Ginger begins her sabbatical this week. She asked me to bake cookies for her staff meeting on Tuesday as a little going away present. This recipe had crossed my field of vision over the past couple of weeks, so her request gave me a chance to play with it a bit. Ginger loves a soft…
If I had the chance to go back and rewrite Keeping the Feast: Metaphors for the Meal, I would do a better job of explaining why a chapter on baseball belongs in the book. For tonight–Maundy Thursday and Opening Day (even though it got rained out)–I pulled some of what I wrote in the chapter…
This post started because a friend posted a video with a song title I recognized, but it wasn’t the song I knew. It did however send me back to a song embedded deep in the soundtrack of my life that I needed to hear today on behalf of friends who are hurting deeply–and also for…
one step removed the advantage of living through holy week after the fact is we know what is coming we read the events as connected sequence if this then that we have turned the unexpected into ritual meaningful repetition but still repetition we know what’s coming but the rituals seem empty because of the scares…
Anger I had a dream the other night about a huge reservoir. I was standing on the banks, taking it in. I didn’t go in the water and I don’t remember much else that happened, other than I was aware that the body of water that stretched out in front of me was my anger….
My continuing conversation with Rob Walker led me to these words today: Next time you have dinner planned with someone you care about, arrive (or plant yourself nearby) early. And do nothing. Observe the world; think about the person you’re about to see; cleanse your mental palate of other obligations or distractions. A significant moment…
I have continued to meander through Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing. A couple of days ago, as hew was talking about taking in the soundscapes around us, he quoted artist Marc Weidenbaum: “The world is a museum. You are the docent.” I decided to let those words guide my writing tonight, after a loving…
One meme I read this week said, “I am hopeful that the pandemic will bring about necessary changes in healthcare the same way Sandy Hook and Parkland brought about necessary changes in gun laws. And now we can add Atlanta. The most recent expression of white terrorism sent me looking, first, for words and when…
Sorry for my absence. I have been reading The Art of Noticinng: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover the Joy in the Everyday by Rob Walker. in a chapter called Discover the Big Within the Small” was this quote: “Every household has a first language, a kind of language of the house.”–Alex…
I started last night by saying I had seen an article in The Atlantic titled “We Have To Grieve Our Lost Good Days” and the title sent me into poetry writing mode before I even read the article. I also said I was going to read the article when I finished, and I did. Twice….