Cooking Three-Bears Style

Whenever my Mother’s sister walked into the kitchen with cooking on her mind, we headed for the hills: Daddy to work, Mother to the back-bedroom for a long bath, and we girls to the great outdoors but, like curious puppies, staying close enough to listen and sniff....

Chess and a Marriage Thing

Every work day, my husband comes home, changes out of suit into sweats, and either does his weight workout in the basement or dons his reading glasses and sits down to play chess. On the dining room table off to his right, Keith places a tattered book, its cover...

Anniversaries

This is a week of anniversaries for Keith and me: birth, death and wedding. We celebrate our 5th today with thoughts of how far we’ve come in partnership. Signs of success are easy to see: a house renovated and mountain house nearing completion, job changes with...

The Empty Chair

On the 10th anniversary of Gretchen’s suicide, I am reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s book Night Falls Fast. I admit that my quest for knowledge is somewhat of an equivocation. Although I seek understanding of my stepdaughter’s struggle and its impact on her...