the beauty of an ordinary life
The complicated idea of "home" is something I think about quite often, and sometimes, increasingly often, with a tiny hint of clarity. But that clarity is fleeting and hard to hold onto in the bumper-car surprises of modern reality, especially here in Memphis.
Is rugged individualism now truly in our DNA? Have we relayed that instruction over centuries of systematically pursuing individual liberties lead us beyond policy, beyond philosophy, to a place in which our bodies became coded as lone wolves and utter assholes?
(Right. You'd think I could have thought to write this one already. Like, last fall, when I was writing "something" every day for my own mental health.) May, as you've likely already seen or heard, is Mental Health Awareness Month. You've likely already seen or heard about it because, thanks to the pandemic, mental health … Continue reading Something about mental health.
Brief, sincere, and tactful. If you remember nothing else from what follows, below, then just remember these three words and you'll do fine. One of the things I've learned from having a small stationery business is that people often are reluctant to write notes because they don't know what to write, or how to express … Continue reading Something about writing condolence notes.
During my growing-up years, in the days before widespread cable television, our local CBS affiliate station aired old movies in the afternoons and then again late at night. Among the films I remember watching are these: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane; Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte; Sunset Boulevard; Sorry, Wrong Number; Rebecca; Dracula; The 39 … Continue reading Night must fall. March forward anyway.
The concept of "parenting" is deeply embedded in our modern human culture and language, beyond the walls of family dwellings. In computing, for example, "parent-child" is a term used starting in the mid-1960s to describe data architecture. The "parent" could be a customer record, for example; the "child" would be a sales order for that … Continue reading Generations, part three.
Well, no. Actually, it's about guns. Again. This time, today, in Collierville, Tennessee. It's the Guns. (Originally posted on August 4, 2019, after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. The version below has been lightly edited from the original.) Trying to make things make sense, to sort it out in my head, or at … Continue reading Something about Groundhog Day.
It's Friday, September 10, 2021. Try, now, to remember precisely what you were doing on the evening of September 10, 2001. What were you wearing? What did you have for dinner? How was the weather? What were you planning to do the next morning? Can you remember? I can't. In general, I know that I … Continue reading Something about time.
jenny's lark 