“Experience enlarges the space for the self to swim in.” – George Eliot, from a manuscript in “Writing Britain” at the British Library. A month of travel has left me with more than I can say, and more than I can put into words, even to myself, even as I’m settling into a fall sabbatical […]
Read moreIt’s been a tough week in our little town, with reminders of how quickly life can change, and how strong the fabric of friendship and love in a community can be, and how precious the threads are that connect us. More than ever it feels necessary to at least try to ask, before proceeding with […]
Read moreOur little town’s gardening group has been buzzing after two of our members — following a neighbor’s anonymous complaint — were notified recently that they might be in violation of a city ordinance against gardening in the “boulevard,” the strip of grass between sidewalk and curb in front of most houses. The issue: our members’ […]
Read moreSummer is here, with its higher level of activity — and time for me to take two yoga classes a week instead of just one. Among yoga’s many benefits is a higher level of awareness of your body, what it is really asking you for when you eat or drink, what all that stress is […]
Read moreSo while maybe it’s not terribly original, I was proud of this when I threw it together, with an experimental tweak or two, last night: lettuce from the garden, cold deep-red plums from the fridge [pause for silent William Carlos Williams homage here], goat cheese, almond slivers, and one of the last handfuls of strawberries […]
Read more“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb […]
Read more“Who Made That Clothespin?”
Read moreWhen the flash of orange caught my eye from the upstairs window a week ago, I knew what it had to be: the first orange poppy of the spring, risen from the thick tangles of sawtoothed leaves and fuzzy buds that get thicker every year. And it was. This has been a weird spring, eerily […]
Read moreThis stem of Hibiscus mutabilis, a.k.a. Confederate rose, flourishes in a Mason jar on my kitchen counter, ready for repotting. Its mother plant, originally a cutting from my parents’ yard in Alabama, is resprouting too. Last summer I planted a cutting like this in my yard to see whether, as the plant encyclopedia promised, it […]
Read morehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fbahS7VSFs&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3] Young parents laugh nervously as they film their child, whom they have placed up against the glass of a lioness’s cage in a zoo. Behind the glass, the lioness is deadly serious: she scratches and bites the barrier separating her from one good bite of food. Incredibly, the father giggles, “Say hi, kitty, kitty.” […]
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