headerfull

posted March 5, 2015

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Read More Like This

The Road and The Vaster Wilds: Anti-Odysseys (Part 3 in an ongoing series)

By happenstance, I read Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 apocalyptic novel The Road and followed it with Lauren Groff’s latest, The Vaster Wilds. It was September, technically still summer, but both of these novels take place in life-threateningly cold weather, and each author made me feel that cold, that terror of being consumed by the natural world, an awareness of the scarcity of essential resources, the distrust of other human beings–even our intimates. As I revisit these novels today, fittingly on Halloween, when the air in Massachusetts has grown chill and my body continues to fight against that novel corona virus, I find myself sharing some of these primal fears. When the terrain is unknown and the enemy invisible, who and what can we trust?

November 1, 2023

River Roads

Here’s the strange thing about me: I can completely forget I’m a musician until I arrive at the gig. It’s as though that part of me is a set of clothes for another season, kept in a moth-proof box in the attic, out of mind until the weather changes.

September 23, 2023

I Saw Peter on the Street Today

I saw Peter on the street todayOlder, with a young womanJust like alwaysHis hair still long but thin and grey, Fly-awayLoose curls like cloudsCheekbones and shoulders all anglesSmall Lennon glasses,…

November 28, 2010

Day Eight: The Story of The Big Yellow House, Part 1

I bought this house in 2003, when I was newly divorced, thirty-six and optimistic. I’d just signed a book deal with Scholastic, and I was working on the soundtrack to…

November 28, 2017

Antidote to Pain

I am journaling for Lent with a friend of mine who is a minister and a mom. We are using as inspiration a book called 40 Days with Kathleen Norris….

April 17, 2012