Stories With Heart And Soul 
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. The thought is so overwhelming that my mind is ice. In seconds a familiar anxiety tells
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...
Have you ever seen a seedling begin? It’s sprouts like a ballerina, arching from soil to sky. Then a pale stem 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 nascent plant to thrive. You don’t think
Continue reading...
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
Continue reading...