A Picnic in Hemingway’s Attic
What could be more perfect than a bunch of writer friends holding a picnic in the attic of the Hemingway Birthplace Home? Where the gabled windows look out at the green, green tree tops of Oak Park and the old turret room still dreams of the medicinal specimens Father Hemingway used to store there? This was my crazy idea: [...]
The Sweetest Little Mother’s Day Gift
I just had to share this: My 17-year-old son gave me this for Mother's Day--a tiny rose he crafted from tin and copper, propped into the cutest little vase, namely one of his tiny apothecary jars (he's really a chemist). Goes to show that a lot of love can come in a tiny object.
Thank You, Abigail Thomas
Once in a while a book comes along that is like an old armchair. You simply don't want to get up. You could read on and on until your butt falls asleep. Abigail Thomas's new memoir What Comes Next and How to Like It is such a book. It's really an homage to aging and to caring too much about many [...]
Missing the Japanese Garden
I miss the Osaka Japanese Garden; now is the time of year when I would seek it out on a spring time walk. My kids consider it "theirs." Goes to show how vulnerable our love for a public place is, because currently Wooded Island in the Jackson Park lagoon, where the Japanese Garden is situated, is fenced off and [...]
Two Years of Morning Pages
Today is my two year anniversary of Morning Pages. Incidentally I find myself in the same spot where I began this practice in earnest: on the banks of the Potomac at the conference my former online writing group organizes at regular intervals. Kind of fortuitous, isn't it? Auspicious even? Over these two years I have filled these five notebooks with [...]
Sunrise @ Masada
Escapism is in order! I have been frustrated and uninspired after months of querying and not finding a home for my memoir manuscript. In addition, one obligation is following another, chores are piling up, and the world outside is drab. Time to transport myself to another world! For example Masada, where I went with my daughter in December. She insisted on doing [...]