"Happy New Year!"

It is April 13th, her 86th birthday and we are sitting across from each other in a hard wooden booth at Thai restaurant, waiting for our Number 57 with one and one-half stars.  

"New Year?"  I say. 

"Well, I read it in the paper, I… Read full post »

1. Your main trait:  Intelligence.  Humans may call us "bird brains" but, on the whole, we do far better in a flock than those dodos in Congress.

2. The quality you like best in a man:  Doesn't over preen.… Read full post »

Vivian was my role model.

Twenty-one years ago, she was in her eighties, her bay gelding, Rufus, was in his very late teens. Vivian said she didn't care if it took a crane to get her up in the saddle; as long as she could take a breath, she was going… Read full post »

He is one of my tethers to this earth. 

He knows when I am unwell.  He stays close, drops a ball at my feet, looks up and searches my eyes hopefully.  Hope is in his DNA:  for dinner, a cookie, a walk along the Sound in the rain.  … Read full post »

            What I don't remember:  driving home, brushing my teeth or washing my face.  Eating. Looking at the other three dogs to see if they noticed I had come back without Rupert or even letting them/… Read full post »

Now and then, we witness amazement.

In things commonplace, a moment of breathlessness is born.

We are all blind at birth, instinct and need.

Reaching up and outward, native and innocent. 

  But… Read full post »

        My first cigarette was a Lark.  Show Us Your Larks! the ads cried out.  Behind the high school gym with Susie Shapiro, Mary Katherine Connelly, Maggie Riley and Jill Esposito, I hacked like a cat with a fu… Read full post »

             I descend from women with white living rooms. 

            Gr/… Read full post »

(Image (c) Charlotte Hinton)

Standing at my father's graveside, alongside what remained of our family and my parents' friends, I felt empty.  Anger and resentment do that to you; they obliterate or, at least, obscure, love and other tender emotions.  

You stub… Read full post »

Like a kid, I'm on my back in the sweet summer grass, watching big puffy clouds move by in azure skies, looking for images in the formations.  

There's always one that looks like God:  big, muscular, imposing, until the wind currents re-shape it into Mickey Mouse.  Or Minnie… Read full post »

There’s a saying that if life gives you lemons, make lemonade; if life gives you tomatoes, make Bloody Mary’s.

The first summer in our new house on York Lane, I still had my baby teeth, and the house had no landscaping.  It was a new development… Read full post »

(I Can Still Fit Into That Dress)

Did you know that May is National Salad Month?   Really.  National Salad Month?  Try National Salad Life.

I've been eating almost nothing but salads since Sunny Acres Day Camp in 1965, when I looked down at my thighs encased… Read full post »

Creators -- artists, writers, musicians, photographers -- are entitled to compensation for the use of their work, unless they themselves choose to give it away at no charge.  

I don't think most of us would argue with that premise (although there are some who argue everything should be fr… Read full post »

Turn on your GPS device.  Type in the word “Depression.”  It will give you the choice of m/… Read full post »

(Hey, live blogging from Rancho La Puerta in Mexico.  Taking a memoir/essay class.  Our assignment is to write an essay in the style of NPR's "This I Believe".  It has to be a true story. It is due in two hours.  As someone who nits and picks over every word, quick… Read full post »

Santa baby,

I’ve been meaning to write to you sooner than this, but, well, you know, the time just seems to get away from us all, and I lost your email address when I changed computers and cell phones.  But I think about you and the missus often,… Read full post »

I don’t know how it became a ritual in an otherwise mannerly family.  Well, actually, that’s a lie.  I know. 

Ma’s cranberry relish started the whole thing. 

There were thirteen first cousins on Da’s side of the family,… Read full post »

The cycle of life is at once miraculous and cruel. 

It launches us into the world, small, fragile and soft, until we grow and harden, and then boomerangs us back toward infancy, where, in our last days, we are again bathed, fed and tended gently. 

As parents, we tolerate adolescent… Read full post »

Sweater, n.:  garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.  ~Ambrose Bierce

My mother last saw her “real” father in 1931.  She was five and just starting kindergarten.  He was about 30 and on his way to jail.

I don’t know what you understand a… Read full post »