The opposite of certainty
While the remnants of hurricane Laura soaked the forest on Saturday morning, I sipped green tea and finished Janine Urbaniak Reid’s memoir The Opposite of Certainty. Reading about her brush with alcohol abuse in her teens and early twenties, I thought about the...
A timely parable
After letting the dogs out, I poured a morning cup of coffee and sat in the great room, iPad in my lap. First, I checked the weather then scanned social media—Instagram, Twitter, Facebook—sorted email, and read the headlines. It’s hard not to get discouraged by...
Four snippets from Raindrops keep falling on my head*
Snippet #1: Those raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling… At night, I draw the covers under my chin, snuggling against the chill and steady patter. Rain in August is a welcome respite. But then the days dawn dark and damp. Snippet #2: So I just...
Five Finger Exercises
I pushed the front latch buttons with my thumbs, lifted the lid of the case with my middle fingers, and gazed starry-eyed at my shiny new flute. “Try it out,” said Joe, Charlottesville’s Music & Arts retail manager. I attached the foot to the body then slid the...
Pulling weeds and telling stories
It’s a clear, warm morning, and I’m out pulling weeds as usual. This week’s note from Vanaprastha: another guest blog of mine that went live today on the Brevity Blog site. Many thanks to Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore for publishing my piece, “Pulling Weeds...