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 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...
September 27th, 2022 | Family, Friends, General, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Time Passes
At the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, my mind went so many places. One of those places was my grandparents’ butler’s pantry. On one shelf, among odd sets, had been the set of coronation cups. “Who had them now?” I wondered and emailed my siblings and cousins...
August 3rd, 2022 | Family, Genealogy, General, Memory, Time Passes
Kate contacted me out of the blue. Her email said, I have just been given an old box with a label on the top with “Laura A. Wavle, 11 Story Street, Cambridge, Mass”. I’m wondering if you have anymore information about her and whether she lived her life in MA, or did...
December 5th, 2021 | Family, General, Holidays, Time Passes
Christmas 2021 Dearest All, The box turtles look so surprised, heads withdrawn above the hinged front of the plastron, topaz eyes wide and startled. They are invisible until I yank weeds or scatter fallen leaves; then the carapace, rounded and daubed with orange, is...