God’s Timeline
“Hi, I’m Carole Duff.” I checked in with the two women at the desk outside the Sister Helen Marie Duffy Center where I had taught in-coming Freshman Laptop Camps and faculty workshops. “Oh, yes, we heard that you were coming,” they said. “How long has it been since...
Magical Thinking
The night after the writer John Gregory Dunne died on December 30, 2003, his wife Joan Didion “needed to be alone so that he could come back.” “This was the beginning of my year of magical thinking,” she wrote a few years later. The Year of Magical...
Day of Rest
My grandparents, both maternal and paternal, lived in Hodgdon, Aroostook County in Northern Maine where folks farmed 6-days a week and attended the East Hodgdon Bible Church. On Sundays, it was essential chores only, and the women cooked in advance – we ate...
Growth and Judgment
We stood in the entrance hall at Monticello, my friend and I, listening to the house guide. It had been a few years since my last visit, but the artifacts and information looked and sounded familiar. After the house, we toured the gardens. Unlike my previous visits...
Split Self
Several years ago, my mother gave me a t-shirt with a saying on it: When my gut says, “No,” my mouth says, “Sure, I’d be glad to.” Mother’s observation proved more and less useful: more because upon occasion I did have two minds, one thinking and the other...