I’m finding the stress of my life cutting into my sleep. I seem to sleep long enough, but I can tell when I wake that I’ve been worrying about my responsibilities all night long. With no school-aged children at home I often don’t follow weather forecasts. This morning I awoke before six a.m. vexed by a complicated issue. I got up to work on it on my laptop and when I glanced outside after about a half hour, something magical happened. When I was a little girl I received a Polaroid camera for Christmas. (My granddaughter has a camera with the same technology.) I would take a picture and ..read more

 I just got back from a religion class at our chapel. (Adult religion classes offered during the week are called “Institute.”) It was inspirational and reminded me of my one experience with BYU Education Week back in 1993. Brigham Young University opens its campus each year for a week between spring and summer semester. BYU professors and others offer free classes and lectures on a huge variety of subjects. I saw Stephen Covey give a lecture on Joseph Smith, using the same paradigm as he uses in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I attended a college-level art history class. (I’ve often ..read more

 The yellows are fallen and browned. A few stubborn dark leaves, chiefly oaks, hold on. I lived in a little town in central Pennsylvania until I was nine. I loved the rolling hills surrounding our little Susquehanna River valley. To me, after the leaves fell, the hills were covered with soft brown fur. As I grew older I realized that my impressionistic view was a fantasy. Bare tree limbs and twigs catch your jacket and scratch your face. But the childish fancy won't give way to reality. The sight of a late autumn wood is comforting and cozy. My oldest cousin, Lola, owned a sugar beet far ..read more

 I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. For the past thirty-eight years I have reveled in the simple but deep pleasure of living in New England: a place other people go to on vacation. In the fall, I enjoy walking and driving, day after day, watching the colors change from the deep augustal green through reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. According to The Boston Globe, “Summer 2023 was the second-rainiest on record in Boston,” with more than 20 inches falling in three months. In drought years the trees turn color early, and this year they turned late. I was happy to see that even though we ..read more

 On November 5th of 1995, I went crazy, bonkers, insane, out of my mind. Literally. I once heard Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse Five and other sixties (and seventies) classics, talk about his family history of mental illness. “Bats in the belfry,” he said cheerfully. I loved his bluntness. I don’t judge anyone else’s sensibilities, but I personally don’t like euphemisms, if for no other reason than that they don’t have the intended effect. New terms for old conditions can’t keep up with popular culture turning them into insults. So on that first Sunday in November (I’m on deadli ..read more

 As a young girl, I was quite a Pharisee. I wanted very much to be religious but even more I wanted to be seen as religious. When I was about 10, our pastor at Holy Trinity Church in Westfield, NJ, where I lived from age 9 till marriage, gave everyone a challenge: spend more time praying in church. Wanting to be spiritual and very attuned to challenges from teachers (I was a pathological grade hound), I made a promise. I’m sure I wanted to please my parents, and was disappointed that they never mentioned it. So, on Sundays, before Mass started, I stayed kneeling longer than my parents and ..read more

1 Oct 2023 We’re staying with some friends who moved to Kennington, England, a village outside Oxford. I think Harry Potter used to live here. We went to a baptism this morning and I ventured out myself in the afternoon. I walked around the village cemetery, St. Swithun, which had only fairly recent markers (it was established as a civil parish in 1936), then the Sandford lock and weir. From there I found the Thames foot path and further along walked a mile or so on a country lane. In two hours I walked over five and a half miles. I realized that my walking makes no more sense than golfi ..read more

 I had a sobering experience. My DBSA (Depression Bipolar Support Alliance) office key has been dodgy for years. Last week it finally wouldn’t work at all. Our office is located in the cafeteria of McLean Hospital, a world-renown psychiatric hospital that was founded in 1811. I decided to call my husband, Jim, to see if he had any suggestions. The reception in the cafeteria was poor, so I walked outside towards the parking lot to talk. A woman came walking by with a companion who was obviously a McLean staff member. I recognized the woman: an acquaintance from long ago at DBSA. She alway ..read more

The night before our Bahamas cruise, in our Tampa Bay hotel, we slept in a king-size bed. I have never understood the appeal. It feels like an oil tanker: I’d rather ride to sleep in a trim little schooner. When we’d been married two years, Jim was offered a job interview with Ford in Detroit. We were such hicks then, even though Jim had grown up near the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and I in the sophisticated suburbs of New Jersey. Very budget-conscious, we packed canned food for the trip, bread and peanut butter and crackers, not expecting an expense account. The secretary in charge o ..read more

 Our Summer Retreat, the annual reunion with our children and grandchildren, just concluded on Saturday. This year was a first: we took a cruise with Royal Caribbean to Key West and the Bahamas. I’d been to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, many times from 1992 to sometime in the teens. My mom bought a shore-side condo in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, in about 1989, and my parents invited their children and grandchildren to spend time with them in paradise. I was intrigued with the idea of the Bahamas, especially after I listened to The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard. From 1706 ..read more