everybody loves a parade Our house is a jumble of boxes, papers are everywhere, artwork has come down and rests against walls, laundry is piled high. The fridge and pantry are empty mainly, and shall stay that way at this point. I've spent hours on the phone and online doing the things one does, cancelling … Continue reading This Is How a New Chapter Begins
Transitions
The Beauty of Magical Transformations, or Sometimes, Just Winging It
I recall an occasion many years ago when my now-ex and I were having dinner with some friends at their house; my twenty-something kiddo was still a peanut, say age four or so, and was included that evening because he and our hosts’ young daughter were attached at the hip, eagerly anticipating the play date. … Continue reading The Beauty of Magical Transformations, or Sometimes, Just Winging It
Story of Renewal: Wiping the Slate Clean
That ingenious little device, the Etch A Sketch, saved me on more than one occasion during childhood: trapped in the back seat of my parents’ sedan, weary of reading or coloring, riding shotgun with a bothersome younger brother all the way from Memphis across the states of Arkansas and then Texas, I could occupy myself … Continue reading Story of Renewal: Wiping the Slate Clean
Gardening Story: True Confessions of a Mulching Enthusiast
Mulch, gentle reader, covers a multitude of sins. I know how to spread mulch: I am good at spreading mulch. David-the-Chef wants to know why on earth we should have a load of mulch delivered. I ask you, Does this question even merit an answer? Isn't it OBVIOUS? Mulch gussies up everything it touches: it is … Continue reading Gardening Story: True Confessions of a Mulching Enthusiast
Unpacking Hope: A Sunday Wish
So, so many material belongings that came with me to Vermont all the way from Tennessee have waited patiently in storage for the last three years: things David and I considered nonessential when we combined two households three years ago, the year I started writing and editing professionally full time for a marketing agency. But … Continue reading Unpacking Hope: A Sunday Wish
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
Hole in That Theory: B & W Challenge Day 7
Birds around here fall silent in winter, but this summer and fall the woods around this little cottage have resonated with so much birdsong at times that we've raised a fist skyward: trying to sleep, here—can you please keep it down? A parliament of owls lives in our trees. That's what you call a group … Continue reading Hole in That Theory: B & W Challenge Day 7
October in Vermont: Season of ‘Lasts’
It’s unfair to name October a season, which more properly belongs to fall. But it does mark a big transition in these parts, a time beyond which the air feels more authentically like winter to a person with Southern roots. Not once in the five Vermont winters I’ve seen have we missed a respectable snowfall—a … Continue reading October in Vermont: Season of ‘Lasts’
New Real Friends: A (Hopeful) Lamentation
Our parents serve as eternal reminders of every ‘cute’ thing we said and did in childhood, however stridently we might wish to forget: it’s a parenting privilege. I find myself doing it to my own twenty-something these days, even across the miles that separate us. I need my bref-kass, I mutter in the early morning … Continue reading New Real Friends: A (Hopeful) Lamentation
*Almost* Paradise: Close Enough
So how’s your dukkha these days? I know exactly nothing about Buddhism, but my friend Jill does. That’s her beautiful daughter in the photo up there, standing next to former American Ballet Theatre principal ballerina Julie Kent, perhaps a little star struck. Dukkha, she explained, is the Buddhist concept of suffering, with an asterisk: it’s … Continue reading *Almost* Paradise: Close Enough
Sycamore Stories 