the beauty of an ordinary life
For the shortest month of the year, February carried more than its weight. It was, at some points, unbearably heavy. But for those of us who stubbornly refuse to give up hope, February brought more than its fair share of that, too, mostly in the form of young promise and new energy. What teenagers lack…
“To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.” – Jean-Paul Sartre Our Christmas tree sparkled clear through Epiphany and beyond, lighting that particular corner of its room for so long that we were tempted to just leave it up. “When it starts to brown, we can…
Looking back over the past 12 months, the way December beckons that kind of review, one encounter stands out as perhaps the best thing to happen to me in this terrible, wonderful year. I was having lunch with a philanthropist friend, trying (badly) to make a case for funding the nonprofit agency where I’ve worked…
An actual family dinner conversation: SON: [to MOM] “So, why’d you move all that stuff and mess up the big room?” MOM: “I need more space for my art and sewing and things. Maybe I’ll have people over, teach a class; who knows? I might even teach you to sew, so you can sew a…
Last we were together (three weeks ago? four?), we were talking about seeing and being seen. You are thinking, perhaps, that my memory is dodgy, that I’ve forgotten about the Frye boot story in between. What you don’t know is that I wrote the letter to The Frye Company at the end of February, weeks…
I was going to write my annual post with book recommendations. But then, unexpectedly, I found where Nancy Pearl has been hiding. To be more accurate, and probably fairer, I accidentally stumbled upon Nancy Pearl’s Twitter feed during one of my Twitter drive-bys (my relationship with Twitter is complicated). Re-finding Nancy Pearl was like seeing…
So, it’s been fun sharing book recommendations from my recent post about books. It’s been so fun, in fact, that I decided to create a page dedicated just to books – what I’m currently reading, recent titles I’ve enjoyed, books I’ve read with my kids, and, of course, my all-time favorites. It’s possible that I’ll…
For me, each year is divided into two parts: summer and not-summer. Summer, to me, is the stretch of sunny days between Memorial Day and Labor Day; not-summer is the remainder. Summer is Wiccan, loose and roaming. Not-summer is Presbyterian, the time to hunker down and be serious. Even during the years between my own…
