“She said her son was a beautiful soul, and something good will come of this.” That’s a sentence from President Biden’s State of the Union speech, referring to what RowVaughn Wells said about the brutal death of her son, Tyre Nichols. If we can act collectively and responsibly to bring about the kind of policing reforms that will prevent this from happening again, then that will be the “something good.” For this young man’s mother, who has just begun her … Read More
The Fourth of July might also be known as Independence Day, but I’d call the one we just had something closer to Togetherness Day. Awwww, this is going to be sweet and maybe even a little schmaltzy, you’re predicting. And I’m not even getting into KA-BOOM fireworks. (Although I can’t resist saying, on that topic, that we noticed an odd difference this year with our 13-year-old dog not being nearly as anxious with the noise as he has previously been. … Read More
I’m giving this one over to Father’s Day. Most likely, you’ve been doing some reflecting on your dad today, too. As my husband Rob — father of our three kids and also sometimes called “Father” by members of his flock — drives back home after marrying a couple yesterday in the Adirondacks, I’m thinking about all that he does to support this family. I’m also considering the slim sliver of time, over 30 years ago, that he had to get … Read More
Less is more…especially in June, a dazzling and also tumultuous month that might as well be called “Jewel of a Jumble.” Shifting to a watery image, because it’s so hot today, I would also offer another name: “A Time to Keep Paddling, A Time to (Mostly) Refrain from Plunging.” At this everything-is-happening-at-once time of year, deciding what not to do a deep dive into is just as important as deciding how to keep swimming forward through all the … Read More
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
Looking on the bright side, I have to start by saying that any annoyance caused by the delay in posting this blog has got to be nothing compared to the irritation experienced recently, especially in Chicago, by thousands of travellers in airports who had to wait for hours, and sometimes miss their flights, to go through security. Ok, so that’s probably not such a good comparison. And plus it goes without saying that there are way, way worse things than … Read More
Déjà vu experiences, much like birds, come in a variety of plumages. They swoop in unexpectedly, often leaving you stunned, or smiling, or maybe wondering about the trajectory of your own life. There are those magical time travel moments when— whoosh—you’re suddenly back in a previous day, and then, amazingly, even what happens after you make the connection is exactly like what it once was, down to the slightest gesture or expression, as if the same movie is playing. Your … Read More
Today we’re going to look closely at two terms with an almost automatic heartwarming quality: FAMILY and FOOD. Ah yes, I know, your whole inner being is already feeling the glow…there’s a big table, smiles and laughter, glasses clinking, sharing of tales, a high chair with a baby banging a spoon or, why not, perhaps a slightly hunched over grandparent sitting near a sullen, for the moment anyway, teenager. Disorganized, perhaps; raucous, sometimes; but generally good, right? Except, remember, this … Read More
Each time I dive in again here, I remind myself that my theme is contrasts…things that are next to each other but strikingly different. Life is a lot about merging, but those lines of demarcation are everywhere, too. Take, for example, the fact that we try to appreciate the little treasures that glimmer through our daily lives while not shrinking from the full force of tragedies outside of our own households. Sometimes, of course, it’s the opposite: our own lives … Read More
It might be a kind of sacrilege to tamper with the words of a treasured poet, but if I were bold enough to give ol’ William Wordsworth something like an update, I know which famous line I’d aim for first. “The Child is father of the Man” (from one of his short poems, “My Heart Leaps Up”) is perfectly fine, of course, in its suggestion that we all have everything that we’re going to become in us at an early … Read More