The afternoon that they moved my mother into hospice her doctor came to check on her. Although we all knew she would never leave the hospital, her death was not imminent. She looked at the doctor and said, “If my goal is heaven, what do I have to do?” He smiled and said, “Stop eating…
For the last seven years the first two weeks of January have belonged to my mother. She went into hospice just after New Year’s Day 2016 and died on January 15, three days after her eighty-fourth birthday. I got to spend all of those days with her. Tonight, this story came back to find me….
On this Twelfth Night, this Epiphany Eve, i found myself going back through some old posts and poems. I wrote the first version of the poem below when we lived in Marshfield, Massachusetts in a house 660 feet from Cape Cod Bay. Walking the beach at low tide was a regular part of our lives….
In my newsletter yesterday, I leaned into a quote from Kieran Setiya. The last sentence reads, Don’t let the lure of the dramatic arc distract you from the digressive amplitude of being alive. I have been dealing with the article for a couple of days, but I didn’t notice the phrase “digressive amplitude” until I…
All this week (wait–it’s only Tuesday!) I have been reading different takes on resolutions for the year ahead. A couple of them stood out to me. One was this picture of Woody Guthrie’s “New Year’s Rulin’s” from 1943. My favorites were 17-20: 17. don’t get lonesome 18. stay glad 19. keep hoping machine alive 20….
puzzling the last time I saw a puzzle spread out across the table was at my mother’s apartment some time after my dad died we sat across from each other she and I like we did when I was in high school each of us choosing a section the picture to complete but we never…
meal as metaphor this penultimate night of the year was the night to make something out of everything to use up–no–to make the best out of a few things whose refrigerator visas had run out a pork tenderloin baby potatoes and green beans all had promise the supporting cast included olive oil cornstarch buttermilk panko…
I planned for a couple of hours of driving late this afternoon. I had not had much reason to get out of the house today and driving a few people around New Haven felt like a good idea. Around 2:30 I drove into town, thinking I would start at Union Station. Sure enough, I was…
One of the people I got to meet, or at least talk to, while I was working as an editor is Debie Thomas, who is minister of lifelong formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, California, and author of Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories. About this time last year, I contacted…
Seventeen years ago tonight I wrote my first post for don’t eat alone. It was titled “working with what I have.” The first paragraph I wrote said: I’ve been staring at the “posting” screen for several days now trying to figure out how to join the world of food bloggers. Since I’m writing from a…