Aunt Kay hugging Matt and Emma
Continue reading...
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
Continue reading...
With a high ponytail, a pressed white coat, and a clipboard. This is how I imagine my daughter Emma. She’s standing in an exam room, a friendly physician assistant, but I can’t talk to her because I’m gone. Dead. I’ve also imagined seeing Emma walking down 5th Avenue in New York City. She has one
Continue reading...
Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is a memorable book. I’ve purchased at least a dozen copies over the years. Anne wrote it at the beach where she went to reflect on the patterns and meaning of her life. It’s one of those books that stays with you because it’s layered throughout with
Continue reading...
My mom cooked with no directions and fancy ingredients we couldn’t afford. She liked to finish a dish with a bottle of red wine aimed at the pot and and tilted in a carefree pour. For the most part things turned out OK except when she made my school lunch. Her idea of a good
Continue reading...
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. Far worse, the
Continue reading...
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
Continue reading...
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
Continue reading...
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
Continue reading...
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
Continue reading...