about his travel escapades or providing tips on the best places to invest your money, instead distilling his life experiences into a book of advice for his two daughters, five-year old Happy and Bee, who was born in 2008.  Becoming a father at the age of 62, when he had the “experience, time, and energy” allowed Rogers to take on his new role with “passion” inspired him to put down his life lessons “in one place, with examples of[his] own experience, as a guide to life, adventure, and investing” with perhaps cliché sounding chapter titles such as:

Swim Your Own Races: Do Not Let Others Do Your Thinking for You
Focus on What You Like
Common Sense? Not So Common
Let the World Be a Part of Your Perspective
Learn Philosophy: Learn to “Think”
Learn History!
Learn Languages
Recognize Change and Embrace It
Look to the Future!

But there are surprises and interesting twists along the way, such as Rogers advice to his children that they learn Mandarin (”It is the century of China!”, understand the significance of the BRIC nations (”focus investment strategies on growing economies abroad”), experience the world’s diversity (”I urge you to leave your country for a few years. You can always return, but you will have a new understanding. Of everything.”), or even something as simple as the importance of saving (”As you get older, you will probably have friends who eat at expensive restaurants every night, buy the latest gadgets or fashion trends, and spend vacations at fancy beach resorts. You must avoid the trap of spending money willynilly simply because you can. Not only is this a road to financial ruin, it can cause you to forget what’s important in life.”)

I picked this book up at the library a couple of days ago, and both my husband and I got through most of it the same evening. There’s something about the combination of sentimentality, practicality, and utilitarianism, plus a down to earth approach to living an authentic life, that appealed to both of us — not just as tips that we hope to someday pass on to our soon-to-be daughter, but also as advice we could apply to our own lives.

One gets the feeling that Rogers sat down to compose this thoughts and sentiments for his two treasures with the knowledge that there is no certainty that he may be around when they are in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties  … to be able to tell them all this himself. As someone whose father passed away when I was 27, but who was very much a world traveler, a wise investor, a reader, an explorer, and an adventurer, Rogers’ perspective was the perfect father’s day gift that fell into my lap.

I was intrigued, but slightly skeptical when I signed up for a cooking class at the newly-opened Indian Culinary Center a few weeks ago. What could I, a vegetarian who has been cooking desi food pretty regularly for the past couple of years, learn that was new and interesting in an Indian Vegetarian Delights Class? A lot, it turns out.

The ICC is run by Geetika Khanna, a former psychologist and graduate of the French Culinary Institute who has been charting a path in the food industry for the past 10+ years. I really felt like I was walking into another world when I rang the buzzer of 131 W. 23rd St., which turned out to be the Chelsea Inn, a cosy bed and breakfast whose ground floor industrial kitchen turned out to be the cooking school of the now-defunct culinary arts program of The New School, where it turns out, Khanna used to be an instructor.

On this particular Tuesday night, nine of us had signed up to spend the evening learning how to cook with Khanna, a tall, relaxed, and skilled instructor who weaves anecdotes about her family in with technique tips and practical approaches on how to make Indian cooking a part of your culinary repertoire, instead of something exotic and inaccessible. For those like me, who generally cook at least one or two Indian meals a week, it was the practical tips like how to clean your spice grinder — run a piece of bread through it — and the ease and humor with which Khanna made cooking a six-course meal seem doable (from scratch, using mostly fresh ingredients) that was the tipping point. Plus, I enjoyed her running commentary on colonialism, the evolution of the Indian “curry,” and the Food Network —and she gave me the courage to fry my first pooris, a big deal for a gal who has always had a fear of deep frying. There were also a few surprises along the way, like the fact that she uses cayenne pepper in her masala dhaba. [Click on the narrated slideshow above for a walk-through of the class and a look at our full menu.]

The menu for that day’s class was what Khanna referred to as a typical Sunday breakfast meal that her North Indian-Punjabi household would eat in Delhi. In my Sindhi home, it would be dinner or lunch and there would be many more fried foods! So yes, the variation is incredible, but here in the US, there are common denominators to the term “Indian cuisine” and certain lines do, I think, get blurred. For example, when I first started cooking, I made dishes based on recipes I found online (because it’s easier than trying to get my mom to talk to me about measurements) and so, they were always slightly different than what I grew up eating. It’s only now that I’m starting to figure out how to adjust the spices and ingredients so that they taste more like my grandmother and mother’s food.

