This morning I awoke to the kind of day that offers an easy excuse to skip the walk. The temperature gauge read -3F (-19C) when I crawled out of bed, and by the time I’d finished the tea and hot porridge my husband had prepared, it was still only -1F. But the dogs were eager, the sun […]
Miscellaneous
Lately, I’ve had some form of this conversation several times a week: Hello! Hello! How are you? Good! How are you? Pretty good. Or, you know, good considering…everything. [chuckle] Oh yes, me too — fine considering it all. Usually, this is the preamble to whatever the meat of our conversation will be. But a few […]
If you asked me in the abstract, and I wasn’t thinking about it too hard, I might tell you that most people are a bit stupid. A bit provincial, a bit ignorant, a bit wrapped up in consumer culture. I might think, if not say, that your average Joe is a bit of a philistine, […]
I have never watched anyone die before, so I didn’t realize how much of it would be time spent watching Ativan dissolve in Morphine. The mixture is cloudy sea glass blue, ocean colored when it comes together. Florida is swamp hot in September, so hard to breathe, and I’m here swirling the two together in a […]
The sky was a deep sapphire blue the day they cut down the giant. It was a matter of time, we knew, because they had already cleared out the scrub oaks and the wild cherry trees and the scraggly mountain mahogany. But it was still a shock to see it fall. The giant must have […]
Last week my mother and I drove up into the Sierra Nevada and stopped at a creek lined with aspens, their leaves falling on the water like lucky gold coins. We passed a wedding party, bridesmaids clutching bouquets with one hand and using the other to keep their sheer purple dresses from flying up in the wind. Minivans, […]
I forget this every year—in October, there are places where it is no longer safe to walk. If we want to go to our friend Peter’s house, we can’t go up the street and around the corner as we usually do. If we need to get to daycare, we have to turn and walk in […]
The big red van will soon be stuffed to the gills. Sometimes you just need new views, fresh air, and worries as basic as “do we have enough water”? So, we’re heading to West Virginia. Country roads and all that jazz. Full disclosure: It’s not quite the way I used to do it. For example, […]