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…
This morning, we woke to our second day of snow. Out at the pond, a Great Blue Heron, poised elegant and stylish, patiently waits for breakfast.The sky is filled with a flotilla of tiny parachutes, floating (more like dancing), quietly…
“I like your style,” I tell the geese on this cold and blustery morning. “Even today, still looking for sun, and a good meal. And you hang together; that impresses me. Plus, I’m told you mate for life, with very low divorce…
Welcome to the new year. 2021. There are so many who couldn’t wait to get here, with 2020 in the rear-view mirror. Although we all know it doesn’t quite work that easily, does it?But this I do know, from a…