The three and a half hour class cost $55, and was followed by a delicious six-course meal. A pretty good deal for an evening out in NYC where you’re learning, eating, and meeting a bunch of interesting people. (Other NYC cooking classes range from $100 to $200 per person).

At present, Khanna offers classes every month, and has plans to invite other chefs of Indian cuisine to teach at the ICC. With all the regional variations of Indian food plus diasporic foods such as Indian Chinese, West Indian, and Indo-French, as well as the wealth of Indian chefs in the New York area, I’m sure there are many more yummy lessons and treats to return to at the ICC. I’ll definitely be going back.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in interning with Khanna, she’s looking. Drop her a line.

I’m a creature of habit and making lists is at the top of my “habit list.” My day does not go right unless I sit down in the morning and make a list of goals, things to do, and even, places to go. My father used to make lists too. After his death, I found yellow legal notepad after yellow legal notepad filled with numbered lists of his daily goals. I’m sure that if he were alive today for me to ask him what he liked best about his list-making (apart from the direction it gave him), he would answer, “Crossing out things!”

There’s also something lyrical about lists, the way one line flows into the other, creating a rhythm and space in which to find yourself. I suppose that’s what attracted me to the anthology of original children’s list poems, Falling Down the Page, edited by Georgia Heard (Roaring Brook Press, 2009).

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s classic list poem Song of Myself, this collection of original poems highlights a variety of styles, all of which are tied together by the common themes of school and the everyday experiences of the school year. Featured authors include Jane Yolen (”In My Desk”), Marilyn Singer (”In My Hand”), Eileen Spinelli (”Creativity”),  Bobbi Katz (”Things to Do If You are the Sun”), and one of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye (”Words in My Pillow”).  The poems span a range of moods — lighthearted, serious, thoughtful, funny, and whimsical. There’s something for every type of kid here.

Besides my fascination with lists, there was also something about the size of the book that I found extremely appealing. Laid out vertically at 5×10 inches, its topsy-turvy text, curvy font treatment of titles, and offbeat design are a visual invitation to readers to think differently — outside of the standard horizontal box of our minds — and to sit down and invent our own list poems.

I recently wrote a piece, “Summer School: Play with Words” for Kahani magazine (forthcoming in the Summer 2009 issue). Building upon my previous advice at A+ Advice for Parents, it offers ideas for wordplay exercises. I wish I’d come across Heard’s anthology earlier so that I could have also recommended it to readers. Oh well; better late than never. If you have school age children, why not sit down with them and write a list poem this summer? Or, you could do what I did after earlier today, after re-reading Falling Down the Page: sit down with your own pencil and sheet of paper and see what emerges.

Below the fold is my little list poem inspired by the cloudy skies we’ve had in NYC of late.

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While the spotlight shines on Barack Obama’s long-awaited speech to the Muslim World, closer to home, I’ve been seeing lots of posters and advertising for the upcoming Muslim Voices Festival in New York City which begins today, Friday, June 5 and runs through the 14th of this month. Featuring concerts, lectures, film screenings on PBS, and even, a souk, the ten-day festival is designed to celebrate the arts and culture of Muslim societies. It is the culmination of three years of organizing by the Asia Society, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and NYU”s Center for Dialogues.

Below the fold is a listing of a few of the South Asia-related events coming up over the next fortnight. Don’t let your exploration stop there. There’s tons more on the calendar worth checking out.

But first, I want to tell you about a book that I’ve been reading which ties in well to the theme of this festival: Kavitha Rajagopalan’s Muslims of Metropolis which was published by Rutgers University Press late last year.

Muslims of Metropolis is a sensitive and thoughtful examination of international migration and the social construct of identity. Rajagopalan spent nearly 7 years researching and writing her first book which tells the stories of the journeys of three families from majority-Muslim countries to three major Western metropolises. In London, she follows a Palestinian man from Jerusalem and his Syrian wife. In Berlin, a Turkish Kurdish community. And, in post 9/11 New York, and a Bangladeshi man and his daughter who married an undocumented Pakistani man.

