The beginning of the school year has meant a move for me. I’m back at Duke, as the chef for a restaurant my boss contracts to run on the Duke campus. We are open Monday to Thursday nights, and then I still work Sunday nights at the restaurant where I worked this summer. I like…
I’ve always been a big fan of words. I love their sounds, their meanings, the many ways they can be put together. I am pulled by poetry because it is words at their best, standing in fresh light, speaking deep truths, unlocking hearts. After the last couple of nights of convention speeches, I’m prepared to…
(with apologies to middle schoolers) I’m sitting between Gustav and Hannain the homeroom of life, wondering howto make sense of everything coming throughthe loudspeaker, the stream of non sequitursthat passes for news and the endless stormof chatter that follows, each of us choosingsides without bothering much to choose ourwords. Life looks and sounds a great…
He took the wings we weren’t going to use for dinner. We serve a roast chicken dish, so we cut up the birds so each customer gets one piece that is half of a breast with the first section of the wing bone attached and a second piece that is the leg and thigh. Abel,…
Life is clipping along for me at a speed that makes reflection feel a bit like a luxury. Though I’m grateful for most of the things going on right now, I’m always wary of going too long without taking stock and doing my best to listen. They don’t call it break-neck speed for nothing, I…
A friend sent me the following email message from a woman who wants to open an ice cream shop in Rwanda. It’s an awesome idea and she needs us to vote for her in order for her to see her dream become a reality. Please read the following letter, follow the links, and vote for…
I think this is the longest I’ve gone without posting since I began writing two and a half years ago. Though I’ve had several gaps in the past related to my depression, this is not one of them. Ginger and I went to Texas and had a great time with family and friends. I’ve had…
We started out long ago andhigh above the river and endedup here, again, last night watchingthe rain fall in the darkness, lookingdown across the river valley. Here,in a land defined by drought, it hasrained since we arrived – notsprinkles, but sheets: the kind ofdeluge that sticks your shirt to skinrunning from the car to the…
that has carried us betweenfamily and friends, sharingstories and meals, planningand remembering, feelingthe rise of old feelings that pulllike an undertow, and relishingnew experiences that carry uslike rapids so that we don’t havetime to take in all we are feelinghas left me exhausted and exuberant.I’m back in old places, but thewater is new; things are…
Nineteen years ago tonight I gave Ginger her ring. We had already decided together to get married, but I wanted to be able to make a big deal about the diamond. My friends Billy and Patty helped me put together the evening of a lifetime. Nineteen years later, that lifetime continues, full of love and…