Stories With Heart And Soul 
The sun is my best friend. I miss mornings in the window seat of our old kitchen where southern light bathed the room. Ceramic bowls shined like actors under stage lights and peaches glowed like deities. Living in a condo facing north now, planet earth kidnaps the sun in September and returns her in March. So
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This week, rain dripped from gutters with the steady pace of a metronome. It was soothing but also slightly sinister like the rhythm in an Alfred Hitchcock film just before the murder. Under the charcoal rubbed sky, trees were black and arthritic with branches bent in pain, and the grass was drowning in water. Far
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While I don’t believe in prescriptions for living, I do believe in the restorative ingredients in a calm atmosphere. I adore quiet spaces because they settle your mind and heart. We have several tranquil nooks in our house. I rotate around them and out to our garden. One of my best investments in calm is
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Have you ever thought about a bird losing its song? I haven’t. I assumed birds were born knowing how to sing. Then I read an article in the New York Times about the Regent Honeyeater, a critically endangered bird indigenous to Australia. There are now young Regent Honeyeaters who can’t sing because they have to
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This winter, our landscape transformed in unexpected and vexing ways. The biggest change was the moss and the English ivy. I noticed the ivy first and wondered how it slunk so far so fast. We’ve lived in our house for twenty-five years, that’s one hundred seasons of English ivy. It’s always been where it’s always
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It’s been a ying and yang year for my family, which means we’re lucky. On the plus side, we did a major house cleaning. Before the pandemic, I thought we had a pared down existence. It turns out that bags of do-we-really-need-this-stuff emerged from our basement and attic. We looped to and from Goodwill a
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Have you ever seen a seedling spout begin? It’s a tiny loop that sprouts like a ballerina, arching from soil to sky. Then its stem, translucent and pale, presents two itty bitty green leaves to the sun. When you root for something so tender, optimism is a reflex. You believe it’s entirely possible for a
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Home alone in the morning, I made pancakes served on handmade ceramics. Even a tiny clay pitcher for the maple syrup. I added a handcrafted juice cup and napkin just because. Perfection. I adore a handmade table setting.Table set and pancake done, I sat at the kitchen counter with the newspaper and took the first
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While there are many things to be positive about, there comes a time where being sunny seems loony. How can you crack a real smile when there is so much bad news? And so much of it. Hence, the following words. I shut down all my social media accounts a few months ago – Facebook,
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Time moves at the same rate no matter what we do, but now it feels like a tortoise crossing the road. Time is moving the way it does during the second half of an exercise class or the last ten minutes of math (or statistics or physics.) It’s almost like 4:00pm with a baby. You’re
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