There are roses blooming even in the darkness of this December.
This Writer’s Life
The writer’s challenge is always to create the life rather than the theory or the explanation of the life…
Christmas Eve: My Mother’s 111th Birthday
I understand her decision although it causes me a spasm of regret, as all the dreams abandoned by women do: the great heap of the unrealistic and the unrealizable that lies alongside nearly every woman’s life.
A Memore of Christmas Past
Nostalgia is not my strong suit. Most family rituals, in my experience, long outlive their usefulness… Fortunately, there are exceptions.
Christmas Is A-Coming…
The five of us children were persuaded, or if necessary, dragooned, into producing a truncated version of “A Christmas Carol” which I, as the writer in the family, was charged with shortening.
Gratitude
Although I loved presents, even hankered for them, the ones I received—mainly books—never mattered as much as the presents I gave, and for that I will always be grateful.
He Is Risen
I would always find, outside my bedroom door, a basket with a child-sized rake, shovel, hoe and trowel as well as five or six bright colored packets of seeds: squash, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce. Mother was a passionate gardener and hoped that her five children would develop her love for getting her hands in the dirt.
Getting Through The Season
Now that Christmas has fallen half way out of the day-I imagine it on its edge, sliding off all those cards that wish, so blandly, “Season’s Greetings” (and what are they?-I am coming to terms with the usefulness of Facebook.
Dreaming The Dream of Modern Life
They are taking our train away, eliminating Colorado and New Mexico from the line that has stopped at Lamy, New Mexico since 1887; there is some problem with the tracks in Kansas, no one wants to pay for their repair, and so in two years my beloved Southwestern Chief may be southwestern no more, routed down through Texas, leaving us stranded.