To become: when becoming becomes us
To begin to be, to become, as here with fall coming to Vanaprastha. From foreground to background: marigolds clustered in bloom, spice bush leaves yellowing, river oak grasses going to seed in the meadow in front of the house and behind, maples tinted red. When...
Stay on the road and don’t look back
The physical road On Saturday morning, thanks to Ian’s wind and rain, Keith and I woke to leaves and debris scattered across the driveway and the neighborhood road. The road—that’s pretty much all we talk about during the annual meeting every third Saturday in...
Farewell summer: on wood asters and the wilderness
In the more open places are little lavender asters, and the even smaller-flowered white ones that some people call bee weed or farewell summer. From “An Entrance to the Woods," by poet, essayist, and farmer Wendell Berry. Farewell summer Only when we bid...
Nature might be spontaneous, mostly I am not.
Spontaneous insects A spontaneous reaction: hundreds of angry hornets, acting on instinct to protect their nest. But it was the landscape crew that needed protection. They had cut down a dead tree along the walking trail above the driveway and discovered the tree...
Generous: when the giver becomes the gift
My husband Keith is “tit-for-tat” generous, that is, he tries to give at least as much as he receives. That and the Five-Minute Friday prompt, got me thinking about what generous really means. Here are some examples from Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary: The...
The root of the matter in my eighth decade
A week ago, I celebrated a landmark birthday plus one, entering my eighth decade, time to question the root of the matter: aging. The root problem I noticed it two decades ago, the pull of gravity on my face, my breasts, and now my derriere. Once I was like a young...