Patricia The winter sun in Lisbon in mid-January is piercing, still low in the sky, lighting the white marble and pastel-colored buildings with a golden glow at the end of the day. The sky is intensely blue, not quite Mediterranean, as Lisbon is on the Atlantic Ocean, but deep and solid. The trees were not yet …
This year’s list of books stretched from the cell and its impact on medicine, to reconsidering history, to a deeper understanding of human nature. Books written by favorite authors (Louise Erdrich, Ian McEwan, Anthony Doerr, Isabel Allende, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Ali Smith) and non-American authors (Valerie Perrin, Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, Werner Herzog, Maggie O’Farrell). Science, nature, …
“We’re only here for a minute. We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story.” “A Long River of Song,” by Brian Doyle. One advantage of moving so many times over the years is the number …
NON-FICTION Caste, The Origins of our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson (The Pulitzer Prize winning author of “The Warmth of Other Suns.” In many ways it’s an uncomfortable read as she equates the caste systems in India and Nazi Germany with a broader systemic consideration of “race” in America. Her examples of a half millennium of discrimination, …
Lake Estes, Colorado, before COVID-19 Running is so many things to me: a measure of my mood, my physical health, my self-worth, my community. My running journey is a marker of passing through this life. It began during the summer of my studying for the California bar exam, as I slowly and gingerly walked, then …
Library of Congress, best seller? This year should have been ideal for reading. We stayed at home. We were isolated. Books were readily delivered by independent books stores and Amazon. Most in-person events were shuttered. My never-ending pile of books provided a visual, daily reminder of possible selections. I had time, at least theoretically, compared …
River Arts District, Asheville Several months ago I wrote about our wanderings, a life-time together moving across the United States, up and down the state of California, and finally settling in Boulder, Colorado. And then the pandemic hit in early spring 2020, with stay-at-home orders, interruptions to travel, and the inability to engage in-person with …
Almost 100-year-old ship’s compass. I suppose it started in March, on the second day of Alex’s scheduled four-week-stay in Paris during the standard spring hiatus from work. The novel corona virus (COVID-19) was spreading rapidly, without reason or logic. Italy’s population was at high risk, especially in the north with their concentrated elderly population. France …
The Inside Passage. The email popped up in my account the middle of June: “Alaska is open!” Into month four of stay-at-home and then safer-at-home orders with no end in sight for the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent world-wide economic, financial, and social upheaval, the news caught our attention. Alaska had strict entry requirements, including negative …
My maternal grandmother c. 1970 I anticipated the moment; I received advice from sisters and friends; I read accounts; I remembered my own grandparents; I thought of my parents as grandparents. Yet, nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for the deep love I felt when I first held my long, skinny five-week-old grandson. Three years later, …