A Small Change

A Small Change

My adorable nearly seven-year-old grandson Lucien has lately become obsessed with vaporizing and spawning me, shooting me with invisibility and forgetting bullets, zapping me then respawning me back to life—not to mention all the kung fu kicks and punches that land within inches of my 

A New Use of Small

A New Use of Small

If you read my blog posts regularly, you’ve seen that I have written very irregularly for the past months. Stephen and I were in France, where, for the very first time, everything seemed to go wrong. First, Stephen’s 95-year-old father became gravely ill a week 

A Small French Moment

So many small moments and events here in France infuse me with pleasure, like the adorable compact toddler running around the square next to the creperie kicking a soccer ball long and hard with his tiny leg. Or the skinny old couple meandering down our 

A Perfect Moment

It had been a full afternoon at the horse refuge, beginning with a carrot-filled flirtation between Titanic and me. He appeared to have heard my voice when I arrived, and I found him “waiting for me” at the far end of the barn, his soft 

Return to Small

Whenever I first arrive in France, it’s impossible for me to practice small. In the tiny medieval village where we stay I encounter so much beauty and joy, I cannot slow down and concentrate. Whenever I arrive, I have to give myself permission to take 

A New Friend

I’ve seen him every week for the past two years, his home parked on the small street where I visit my acupuncturist each Tuesday. Sometimes he’s sitting at the wheel of his white van; other times, he’s walking back from a shower or a meal 

My Tiny Library

I wanted Stephen to build me a Little Library for years, and when he finally did—for my birthday several years ago—I was thrilled. In the first place, I love the concept: miniature lending libraries all over town walkers can both dip into and contribute to. 

A Few Inspiring Words

After Stephen and I had walked from our house up the Arlington, I went into Peets to order a latte while he waited for me outside with Frank. As usual, Peets required a bit of a wait, and as usual, I found myself tingling with 

A Moment of Survival

“I feel like I’m on a different planet,” Amelie said a few minutes after we’d arrived at the sand dunes just north of Fort Bragg. Gazing out at the hills, meadows, ripples, swells, and rivulets of luminous sand around us, all covered by the blanket 

Unexpected Contentment

Unexpected Contentment

Stephen’s son and his family drove up from Pasadena to visit for the first time since the Corona Virus outbreak. Miles, Nathan’s five-year-old son, hadn’t seen his six-year-old cousin Lucien for over two years. And our identical twin, just one-year-old grandsons had never even met