1 Oct 2023

Silence or Conversation or Sounds of Creatures,Yes. Noise, Not So Much.

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Can it be that all of September has gone by, in its glory, without a new post from me? Falling down on the job here (one I assigned to myself) as fall begins, I will try to remedy the situation with something brief. Please don’t miss the last part. Perched on our porch today, I hear my dog grooming himself, plenty of late summer insects buzzing and birds twittering, along with the backdrop of human-run machines, planes in the sky, … Read More
5 Jul 2021

Out with the Oppressors!

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Yesterday began with a text from my friend Sally: “Happy July 4th, celebrating freedom from those tyrannical Brits.” In that she herself is British, and as far from tyrannical as one can get, the message was especially rich in contrasts. At first conjuring images of two sides in battle, it then sent me into more nuanced layers: in most resistance movements, everyone doesn’t resist equally. Fighting the Power, in History On a drizzly day that felt not much like a … Read More
14 Dec 2017

This Time of Year, We Go Hot and Cold

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If, like mine, your heart gets pounding faster with a stark contrast, then you must have already noticed that we’re in a fire and ice time of year. First, the ice. Asserting itself in streams that persist in running, the trying-to-be-firm stuff is always valiant in seeking to overtake the water.         But anyone with a dog around here already knows that the coveted (by dogs, mostly) daily walks have gotten a bit challenging in the past … Read More
14 May 2017

Emily Dickinson Returns, with a Rocker’s Mom

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It’s Mother’s Day, but this will not a Mother’s Day blog; or at least, not one exactly. The culture that surrounds us spews out more than enough material on this tired theme. The person I have most on my mind never was a mother in the regular sense, although she left almost 1800 offspring that live on and on. She also spent a fair amount of time thinking about death, not a very celebratory subject, in the Hallmark sense anyway. … Read More
9 Apr 2017

Short on Reading Time, Long on Pleasure

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The way I see it, time is getting more and more precious, so I’m less and less embarrassed about reaching for the simplified version of something I still want to learn. If there’s a long and a short, I’ll often opt for the short, with clear conscience. The birds are twittering, the field is more soggy than snowy, Easter is coming, and days continue to be jam-packed: kind of like a bulging suitcase that you have to press down hard … Read More
4 Nov 2015

Liking Them Apples

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Some things in life come easily, slide into place, pour forth, work out. Other things are damn stubborn and don’t want to budge no matter what you do. This fall, apples growing on trees all over our neighborhoods have been in the former category. Have you noticed how heavy laden the branches were? I wish I’d taken more pictures to capture all that deep red color, everywhere. It was richness portrayed in fruit. Just by looking at it all, your … Read More
5 Apr 2015

It’s Easter, and More

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Over the course of the past Holy Week, my husband was preparing for services culminating with Easter today — the pinnacle of the Christian calendar. Meanwhile, I was, for the first time, teaching a unit on ancient India to high school juniors. In my mind’s eye, I saw temples with elaborate carvings and women in colorful saris as I made the daily drive up and down a fairly bland stretch of highway. It made for a kind of interesting mash-up … Read More
12 Oct 2014

Robert Frost State of Mind

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Here we are again, in the middle of October, a time of year that always seems like a kind of precipice between the living and the dying, when we are at once basking in the sun-filled richness that Nature is offering us everywhere and at the same time wondering how we will cope with the inevitable darkness and sense of loss that await us right around the corner. Not to be too dramatic or anything. We got a newsletter from … Read More
13 Sep 2014

Hang on to that Through Line for Dear Life

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Flying home from the Midwest last night, I had a slight delay in Detroit, not of the usual kind. The problem wasn’t with the flights themselves; the one from Duluth arrived in Motown on time, and the second leg to Manchester was even better. No, it was a recalcitrant jet bridge— that thing that extends out to provide a walkway for passengers into the gate—causing some distress. We were all ready to get off the plane, the door was open, … Read More
2 Aug 2014

Polly, Proliferating

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I had more or less gotten over the fact that I was not Joan of Arc, riding boldly on a horse smack into battle, when I discovered that my name—something that I had heretofore thought had distinguished me, at least slightly—was suddenly turning up all over the place. We aren’t exactly a field of dandelions, but my quality of Polly-ness, just as of this past week, has put me in a whole bouquet of other females. This has taken some … Read More

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