November 6th, 2023 | Family, Friends, General, literature and poetry, Loss, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, Writing
I must have read Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White dozens of times; probably for the first time when I was about thirteen. The book and I are the same age, both of us born in 1952. Charlotte’s Web was in a pile of books I had pulled from Dan’s study, mostly children’s...
October 7th, 2023 | Architecture and Design, Europe, Family, General, Loss, Matters of the Spirit, Travel
The cemetery in Balbieriškis is a beautiful place, whatever the metric you choose. It is a place of peace and transcendent love that is evident in the tending of the space, the care for the ancestors. The Old Cemetery is the most beautiful of all, with its signs of...
October 4th, 2023 | Europe, Family, General, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, Pets, Time Passes, Travel
Douglas Keister published Stories in Paris: A Field Guide to Paris Cemeteries and Their Residents in 2013 and I don’t remember when I bought it. I must have encountered it in the travel pages of The New York Times, but I don’t recall. Cemeteries in Distant...
July 19th, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Family, General, Matters of the Spirit, Memory
Well, technically they’re his and not mine, but they are all I have. Anyway, I’ve had the full experience from diapers through adolescence to adulthood. An Old Joke There is an old joke I told students to explain why young artists reject the styles and aesthetic...
July 4th, 2023 | Family, General, Health, Matters of the Spirit, Time Passes, Writing
Unless I want to be an Edie, Big or Little, in an ersatz-colonial Grey Gardens, I need to begin the process of emptying this house. We’ve been happy here. At least I think so. It is hard, indeed, to truly know what Dan was thinking about much of anything....
June 22nd, 2023 | Family, General, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, Time Passes
Becoming a widow leaves me with an extraordinary amount of time. The Before Time I knew taking care of Dan was a full-time job: dialysis occupied four hours, four days a week, or a bit more. While the treatment itself, according to the computer in the Cycler, lasted...