As Rajagopalan puts it in her introduction:

These families come from different socioeconomic, political, and ethnic backgrounds, but they are all Muslim. It should be noted, however, that this is not a book on theology or Islamic history. Although the stories in this book will refer to the ways in which characters relate to Islam as they construct their identities, cope with adversity, or understand their roles in the world, this is not ultimately a book about Muslims but about immigrants … I have chosen to write about Muslim immigrants because I believe that the social identity of Muslim immigrants stands under the greatest pressure of misunderstanding and mistrust throughout the world.

Over the past several months, Rajagopalan has been touring the country doing multimedia presentations and readings from her book. I attended one reading right here in NYC and was struck by her ability to weave together multiple human narratives with solid research in a manner that was penetrating and insightful, at once literary, journalistic, and accessibly academic. (more…)

When you’re visibly pregnant and riding the NYC subway with a book titled “Family Planning” in hand, you’re bound to draw stares and curious gazes. Such was my experience earlier this month as I traveled on the downtown 1 with 25 year old Karan Mahajan’s laughter-inducing yet tender first novel in hand. In this Brooklyn-based, New Delhi-born author’s debut work (HarperPerennial, 2008) set in contemporary New Delhi, family life, politics, adolescent love, and prime time soap operas intertwine in entertaining and unexpectedly moving ways.

At the heart of this story is the chaotic household of Rakesh Ahuja, a hard of hearing, America returned engineer who holds a prestigious position as New Delhi’s Minister of Urban Development. Apart from the bureaucratic and political challenges that face him at work (he’s in charge of a laborious flyover construction project and part of a political party that sponsors “intolerable bills such as the Diversity of the Motherland Act which calls for the compulsory resignation of all Muslims “for reasons of diversity and national security”), Rakesh is beset by his own personal dramas at home.

The father of 13 children (and one more en route), he must deal with the trauma of having had his teenage son Arjun walk in on him having sex with his wife in the baby nursery. Understandably, Arjun asks, “Papa, I don’t understand—why do you and Mama keep having babies?”

While he has to figure out a way to explain himself to his son (“Obviously, Mr. Ahuja couldn’t tell his son that he was only attracted to Mrs. Ahuja when she was pregnant” reads the first line of the novel), this is not the only secret Mr. Ahuja has been keeping from his son, master babysitter and eldest of 12 younger siblings and darling of his mother, Mrs. Ahuja, an unattractive woman whose days are spent changing diapers, managing her vast household, knitting, and recovering from the loss of her favorite TV character Mohan Bedi from Zee-TV soap opera, “The Vengeful Daughter-in-Law.” There’s also the bit of information about Rakesh’s first wife, Arjun’s mother, who suffered a tragic death and who continues to haunt his unhappy existence. Meanwhile there’s Arjun, an awkward teen so madly in love with Aarti, a Catholic school beauty who rides the morning bus with him that he’ll do anything to get her attention—even start a rock band with a bunch of classmates.

Yes, there’s a great deal happening in Mahajan’s novel; many competing heartbreaks and dramas. And yet, as a reader, I was pulled in just as much by Mahajan’s observant and sensitive eye as I was by his ability to create satirical scenarios that reflect some of the complexities and paradoxes of social and political life in today’s India.

Read the rest of this review and a Q&A with Mahajan, whose sense of humor is as refreshing in the interview format as it is in his prose, below the fold. (more…)

Here’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: indulge in a proper afternoon tea for two, complete with pretty little teapots, finger sandwiches, sweets, and great company. I finally did it, last night–for dinner!

My friend Maria and I found ourselves at Tea and Sympathy, a proper British tea room (their motto is “If you’re looking for anything British, you’re in the right place) in the West Village around supper time, and though I started out eyeing plates such as welsh rarebit and shepherd’s pie, my focus quickly shifted when the two ladies near us received their tea service for two. There’s something about the silver tower piled with sweet and savory tidbits …. it makes me feel like a prim and proper lady and a little kid all at once.

