My excitement leading up to Christmas Day was so powerful it hurt, and I dimly felt that I was excited in a way that couldn’t be easily resolved.
Blog Posts about My Family
My Mother’s Nightgown
Wednesday as we were reeling from the aftereffects of the election, my dear sister Eleanor sent me a care package.
The Secret in the Persimmon Seed
I remember my father, at the end of a long family trip to Europe, exclaiming with delight as we drove home: “Still the most beautiful place in the world!”
My Next Book After My Next Book
How fortunate I am to have access to this incredibly rich trove of letters! Now that letter writing is at an end, there will be no more such collections.
Clifford
Writing to “My Dear Mary”—her niece and my mother—in 1954, Rose Caperton explained that the three leather-bound books she was sending had belonged to Mary’s great-great-great grandmother.
The Death of Pip
Pip, my shelter dog pitbull mix, died peacefully on Saturday after nine years of a beautiful life, hiking, enjoying the dog park, going with me on all kinds of adventures.
Jacob Street
Jacob Street when I was growing up in the prosperous white suburbs had only one meaning: that was the address of Lizzie Baker’s house.
Three Ideas: A Biography and Two Histories
It will soon be time for me to start another three or four year writing project. I’d love to hear which of these three ideas you find most appealing…
The Happy Family
My generation was known for our disruptions, the massive number of divorces and desertions that the rapid changes of the 1960’s and 1970’s ushered in… Fortunately, that bitterness seems by now to be at least partly assuaged.
The Lost Cause
As I begin reading the collection of nineteenth-century Stiles letters that may provide the core of my next book, I’m brought reluctantly to remember two long ago incidents when loneliness pushed me closer to belief.