There you stood in your pale green frock with white trim, showing a little age but resolute and desirable still, ready for come what may. You embraced us when we walked inside, asked where we’d been, and so we knew we were yours. We massaged your muscles and traced the contours in your bones with … Continue reading Farewell to Thee, Dear Clapboard New Englander
Love
Food Story: Valentine’s Day 2021
Valentine's Eve 2021 Chef David and I celebrated on Saturday night with a dinner we planned last week. We're not often in the kitchen working at the same moment, but we did, a little, for this dinner. parsnips set to boil the embarrassing saucepan...every kitchen has one pure maple syrup makes everything better, even if … Continue reading Food Story: Valentine’s Day 2021
Mid-Week Almanac, 9.23.20
It’s somehow Wednesday already, a vacation day for me because I have a little bidness to take care of later on this afternoon, and maybe I simply needed a day for myself. There’s nothing left for me to say about missing our annual travel down South that I haven’t already said, so I’ll leave it … Continue reading Mid-Week Almanac, 9.23.20
Journal Entry: The Pandemic Inspires a Conversation
Before all this happened, I was already reflecting on this notion, that in the intervening eight years between living through the kind of loss I think of as the emotional equivalent of blunt force trauma, and life as it is right now, my take on things has changed. Not everything. Some losses were undeniably horrible, … Continue reading Journal Entry: The Pandemic Inspires a Conversation
Parenting Story: Difficult Children, Interesting People
I was chatting with a colleague last week about raising a boy with attention deficit disorder, and all the challenges that come in that package, and how it looks when the boy becomes an adult man and starts making his own decisions about important things in his life. Or at least how it looks in … Continue reading Parenting Story: Difficult Children, Interesting People
Stretching Dollars, Counting Blessings
Winter was kind enough last week to gift us its annual January thaw, which means the schmutz on the ground—an unpleasant casserole of crusty, gritty snow with a menacing bottom layer of ice—retreated obediently into atmosphere and earth. We have frost heaves already, a phenomenon more typical in early spring. Extreme cold temperatures arrived in … Continue reading Stretching Dollars, Counting Blessings
Sometimes You Just Have to Pick at It
Straight from a dog-eared paperback perched on the corner of my coffee table for years came this kernel of wisdom—sometimes you just have to pick at it—one of many from the mouths of babes, a single one on every page. Clear-headed advice from a child seems appropriate just now, as there are a few grown-up … Continue reading Sometimes You Just Have to Pick at It
Making Sense out of the Senseless: Love is the Answer
Annie Lennox urged me to pick up my feet and pick up the pace through sweaty ear buds, her lyrics suffused with emotions: love, loss, loneliness, joy, she knows each of them intimately, she sings. A perfect Vermont Saturday morning was the only other motivation I needed to run: success is measured in hot cheeks, … Continue reading Making Sense out of the Senseless: Love is the Answer
Sycamore Stories 