Pat and kids at Patacanchan Village Festival My older son wrote his college thesis on the concept of “awe:” what did it mean, how was it used, what emotions did it evoke, what was its historical/religious/social context. After many months of research, reading, writing, editing and engaging in discourse with others, he was unable to …
Hamlet may have wanted permanent sleep—I’d be satisfied with six or seven solid hours! When I was young, during my teenage years, I often wandered around our house in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I’d meet my father reading in his red-brocade chair, an heirloom from his mother. We shared these awakenings, nodding or …
Flatirons from east Sanitas Valley Trail. A quiet, cloudy, slightly cooler Sunday morning today. Tired legs tired from Saturday’s long run. Cancelled bicycle ride due to threatening rains and thunderstorms. A hike around our neighborhood loop seemed reasonable (and meditative) substitute. A quick hike up the connector trail to Dakota Ridge and down to Sanitas Valley …
Thirty-two years ago Doug and I got married on the East Coast; he’d moved to New YorkCity in January 1986 where not-quite-five-year-old Christopher and I joined him in June. Since all our family was ob the West Coast and our jobs were all-consuming, we decided on a small affair on Martha’s Vineyard, close enough for …
A neighbor’s yard awakening. My body moved very slowly this morning, the effects of Saturday’s run work-out, 1k and 2k tempo pace efforts. The almost immediate hill at the beginning of Red Rocks Trail was more work than normal, but the clearing mist promised a warm Spring day, welcome after high winds earlier in the …
Big Summer Plans: 2017 Two hours post-break, still in running clothes, the on-call orthopedic surgeon about to reduce my fracture The summer of 2017 was full: family time (a trip to Pennsylvania to take care of our grandson for a few days while his mother was in China/ Vietnam and his father in Armenia/ Georgia; …
[Warning: some of this will be boring if you’re not a runner!] On Sunday I ran the United NYC Half Marathon, my first 13.1 miler since I broke my arm last summer. The course is new, starting at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, crossing the East River on the Manhattan Bridge, looping around lower Manhattan (Canal …
Christopher perusing the “Philosophie” section of a used book store in Berlin. Reading is such an integral part of my days that it often surprises me when I look back and review the list of books read in any particular year. Sometimes, my focus is intentional, informed by current interests; other times, recommendations from friends …
There is a theme to my hiking, taking to the trails when the sky is blue, the clouds puffy and white, the air mostly crisp (except for those summer afternoon hikes when the weather turns or stays warm and I can no longer endure not being out and about). We’ve been surprised by the inconsistent …
Maybe you remember summer camp in the mountains as a child or cross-country camp with your high school teammates or attending running or writing retreat as an adult (I’ve done one of each). Here’s one such story of ten days in August with our now-adult younger son, Alex. Twin Lakes between Leadville and Aspen (Sunday …