This First Day This first day of September is a quintessential one — cooler and drier and brighter than those as August waned. But, I needed a wee-bit of incentive to get moving. I am so not bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to scamper into a new season. I feel...
A remembrance, a memoir and a collection of eulogies have kept me company on the porch while I paint, reminding me to stay teachable. A Remembrance In a remembrance, David Brooks wrote on Frederick Buechner’s life: Buechner’s books tell stories, let you experience...
The Sunflowers are BLOOMING! In the past two weeks, our sunflowers have brightened so many spots in our flower beds. Given the hard rain we are expecting, they might be past their prime sooner rather than later. Between them and the black-eyed Susans, I look a more...
One of my favorite history tutors recently went home to his reward — David McCullough. Since March of 2020, I have been a grateful participant in one-on-one tutorials by many authors through LIBBY.* (The library reading App) And David McCullough was one of my...
Fifty years ago, what was YOUR song? You know that little tune that just captured your romance? OK - maybe you weren't even alive 50 years ago. This time 50 years ago, a very specific melody went through my curler laden head. My bridesmaids had arrived and I was...
Looking back, before COVID erupted in March 2020, Doug and I may have had it! Something fast and harsh knocked us for a loop in February. I caught what I thought was a cold and shared. That wasn’t a kind thing. Doug wound up on heavy meds. Shortly after we...
Two editorial headlines this morning captured why I often feel so wobbly nowadays: Homeless Encampments No Longer Tolerated and A Wonder to Behold. It’s ironic, isn’t it — what we can do with such precision in space; yet what we have failed to do time and again on...
TV news, handheld devices limit my focus; so, sometimes it’s just good to have a reason to look up. (NASA: Landscape of a Star Birth) And I am grateful for the scientists who figured how to really look up, way up. Or are we looking back? ( A Dying Star ) I don’t...
Exhaustion Exhaustion is not an uncommon companion at my age and stage. While this feeling of fatigue reminds me of how I felt in 1968, it is more palpable and David French's description captures well the worn-outness I feel. But, also the hope: “ . . . The...
I Have that degree Somewhere For somebody with a college degree, I am one who understands very few of any of the devices upon which I rely.* That’s why The Way Things Work by David Macaulay — among many of his illustrated books —was such a practical tutorial for...
Cogitating on things this glorious morning in June, enjoying perhaps the last drier day for a spell, I am soaking up other people’s wisdom. For example, I didn’t know if President Lincoln actually declared what I am feeling: “I have been driven many times upon my...
Half a century ago, we were angry with each other and the government because of the Vietnam war, civil rights — and Watergate. Then the Supreme Court decided abortion was a constitutional right. (9 Things You Should Know About Roe v Wade) Fifty years ago,...
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