My teapot was short and stout, an olde world map laid out lovingly on her, a little panda in sunglasses sitting atop her lid. Steeping inside were white tea leaves and rose petals. And, on our tea tower were vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, and an array of bite-sized sandwiches. We got the vegetarian tea platter which came with cream cheese and cucumber, cheese and branston pickle sandwiches, egg salad with watercress, and tomato and cream cheese sandwiches, all on some type of amazing whole grain bread, except for the egg salad ones.

I’m not sure how delicious everything actually was or whether my imagination’s so enamored with the idea of this combination that anything served up on a dainty tower would taste just as wonderful.  Like many Indian children, I grew up on a steady diet of children’s books and adventures by Enid Blyton, all of which were replete with midnight feasts and picnic lunches that spoke of foods that were unfamiliar to my palate. My mouth would water as I read about ginger beer, bangers, smoked trout, scones, macaroons, cucumber sandwiches, crumpets, deviled eggs, and treacle pudding; all culinary possibilities that were far away from my reality (with the exception of cucumber sandwiches and deviled eggs!).

Last night, I was not only reminded of my love affair with the food in my favorite childhood stories, but also of a special little book I received not too long ago from one of my favorite food bloggers, The Gourmet Cartographer. The book, Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer, by British author Jane Brocket, is a treasury of memories and recipes of “foodstuffs and food occasions in children’s literature.” (A mini-review follows below the fold.) (more…)

Originally published at Sepia Mutiny.

My two-year old nephew can’t get enough of Lingo the Lion and ever since I watched the DVD “Animals”, I can see why.

One of the offerings from the bilingual publisher Little GuruSkool, “Animals” is what I’d call a Desi equivalent of the immensely popular Baby Einstein series. Combining video footage of the natural world with animated characters, adorable little puppets and Desi babies, and catchy music, it promises to help the diasporic subcontinental parent “introduce their children to the Indian culture in a fun and interactive way.”

Little GuruSkool is a relatively new company, based in Chicago and founded by Pooja Pittie Goel, the mother of a preschooler who “wanted to expose her son to Indian languages, music, art and nature at an early age, but could not find any books or DVDs in the market (either in the US or in India) that were appropriate for pre-schoolers - educational and entertaining at the same time.” When she couldn’t find what she needed in the market place, she decided to create the products (DVDs, audio CDs, and illustrated, high quality board books) herself. The production quality is impressive, and after I finished watching the “Animals” DVD, I couldn’t get the song about “choti choti machliya” (little, tiny fish) out of my head.

If you’re in the market for a gift for that little desi toddler in your life, Little GuruSkool’s line is sure to be a happy discovery for you. It’s a welcome addition to the current offerings of bilingual, multimedia educational lines such as Sonali Herrera’s Meera Masi, Monika Jain’s Kahani, Rashmi Turner’s Global Wonders, and Kavita (Shah) Bafana’s Little Ustaads (Indian classical music classes), all created by moms to fill existing gaps in the Desi educational marketplace. (I certainly did not have any of these options when I was a toddler, and am glad to know my little one will!)

Below the fold: a brief interview with Pooja Pittie Goel for those interested in her story and process. (more…)

This picture in today’s New York Times magazine (“The Way We Live Now”) made me smile. These uppity lunching ladies really need to make an investment in the purse hook I picked up in Spain earlier this month.

The purse hook is a little hanger that you can latch onto the edge of any table at a restaurant and from which you can hang your purse (no long straps please, but heavy purses are fine as some of these hooks supposedly hold up to 200 lbs! I haven’t tested this claim yet!) . No more slinging purses on the shoulder of your chair or putting them on the floor.

Here, in the US, this is a burgeoning online business, especially since  recent studies reporting on the variety of germs that can be carried around via our purses have made many of us wary of where we put our bags down:

A study conducted in the US tested the purses of 50 women in your average shopping mall. Swabs were taken from the bottom of the purses and then taken back to a lab to test what was living on them and the results are quite disturbing. One out of four purses were carrying the e-coli bacteria. A host of other bacteria were also found on the purses, the most notable being hepatitis. The researchers recommend that woman wipe the bottom of their purse once a day and to be very cautious of where they place it.

