Sheila Kohler

4 days ago | psychologytoday.com | Sheila Kohler

My Prerequisite for LoveI remember saying as a girl that I could not love someone who had not read Dostoevsky. It was perhaps a foolish prerequisite for love, but in a sense, I was looking outwards, looking for certain estimable qualities in the beloved, things that I admired. It was an active part of my search for the ideal mate. If we turn to the great love stories from literature, we can learn that love comes from both our memories and our imagination.

1 month ago | theamericanscholar.org | Sheila Kohler

IThe FatherWe were not taken to the funeral but were left with an aunt to play in the garden. Afterward, what I remembered were the stones in the rock garden, the spiky cactus, and my shiny new shoes with the bar across the instep. I remembered the brilliant sunlight in my sister Mary’s blond, bouncing curls as we tried to balance on the stones, holding hands. We were seven and nine years old, and someone had no doubt decided that a funeral would be too sad for us. No one spoke of our father.

2 months ago | qoshe.com | Sheila Kohler

2 months ago | psychologytoday.com | Sheila Kohler

When all starts to seem grey and hopeless—the news depressing, success in work difficult, people around you disappointing and distant, or disappearing for one reason or another—try not to isolate or even remain too long with only one person, whoever that may be, particularly if they are critical or bad-tempered. Look around for friends or family who will laugh with you over an old joke, meet for a drink in a bar, or share a new book. Call and email or Zoom. Reach out to others in your life.

Mar 27, 2024 | qoshe.com | Sheila Kohler

Last night we went to see a wonderful film called "Perfect Days" by Wim Wenders with a marvelous Japanese actor, Koji Yashuko who plays a man who spends his days in menial labor. The hero, Hirayama works each day meticulously cleaning toilets, only escaping for moments to eat his lunch under the trees, drive home listening to his cassettes, eat his dinner alone in a bar, and read before he falls asleep.