What I’m Thinking
Zipline in the Time of Social Distancing
We’re being advised, in this scary environment, to stay home, wash hands every ten minutes and phones every thirty, wipe down all deliveries, doorknobs, closet handles faucets, armrests, computer keyboards and eyeglasses with a solution of over 65% alcohol, to kiss no one and stay...
Read MoreRemembering Joseph Shambalala, Founder of South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Last week, Joseph Shabalala, Founder and Choral Director of the iconic South African musical group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, died at the age of 78. At the direction of South Africa’s President Cyril Rhamaposa, Shabalala will be buried on February 22 in a Special Official Funeral...
Read MoreGifts of Grande Dame Oak
I have written elsewhere about the regal Grande Dame Oak Tree that towers over our home. Her beauty, serenity and patience as she stands rooted in place. Her sense of humor as she teases us, using our roof for seasonal target practice, honing her acorn...
Read MoreMoments in Time
The hallway is filled with photographs of the departed. Not only the dead, but those who, for reasons too numerous and complex to enumerate, have drifted away in the currents of time. Even those who are still living are no longer the people portrayed in the...
Read MoreThe Mapparium: A View from the Heart of the World
Visitors to Boston walk the Freedom Trail, visit the Old North Church and our gilded State House, but we who live here are often the last to visit the treasures of our history. Included among them is The Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library,...
Read MoreWhere Anything is Possible
It is midday. Mid-September. An in-between season. Time has paused. We are at that indefinable point when all the air has been exhaled, but the next inhalation has not yet begun...
Read MoreAs Acorns Fall
The huge oak tree towering over our house has a wonderful sense of humor. When she feels we are insufficiently grateful for her shade, she waves her many slender arms and showers her multiple-lobed leaves down on us. I hear her wheezy laughter soughing in...
Read MoreThe End of an Era
My mother and I entered the little room at the bank, her safety deposit box in hand. It was time to catalogue the contents, which no one had looked at for several decades. I helped her open the box and then stood back. This is...
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