In the Kitchen, at the Table

When Bill and I met over the phone via my daughter’s article he happened to read in the local newspaper, my husband of forty-six years had been dead nine years. But Bill’s wife of fifty-two years had died just three…

A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.   And…

What do you know, here’s a remnant of Christmas—could not be more beautiful, more Christmasy—that just burst forth. Our dear friend Linda gave us a Christmas gift of a waxen round bulb, purely naked—“It’s from Trader Joe—just put it some…

This may sound silly to you–because I am not known for my habits of tidyness–but I have wanted to tell you, if you’ve forgotten (or never really knew) the pleasures of washing your face at night before going to bed.…

To close out this—for me and mine—momentous year, a light deft touch by the inimitable Billy Collins (formerly Poet Laureate of the United States). Blessings on Billy…this poem is a mind-bending-yea-saying note for a New Year… The Afterlife* While you…

Gene was writing witty advertising copy at an agency in San Francisco so we had moved to a rented house on Belvedere—a small enclave in San Francisco Bay. Our fourth child, Amanda, was brand new. David, our eldest, was five.…

You know, every so often life takes you by the scruff of the neck and gives you a good—a really good–shaking. Everything goes blotto. Numb. Still everything hurts. Up till then, things were going along swimmingly. Your family got fed.…