Stay in the story

A couple of weeks ago, a wood thrush banged into one of our windows. Other birds have done the same and recovered, like last summer’s Scarlet Tanager and more recently, this yellow-bellied sapsucker. Keith and I had not seen wood thrushes here at Vanaprastha, though...
The Moment of Lift

The Moment of Lift

One day, spring semester 1981 in my American Humanities class at Ursuline Academy of Dallas, we viewed a slide of Mary Cassatt’s Mother and Child. As a young and somewhat pretentious teacher, I pronounced Cassatt’s last name in French—apologies to my students. Also,...

On Frogs and Princesses

At lunch with our mother last week, my sisters and I got to talking about our teenaged years and dating. My older sister and I confessed to breaking curfew—once for her, three times in a row for me then grounding—and my younger sister recounted her morning-after...