To avoid the crowds on New Year’s Eve day, I went out early-to pick up a few more items for the celebration Stephen and I were hosting that evening. Parties are something we don’t often hold, and this would be a first New Year’s celebration …
The new year will be arriving in several days, so naturally, I’ve been thinking about resolutions—even though I’ve never been someone who takes the custom too seriously. It’s not that I don’t understand the tradition and its impulse. It’s tempting to tell yourself that after …
I’ve been against “To-Do” lists for a long time. In all the years I’ve known people who make them—and for all the years I once made them—I’ve never known this strategy to really help the creator. Instead, these lists create pressure and guilt in anyone who so much …
Weddings can overwhelm me. Being someone who finds crowds—even groups—of people intimidating, the before-and-after-the-wedding-ceremony milling about, greeting those you know and introducing yourself to those you don’t, can be a showstopper for me. And that’s before I’m blasted by all the beauty, wrapped in pomp …
I’m reading a wonderful book: “In Pursuit of Silence, by George Prochnik. In the book, Prochnik, who is extremely sensitive to noise, seeks both silence itself and its effects on humans. This might be an excellent companion for small, I thought when I saw the …
Last Sunday, as Stephen and I drove home from the Anderson Valley after our Thanksgiving celebration, the sky was a clean blue, the sun, a brilliant yellow. This, after two days of heavy rain, and before that, two weeks of smoke from the Camp Fire. …
Life in these parts has been dismal for the last week or so. The air is heavy with smoke from the Camp Fire, four hours northwest of here; and the emotional atmosphere is charged with our collective despair for those intimately affected by the disaster. …
Walking to vote this morning, I was ruminating about the tensions of this mid-term election cycle, feeling gloomy about the anger and hate blanketing this country. As I neared my polling location, I looked up and saw three homeless men standing on the corner. Oh yuck,I …
My grandson Lucien, and his mother, Amelia, had dinner with Stephen and me last night. Adorable three-year-old Lucien filled the evening with delectable moments, as together the four of us laughed and played, acted silly and serious, danced and raced around the house. I …
