I gazed over my steering wheel through swirling snow at an empty road. What a lonely stretch for my car to conk out on. A bridge bisected the highway between…
Last Man Off is the true tale of a fishing vessel sunk in the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic. Thirty-eight crew members hauled in thousands of lines of dangling tooth…
We walked through a historic neighborhood in an unfamiliar city. It was time to return to the hotel, and I knew we should turn right, but my husband headed left.…
A disturbing question confronted me two weeks ago, like an Intervention. It bubbled under the surface in March and April when the Master Naturalist classes were meeting, but I ignored…
Nikita, our dog, lay unbothered near the driveway despite passing dogs barking and straining at their leashes. Neighbors exclaimed their amazement at her loyalty. Even on our walks to the…
Acting Squirrelly Our breakfast table rests against a wall of windows that look out on the back porch. Each morning a menagerie of birds and squirrels entertain us at the…
Cardinalis cardinalis. Like an enlightened Hellen Keller, I gorge on names in a Master Naturalist class, running from tree to tree. What’s the name of this tree, that bloom?…
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow A baseball cap wedged between the bed and wall, the piano bench pulled out, an empty refrigerator, and piles of sheets and towels, that’s what’s…
The Day After Whew! Lent is over. I almost said, Easter is over, since it was yesterday, but Easter is my every day now. The time of constant self-examination and mourning…
Both Hands As I sat down at the kitchen table with a sandwich, the ticking clock sounded loud in the otherwise quiet house. I reached for my laptop but realized…
My ears blared sirens in my head, not of sound but of hot-pokered pain. I sat on the crinkly paper in an exam room. “Your ears are fine.” “What? Then…
The air conditioner kicked on as I wound the vacuum cord back into place, but the house was otherwise ominously quiet. Curious, I poked my head around the door frame…