On my walk this morning, I spend some time talking with the geese. Two families heartwarmingly hanging out, nonplussed by an unremitting rain, the goslings nestled together at the edge of the pond. Irv and Dottie’s five are about all…
The young couple stands in the long ticket queue at Knott's Berry Farm. Between the ticket kiosk and the main gate their two young boys--maybe ages five and six—are passing the time, playing, waiting for their parents. Their focus of…
Standing in a pristine Alaskan stream, the fisherman's first catch, a lovely eighteen-inch trout. The fisherman and his friend admire it. "Most impressive," his friend says thinking of the delectable evening meal ahead. And then, unceremoniously, the fisherman tosses the…
The middle drawer of her mother's dresser was filled with silk stockings, dozens of pairs in many exquisite colors, each wrapped in the store's original package. They had never been worn. Rachel admired the stockings, imagining the texture and enjoying…
"The barracks were full of them. The image was repeated over and over again. Butterflies. They were everywhere I looked. Some were crude. Others were quite detailed." In 1946 Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross visited the Maidenek concentration camp. The children's barracks were particularly sorrowful, with toys…
Today’s NYT special section newspaper headline, “A Year Without Travel.”An accurate sentence about my own year, to be sure. And a good reminder to us all; a year without (fill in the blank).And yet, while I may have been “without”…
A woman stands at the window and stares. We are on the morning commuter ferry, from Vashon Island to Seattle. A snow-covered Mount Rainier dominates the panorama. It stands prominent, imperial in the dawn light. (It is true. Here in…
There is a Tibetan story about an earnest young man seeking enlightenment. (Earnest people must think this quite unfair--since they play a central role in most parables and stories about enlightenment.)A famous sage passes through the man's village. The man…
At a playground, a woman sits down next to a man seated on a park bench. "That's my son over there," she tells him, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater, gliding down the slide. "He's a fine…
"We should do this more often." A middle-aged man is pointing at the scenery, mouth agape, speaking to a woman standing at his side. (Okay, maybe north of middle-age.)I am doing what I do best: Eavesdropping. (And it’s how I…
