Love

The hostess seated a couple at a table I saw behind my daughter Jessica’s shoulder. The woman had medium-brown hair and wore a simple blue skirt and white blouse. Her soft, large-boned figure contrasted with the sharp lines of the restaurant’s décor. The man was...

Pray

I’d taken a taxi from Penn Station to our hotel in Battery Park City—an area newly rebuilt since the destruction on 9/11. After checking in, I took another cab to meet my daughter at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. Jessica had spent the day working at her company’s...

Eat

Over Labor Day weekend, I met my daughter in New York City—she was in town on business. We ate new foods at restaurants, soaked up inspiration at two art museums, and watched a love-themed show on Broadway. It was an “Eat, Pray, Love” experience, which...

Train Ride

Early Friday morning, I boarded the Amtrak train heading to New York City for a Labor Day weekend visit with my daughter. The train was running an hour late; the trip would be longer. As soon as I found my seat, number 53 by the window, I settled in, ready to make the...

On Sixty-Five

Early yesterday morning, as I sipped my coffee laced with milk and watched the dawn creep across the Rockfish Valley, I received a birthday present from Richard Rohr. “When you sit quietly and for extended times in nature, you see that everything changes,” he wrote in...