OH those first tomatoes; the kind, we eat out of hand (from our own garden, if we are lucky, a tomato eaten as one would a piece of fruit, parting that hairy aromatic foliage to find that first globe, still-sunwarmed). These are the tomatoes we wait all year for; even after we tire of them plain, […]
“EXPANDING YOUR LIFE, NOT SHRINKING YOUR BODY”: FINDING MOTIVATION (AGAIN) TO WORK OUT
8 ACTUALLY HELPFUL WAYS TO BE WITH SOMEONE WHO’S GRIEVING (WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW HOW)
HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOUR WIDOWED FRIEND WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW. SHE’D TELL YOU IF SHE COULD. BUT SHE CAN’T. THAT’S PART OF THE PROBLEM. 1. Please understand that right now your widowed friend is not herself. Literally not herself. Most of the constructs of self she had have vanished, some temporarily, some permanently. Everything […]
DEFIANT JOY, OR YOU HAVEN’T HAD ALL YOUR SURPRISES YET: NEW YEARS EDITION
SOMETIMES YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN. YOU’RE USUALLY WRONG. AND THAT’S PROBABLY NOT A BAD THING. I used to teach in a program called Artists-in-Schools, as did my longtime friend, musician Bill Haymes. I’d come into schools, a visiting writer helping students (sometimes very young, sometimes teenagers) write. Bill did the same, […]
A LENTIL SOUP SO “RICH, FRAGRANT, SATISFYING” THAT SOMEONE ATE IT DAILY – HAPPILY! – FOR 15 YEARS
WHO MAKES AND EATS A SOUP, THE SAME SOUP, DAILY, FOR LUNCH, HUNDREDS OF TIMES? REID BRANSON, OF SEATTLE, THAT’S WHO. The subject line: “Lentil soup.” The sender: Reid Branson. Someone unknown to me. The receipt of emails from unknown senders with such subject lines are not atypical for cookbook writers in the era of […]
TIDINGS OF DISCOMFORT
PUCKER UP, BUTTERNUT: SOULFUL WINTER SQUASH SOUP WITH GINGER-APPLE SALSA
The circle turns. The green world again goes gold, yellow, red. Instead of the zucchinis, the excess of which we may have complained about only six weeks ago, we now coo over adorable gourds and mini-squashes, admire big honkin’ pumpkins and sweet, bright creased or crook-necked winter squashes. So pleasing aesthetically, sculptural, decorative, signal of […]
FIFTY SHADES OF GRIEF, IN OCTOBER
WIDOWHOOD IS NOT STATIC. IT KEEPS CHANGING, AND IT KEEPS CHANGING US. IT HAS AN INFINITE NUMBER OF COLORS. HERE ARE FIFTY OF THEM. 1. I take a lot of deep breaths this time of year. 2. It’s fall, the season inherently bittersweet and elegiac. All that plush color and harvest, all that stunning beauty, […]
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