The Correspondent
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A friend of mine shared some profound life advice with me yesterday. “You cannot hate yourself into change,” she said. “Wow – that’s deep. The idea that maybe you could love yourself into the changes you want to see. I…
Dear William: A Father’s Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love, and Loss, by David Magee, came to me on the wings of a friend’s recommendation. The epigraph reads: “For every child who is lost and every parent who has lost a…
The pandemic was grinding us down in the fall of 2020. Or, I should say, it was grinding me down. Things that had been new and secretly good about staying home were losing their shine. Loneliness, that dark flower, grew….
Covid came calling, an unwelcome suitor, but some part of me said yes. (Isn’t that always the way? Be careful, I tell my daughters.) He brought all manner of unpleasantness. I felt pretty low. A friend brought sprigs of mint…
Students have left campus following the end of the term, and summer classes have yet to begin. An eerie quiet holds in the early morning… The daylilies think about greeting the day, the last of the columbine ring their tiny…
Our collective grief makes a summer reading post less… joyful. I don’t share it with the same joy that I wrote it. Still: here’s my list of 10 lovely summer reads, if and when you might welcome it. My top…
Mary Oliver, as always, says it best…. When I Am Among The Trees When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of…
Because the mower did not come the wild things grew and sang wild songs and the tulips remembered the melodies. A grandmother’s bluebells (long since forgotten) woke up, looked around, told some jokes because the mower did not come. Because…
Each year, come spring, a turkey hen appears in our neighborhood. She browses and grazes with a calm demeanor and kind-of acts like she owns the place. Where does she live the rest of the year? Not telling. Come spring,…