The train ride into New Haven was significant this morning because I finished my rereading of Walking on Water. It will go back on the shelf for another couple of years. In the closing pages, L’Engle talked about the importance of editing and revising for an artist. Honing one’s craft does not necessarily make it…
It was raining when I walked out of work to make the three block trek to where my car was parked so I could snake through the city, the construction, and catch the highway home. I slipped my hearing aids in my pocket, losing the high harmonies of the street’s sounds; the small but persistent…
My birthday trip to the Mark Twain House and Museum has given me a lot to think about—pertaining to both the house and the man. When Twain sold the residence in the early twentieth century, he was broke and needed money. He was also grief-stricken. The house changed hands several times and was a residence,…
When it comes to my birthday, I can count on three things: one, Ginger will make sure I feel very celebrated; two, that they day will involve something I have never done before; and, three, that I will not know what’s coming until it happens. Today stayed true to form, with the added layer of…
The fog was so thick on the ride into New Haven this morning I felt like I was on a ghost train. Between Guilford and Branford, the train runs through the marshes and right along the coastline. Most mornings, I can look out across Long Island Sound; today, our carriage was wrapped in the soft…
thursday it rained enough last night to let us waken to a fresh-scrubbed morning a diamond of a day offering me the chance to cook on a Thursday for the first time since I left our porch full of friends who gathered weekly I was cooking for a group at church—Ginger invited all those over seventy…
We got our Christmas tree up today, along with the candles in the windows in good New England fashion. And it’s halfway through Advent. As I was working on things this afternoon, I listened to my friend Billy Crockett’s song “Coasting Into Christmas” and found a helpful and hopeful resonance, which led me to think…
I finished a book and started a book today. It was a good day. The first was Bandersnatch: An Invitation to Explore Your Unconventional Soul by Erika Morrison, which I began reading before we left Durham, packed it by accident, and just got back to it this week. By redefining four words—avant-garde, alchemy, anthropology, and art—she…
When the worst of my depression hit in the fall of 2001, I quit reading the newspaper. For years my morning ritual was to go from front to back, soaking up as much as I could. As I worked to learn how to live through the darkness visible, one piece of advice I found was…
At our church here in Guilford, Ginger is one of two pastors who share the responsibility of ministering to our congregation, and part of what that means is they alternate preaching from week to week. Today it was Sarah’s turn. The introduction of her sermon reminded me of what the conductor had said at the…