Four generations turned up at our family Thanksgiving table this year, a memorable time, indeed. Seated with honor at one end of the table was my 87-year-old mother, now bearing the title our uncle used to call the OLM (Oldest Living Member). At the opposite end in an attached baby seat perched our youngest addition, […]
We See the Moon
“I see the Moon, and The Moon sees me The Moon sees somebody I’d like to see…” Low, off-key, the little children’s ditty pops out, first as humming, a melodic memory from childhood a half-century ago. Absently, I begin singing the old rhyme as we stand outside, waiting companionably on the dog’s evening ritual under […]
But Then, She’ll…
Perhaps because Halloween ghosts and goblins were everywhere and trick or treat just a few days away–who knows?–but mortality leaped into the conversation in my kitchen on a recent weekend morning. Of all things, it grew out of a session making pumpkin bread, a fall breakfast favorite with Buddy and Sis. G-ma makes no apologies […]
Mystery Man
In my family, we tend to keep our history right where we can see it. That’s not because we are important, or unusually fixated on the past. We do tend to hold on to things and use them, objects that serve a function—here’s a cast-iron skillet that sizzled a half-century ago under the mastery of […]
Lazy, Annoying Bug
I need an idea, I say to me It’s a lie The truth is they are everywhere Summer gnats boring through screen holes Surreptitiously biting the most tender skin, right at the temple, where I yank my irreverent hair out of my eyes and scratch at my noggin I swat at them weakly, scrawling notes in […]
Hardest questions, toughest moments
Somewhere, far, far away, there lies an obscure stone carved with this universal truth for parents, grandparents, and adult friends: Children will ask life’s hardest questions at the precise moments in which you are least prepared to answer them. Straighten your back, and get ready. And I might scratch on this codicil: the older […]