What a clever little invention. I’ve been on the look out for one for quite some time, but they aren’t easy to find in retail stores here as they are in Spain (where I picked up my Miro-designed version up in a souvenir shop for a mere 3 euros) or in Brazil, where girls grow up with the superstition that you’ll lose all of your money if you put your purse on the floor. According to this article, the hooks have actually been around since the 1920s, when handbags emerged as a symbol of the emancipated women. “Even Queen Elizabeth is said to employ an S-shaped one to hang her handbags, the contents of which remain a mystery.”

This is definitely one of those handy inventions that belongs in Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things.

A few places where you can get one of your own (no, I don’t make a cut off this endorsement!):
Flo’s Accessories: Personalized and engraved ($15.95 plus shipping)
Bed Bath and Beyond: The As Seen on TV version ($9.99 for a set of two, plus carrying case)
Purse Jewelry: Lots of pretty designs ($8.95 each plus shipping)

Dali spent his summers here as a child and bought a home in this small, Mediterranean village in Catalonia’s Costa Brava. He lived here with his wife until the 1990s. Picasso painted here. So did Matisse, Duchamps, and Max Ernst. The cobble stone winding streets are filled with art galleries and ceramic shops where artisans ply their wares in a most leisurely manner, hunched over tables on which sit their paint brushes, half-filled wine glasses, trays of tapas, and paintbrushes.

It’s off season so the streets are empty of most tourists and we have the pleasure of seeing school children walk home hand in hand with their parents, Arab women pushing strollers down steep hills, and construction workers sturdying up the walls of the bay before the beginning of the summer season.

Yesterday evening, we tried to visit the Museo de Cadaques. After a long uphill climb and rocky downhill descent, we arrived at the front door to find it locked. I peered in through the window and saw a TV screen showing a movie of people making chocolate. “Ah, the museum must be open,” I said. “They’re screening a movie.” I knocked on the door several times until a large elderly woman with silver hair, dressed in widow’s black opened the door. In Catalan, she informed me in exasperation that this was her house, not the museum!

We moved on, in search of a bench from which we could watch the sun set over the bay.  It’s good to have nothing to do except watch the sun set.

I wrote last week about a young adult novel that grapples with the impact of 9/11 on the Sikh community. Today, I bring you a review of a new novel published as part of the Modern History Press’s”Reflections of America” series.  Drop a note in the comments section for a chance to win a free copy of this book.

We have read numerous stories in the mainstream media about the widows of 9/11. Not so many about the Muslim victims. In her novel Saffron Dreams, Austin-based Pakistani-American author Shaila Abdullah fills a void in that literature by providing the perspective of a pregnant Pakistani woman, Arissa, who loses her husband–a writer with a masters in literature who worked as a waiter in the Windows on the World restaurant–on September 11.

Inspired by the true story of Baraheen Ashrafi, a Bangladeshi woman who was widowed two days before the birth of her second child, Abdullah’s novel follows her main character on her five-year journey through the five stages of grief as she reconstructs her life in a world that views her as a perpetrator of the violence, not as a victim. Upon discovering her husband’s unfinished novel manuscript, she takes it into her hands and decides to try to complete it — an act of courage that allows her to connect with her deceased partner and acts as the impetus for her healing process.

I read this novel just after I’d wrapped my writing of a curriculum guide for an oral history of Muslim youth in New York City, This Is Where I Need To Be, which was published by Teachers College’s Student Press Initiative. It would make a wonderful read for both a young adult and adult audience interested in further exploring the ways in which America’s Muslim population experienced 9/11. Intertwined with flashbacks to Arissa’s childhood in Pakistan, this novel provides a valuable insight into secular, upper middle class Pakistani society. A much-needed perspective in the void of the American Muslim experience, it is an unflinching and moving look at the societal pressures of widowhood, the role that art can play in the healing process, and the impact of media bias and stereotyping on the Muslim American community in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Read a brief excerpt from the novel here. Below the fold is a brief Q&A with the author.

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Soon after 9/11, a friend of mine told me that her college roommate’s home had been visited by the local police in their town in upstate New York. The police wanted to search the home of this family because they’d heard they had a picture of Osama Bin Laden hanging in their living room. The cops were mistaken. This was the home of a pious Sikh family and the picture was of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion.

