My first crush ever was my best friend’s brother. This was in southern Chile. His parents were farmers whose parents hailed from Germany. We–my friend, my crush, my brother, and I–played in the hay bales in their barn. My next noteworthy crush was a visiting preacher’s son. He was Argentine… [Continue Reading]

I want to write about how I feel the tug of the other side, about how an awareness of not being, at least not in this form, sometimes makes my heart skip a beat. I wouldn’t call it fear, exactly, though maybe it’s fear’s distant cousin, or a half-brother. It’s… [Continue Reading]

A weekly Time Capsule, of sorts, in which I pause and notice. And write down what I love. And notice all the reasons I don’t want to die before my time. And get curious. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my… [Continue Reading]

What moves you? I mean, what really moves you? What takes your breath away and renders you incapable of averting your eyes? What fascinates you? What grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let you go until you look, really look? What wakes you up in the middle of the… [Continue Reading]

Change. It happens. It’s the way of things, of life. Inside me something’s been pent up for something like forever. Tied up. Stifled. It’s some kind of energy. Isn’t energy a property of matter related to its ability to perform work? You know, work. As in motion, movement. (I had… [Continue Reading]

It’s not for not having people who love me. Not at all. And it’s not for not loving people, including a number whose side I would pick up and fly around the world to be at in a moment’s notice if ever they said the word. There’s even a dear… [Continue Reading]

Sometimes I want to be my niece Caroline who’s cool and groovy, an awesome swimmer with a butterfly stroke that makes you jump up and down with joy (she’s 8!) and a growing leaf collection. Caroline loves girly things AND earthworms. She thinks slugs are a bit disgusting, but that… [Continue Reading]

This just in: J.K. Rowling will be the commencement speaker for Harvard’s graduation on June 5. Prepare to shut down, our dear fair city, Cambridge. But really… um… I’m nursing a slight resentment here, on account of the fact that in 1999 we got Alan Greenspan, then-Chairman of the Federal… [Continue Reading]