Dissonance

Bethany, Connecticut’s Amity Regional Junior High School band marched in the Memorial Day Parade that sunny day in May some fifty years ago. I played both flute and piccolo to John Philip Sousa’s The Thunderer. Our band had a good reputation and attracted large...

West Side Story

I’m under ten years old, anticipating that magical double-digit landmark, and whirling around the living room in my pajamas, waving scarves and wrapping them around me. “I feel pretty, oh, so pretty,” I sing. On the stereo, my father plays the soundtrack of West Side...

Go with the Flow

My husband is a contrarian. That is, he doesn’t bow to peer pressure or “go with the flow,” at least not by definition. He’s unlikely to “do what other people are doing or agree with other people’s opinions because it is the easiest thing to do.” In that regard, he...

Patterns

Early Saturday morning, I’d read the news, finished my coffee, fed the dogs then, ready to start the day, checked the weather outside. “I think it’s snowing on the mountain,” I said to Keith. He looked up from his desk in the loft and gazed out the window facing the...

Martha

For thirteen years, starting in the mid-80s, I drove a tan-brown four-door, standard transmission 1983 Nissan Maxima named Martha. She had leather seats, an automatic sunroof and state-of-the-art voice prompts. “Key is in the ignition,” she’d say. “Thank you, Martha,”...

Communication

“Hey, Mom. I’m on my way to yoga,” my daughter Jessica said when we skyped last week. It was 6:45 Monday morning in Hong Kong and the same time on Sunday evening in Virginia, daylight savings time. “How’s the snow there? It’s pretty nice here, not too humid...