Despite being allergic to almost everything natural, I need trees and grass around me. Cities tend to overstimulate me. I get exhausted by the traffic, the noise, and the multitudes of people. Once, when I got going the wrong way on Storrow Drive in Boston and couldn’t find a place to turn off, I pulled … Read More
What most people call Spring, I experience as Pollen Season. This month, all the plants and trees are soaking up the sunshine and rain and growing inches each day. They’re also putting out unbelievable amounts of yellow, dusty stuff that makes me sneeze like crazy. Thank goodness for antihistamines. Without them, I’d spend the whole … Read More
“This was the time in her life,” Ondaatje writes of a young nurse in The English Patient, “that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world.” That young nurse, Hanna, is deeply traumatized by her experiences as a WWII nurse in Italy. In a bombed-out villa … Read More
This year, I’ve been grateful not to be named Karen. (Who wants to embody a meme about white cluelessness?) On the other hand, I’ve never been thrilled to be named Nancy, either. When I was growing up, I didn’t mind it too much. I felt a kinship with the indomitable Nancy Drew, girl detective. And … Read More
Here in New England, we cherish every sign of spring’s arrival. (Even those of us with hideous allergies enjoy it between sneezes.) So it doesn’t surprise me that Russian authors, with their even longer and darker winters, honor it extravagantly. And while their characters experience the sunshine and new leaves, spring also drifts into a … Read More
Another bird feeder, that is. We live on the edges of a state park. So once the weather warms up, we remind ourselves every day to bring in the bird feeder at twilight. Inevitably, there comes an evening when we forget. We hear something clanking in the yard, and look outside, and guess what—there’s a … Read More
In February of 1938, my mother’s stepfather was shot dead by his stepfather — in broad daylight, on the streets of Baxter Springs, Kansas. Here’s what seems indisputable. Ted Roy, my mom’s stepfather, was walking home on a cool and cloudy Saturday morning when he spotted his mother’s ex-husband, Mike Giyer, driving down the street. … Read More
In his new book Chatter, Ethan Kross gives all due respect to the inner voice we hear as move about our daily lives. That voice, he reminds us, allows us to remember past experiences, reflect on our lives, and move toward our goals. We’re not quite human without it. But we all know how easily … Read More
The crocuses have faded, and the branches of the forsythia are still bare, but the hellebore is blooming in its shy, unobtrusive way. We’re in what New Englanders call “mud season.” The poet e. e. cummings more happily called it “Just-spring,” when the world is “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful.” On Tuesday afternoon, I sat outside at … Read More
One of my husband’s favorite Little Golden Book from his childhood was The Little House in the Big Forest, in which a family builds a house in the forest and then settles into its cozy shelter. His mother wrote his name and the year—1949, when he was three—on the title page. The book reminded him of … Read More