Yesterday afternoon I video chatted with my twentysomething for a bit as we routinely do, if not every day, at least several days every week. Thank the universe (and the engineers) for the technology that allows us to do this. He was sitting at his desk at home in his bedroom, with a soft blanket … Continue reading Family Story: When Doing Nothing Really Is Something
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Travel Story: Three Days in Wilmington
Downtown Wilmington, North Carolina straddles a line that lies somewhere between the urban luster of downtown Charlotte, and its well-heeled, Old-Money South Carolina neighbor, Charleston. It’s decidedly scrappier than either city, yet possesses the allure of the Coast and the emergent culture of a city coming into its own as a destination. The Chef and … Continue reading Travel Story: Three Days in Wilmington
Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Listening to one of my favorite radio shows not long ago I was gobsmacked by this notion: we often think of nature as separate from us, a thing we must protect, else destroy. But the truth is, we humans are also part of nature, and not separate from it. I latched onto that notion right away, because … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Sunday Vignette: Scout Informs the Neighbor Woman
A two-story house abuts the line separating it from our property. Covered in asphalt shingle siding, it is an early structure, you can tell, nineteenth century at least. An educated guess says there’s clapboard under the asphalt, and the door on the other side, the front, has a pleasing curvilinear shape to it, double arches … Continue reading Sunday Vignette: Scout Informs the Neighbor Woman
Signs of Life: Sunday Photo Essay
The dark finish on the steps and handrails was elegant and dressy once upon a time, you can tell. But over weeks and months, then years and decades, it collected scuffmarks and even a few deep gouges, call it a patina if you wish, from the traffic in the house: you can see it clearly … Continue reading Signs of Life: Sunday Photo Essay
First Sunday in Advent: Finding Peace and Home
Last Thursday afternoon I stood on the front porch of our new home having a delightful chat with a pair of young Mormon missionaries. Earlier I’d seen them combing the other side of the block for anybody whose ear they could bend to share their earnest message. One after another door remained closed; some folks … Continue reading First Sunday in Advent: Finding Peace and Home
Shape Shifting Words and Other Moving Truths
Have you ever fixated on a simple word until it’s no longer recognizable? The word desk, for example, is a four-letter word that means “a table, frame, or case with a sloping or horizontal surface especially for WRITING and reading and often with drawers, compartments, and pigeonholes,” so says Merriam Webster. Roll around the word … Continue reading Shape Shifting Words and Other Moving Truths
Find a Penny
You are a hoverer, I said to the twenty-something this morning, aware of his presence just behind and to the left of me while I was kneading biscuit dough. A what? A hoverer: whatever I’m doing, there you are, hovering like a helicopter. The other morning you were standing there at the bathroom door talking … Continue reading Find a Penny
Idling in Vermont
Some forty years after its publication Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia is still considered a pivotal and authoritative piece of travel writing about this 400,000-square-mile South American region. Ferdinand Magellan called the tall aboriginals he encountered there Patagones after a mythic character, it is rumored, hence its name. Straddling two countries and claiming most of a … Continue reading Idling in Vermont
Daily Commute
Like so many geographic place names in America, Taconic comes from a Native American word, meaning “in the trees.” I can think of no better moniker for the landscape that greets us each morning, but the daily commute frees one (if only briefly) from the confines of the woods which can at times overwhelm. In … Continue reading Daily Commute