I’ve often thought about this story. There are so many more like it — incidents of mistaken identities, faulty detentions, stereotyping, and violent acts in the wake of September 11th. We’ve read about them in the press and slowly, literature is beginning to tackle this dark period of recent American history as well; a time that unfolded in what Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic artist, Art Spiegelman, described so aptly as “in the shadow of no towers.”

A few years ago, Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos was one of the first young adult offerings to address the challenge of growing up South Asian and Muslim in an America altered by 9/11. First time novelist Nisha Meminger takes on a similar theme in her new YA novel Shine, Coconut Moon, just published by Simon & Schuster.

When her turbaned uncle appears at the doorstep of her suburban NJ home just four days after the 9/11 attacks, 16 year old Samar is caught off guard. Raised in a single-parent household by an Indian-American mother who cut off ties with her Sikh family many years before, Samar has no connection to her cultural roots and traditions. She is skeptical of this man, Uncle Sandeep, who claims to want to reconnect with his estranged sister because “we’re living in different times now … and I want to be close to the ones I love. The world is in turmoil—we’re at war. Anything could happen at any moment.”

As Samar gets to know her uncle, she begins to learn about Sikhism and gets to know her grandparents. She even visits a gurdwara, Sikh temple, for the first time in her life. This prompts her to start questioning her mother’s decision to raise her to think of herself “like everyone else.” She begins to question her identity; wondering whether she is a coconut — someone who is brown on the outside and white on the inside—someone who may physically appear to be Indian but doesn’t know who she really is. At the same time, she is shocked and saddened by a series of troubling events in her community that affect her personally: her uncle is attacked by a bunch of teenage boys who goad him to “Go back home, Osama!” and the local gurdwara is set on fire.

In his compelling Guardian article “The End of Innocence” Pankaj Mishra writes, “‘Post-9/11’ fiction often seems to use the attacks and their aftermath too cheaply, as background for books that would have been written anyway.” Shine, Coconut Moon does not fall into this category. Most definitively shaped by the effect of 9/11 on minority immigrant communities, this is an ambitious coming of age novel for young adults that seeks to demonstrate the effects of fear mongering on the lives of ordinary minority teens who saw themselves as American before 9/11.

Below the fold is an excerpt from the novel, as well as a Q&A with, Neesha Meminger where she talks about her novel writing process and the real-life incidents that inspired it. And, for those in the NYC area, there is a book launch party and reading this Saturday, March 14th at 7 pm at Bluestockings Bookstore. (more…)

I know that writing in my journal after a difficult, traumatic, painful, confusing, or frightening experience always makes me feel better. I emerge from my time of writing slightly more at ease with life’s uncertainties and though I’m not naive enough to think all is well, I do experience a certain sensation of feeling lighter, as if a bit of the load has been lifted.

Researchers have been studying the impact of writing on health for several decades.  James Pennebaker, from the department of psychology at the University of Texas, has written several journal articles and books showing how basic cognitive and linguistic processes during writing predict better health through longterm improvements in moods and even, healthier blood work. [Check out one of his papers here.] Part of his conclusion was that the ideal writing time was 15 minutes of so.

Now, a new study “Effects of (Very) Brief Writing on Health” from the Universiy of Missouri shows that a minimal amount of two minutes a day of writing can attain similar results.

Participants wrote about either a personal trauma, a positive life experience, or a control topic for 2 minutes each day for 2 days. Emotion word usage in the essays was examined and physical health complaints were measured 4–6 weeks after the last writing session. Trauma and positive experience essays
contained more emotional content than the control essays and such content was of a similar percentage to that demonstrated by past research. Both the trauma and the positive experience conditions reported fewer health complaints at follow-up than the control condition.

The study concluded that “it might be enough to take (literally) just a couple minutes to reflect on important life experiences to garner the health benefits of writing.”

Two minutes. It takes two minutes sometimes to check my email on my iPhone, to load a webpage, to wait for the elevator, to pay for a gallon of milk at the corner store, to cross a busy street … Next time I say that I don’t have time to write in my journal, I hope I’ll remember that!

This post comes your way courtesy of the good folks at VSL Science.