Color Me Bored With Colorless Tasks
The colors have been beautiful these past weeks, and the many sunny days have really let them blaze. It’s only now that we’re seeing the beginning of the end of all that, giving us even more reason to be get…
Seeking Compromise — in the Capitol, and in the Home too
It’s uncanny sometimes how events happening in the big wide world can be mirror images, at once identical and turned around, of events happening by the hearth. This week, I’m trying to figure out whether we have anything to learn…
So Many Kinds of Breaking
A number of autumns ago, I had a college professor who would lean back in his chair and imagine how delightful it would be to teach a course called, “Great Books I’ve Never Read.” Right here and now, I have…
House of Bishops in the Heart of Country Music
I’m just back from Nashville — Country Music Capital of the World and also site of the Episcopal Church House of Bishops fall conference. Now there’s an interesting adjacency for you, or at least it just was for me, as…
And We Think Our Kids Go Far…
It absolutely positively could NOT have been a coincidence that on the very day before I brought my son to the airport to travel to the other side of the world The New York Times ran a story about Voyager…
Following Tennis, Religiously
You know those displays, often at museums and fairs, that let you put your head through a hole in a tableau and then suddenly, to people looking at you anyway – the rest of you becomes someone else entirely? The…
What’ll It Be — an Island or a Part of the Main?
Question: What’s the difference between an island and a continent? Answer: Huge, or nothing at all. Check tectonic plates. Spend a few days driving around the coast of Maine, going over all those bridges and seeing water constantly,…
Who Ever Gets 100% of Anything, Indeed?
In a certain way, I almost envy the guy. “For the past 14 years, it’s always been a mix. I mean do you ever get 100% of anything, good or bad?” — Alex Rodriguez This might have been my younger…
Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?
Some panoramas you miss, for good reason. This picture, taken by my husband, shows two of our kids (plus the omnipresent Rocky) on Franconia Ridge after a good climb. It was a spectacular day, and I was sorry not to…
Summer Waterfalling
How far would you walk for a waterfall? What do you take away from the cool rush of a few moments there? Last week, my husband and I were led by a friend to see a place called Rainbow Falls,…