“He never knew when it was coming.” I learned last week that there is one thing about me my husband would change if he could. Not the size of my breasts. Not my inability to control myself around a bag of corn chips. Not the way I start reading his library books before he is finished with them, or try … Read More
Life Happens
“It was amazing how you could get so far from where you’d planned, and yet find it was exactly were you needed to be.” (Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye) If things had been going according to plan, I’d be writing this post from Switzerland, on the last leg of a three-week trip that was to begin with a flight … Read More
Drinking Lessons
The distiller and I are sitting across from each other in the swelter of a Denver June afternoon, three tiny unlabeled bottles of bourbon lined up before us. He pours from one into a scratched goblet that will serve as a snifter, lifts it to his nose, and then offers it to me like a teacher holding out a piece … Read More
Reconstruction Day
On Good Friday last year, my step-daughter checked into the hospital for the second phase of post-mastectomy reconstruction. As we packed to go help her through the recovery, I found myself pondering the word, “reconstruction” as if I’d never heard it before. Reconstruction is what people do after tsunamis, floods, fires, and wars. Builders in New York and New Jersey can’t … Read More
Seduction by Artichoke
There are the hearts you draw on Valentine cards, the chocolate ones, and the very useful muscle that is sending oxygen to your cells as you read this. Then there is the tender, sweet meat protected by the thorny leaves of the artichoke. The heart of the choke, or the “toots” as my husband’s family calls it, is the promise … Read More
Naked on a Plane
I woke this morning to the rumble of jets overhead, one of the sounds that marks the start of a new day here. It’s one of the perks of living a few miles from the airport but I didn’t think about the noise. I thought about some friends I got naked with for a few hours and never saw again. … Read More
God, Love, and Dog Poop
I took Chloe for a walk not long ago and ran smack into a lesson on boundaries, dog poop, and the love of God. We had only gone a few steps when my ears picked up the voices of two women who regularly walk by, usually in the late afternoon. They stride down the middle of our street as though … Read More
Welcome
The man in this picture once told me something I have never forgotten. “Don’t be afraid to say no to people when you have to, but don’t say no to yourself.” He said this just after he hired me as a reporter for a paper called the Gloucester Daily Times, the daily that served Cape Ann, an island about 40 miles … Read More