Independence Day looked a bit different this year. The ultimate mid-summer holiday, the 4th of July is officially the day we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, our liberation from British rule: the birth of our own nation. Those fireworks we set off represent the guns and cannons that got us here through
Read on »Thoughts on This and That
Leaps of Faith
Coming in from my daily walk, I shut the door behind me a little harder than intended. Somewhat frantically I peel off my Hawaiian-print mask and drop it in the bag of contaminated-clothes, destined to be washed in hot soapy water later tonight. I take a deep barrier-free breath. My shoes come off next and
Read on »Becoming Unstuck
Stuck at home in early December with a cold, I found myself too cranky and restless to just curl up with a good book and get better. When my eye fell on that overflowing underwear drawer I’d been telling myself I’d clean out one of these days, I dumped the contents on my bed and
Read on »Sisters of the Tiles
The sound of mah jongg tiles clacking against each other is one of my earliest memories, yet I had no idea at the time what those tiles would come to mean to me. Having grown up watching my mother play mah jongg, I started playing myself as a young mom in New Jersey. When we
Read on »Hineni
I was ten years old when I walked down the gray corridors of the hospital to visit my mother, as she sat in a wheelchair, wrapped in a pale blue hospital gown. Three days earlier she had found a lump in her breast, had it biopsied, and the doctors performed a mastectomy on the
Read on »For Nick
Last Wednesday had been a crummy day but I made a valiant effort to shake off the gloomy mantle weighing me down as I prepared to see my favorite band in concert: Portland home town favorites Pink Martini. I had been so excited when I bought the tickets, vowing to pretend to be young and
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: A Deep Well of Goodness
We have a new system in the garden: we now have pretty red flags on little sticks to put in our garden plots when we are away. The flags alert fellow gardeners that our plots may need watering. When we are tending our own gardens we can easily spend a few minutes spraying our neighbor’s
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: New Spring, New Plan
Spring, summer, fall, winter, and then back to spring. The rhythm of a year is both reassuring and haunting. When you are going through a new experience – a job, a new school or city, or any life change – the first year is unfamiliar and every season is unexplored territory. Then suddenly, you are
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: Light Streams In
I walked out the door without a jacket this weekend. An unfamiliar warmth and exhilaration swept over me, quickly followed by a wave of distrust. Not sure if I could really believe that our long winter is finally over, I went back inside and got an extra layer, just in case. The plants and blossoms
Read on »Food Friday: Sweet Freedom and Passover Treats
I have always loved Passover: the chaos, the rituals, the food. I love the reclining, the storytelling and the matzo-ball soup. I love the charosis – apples, walnuts, wine and cinnamon – layered into matzo sandwiches with horseradish that makes my eyes burn. I love the parsley dipped in salt water and the gefilte fish,
Read on »Red Sox and Black Quilts
I was at a Red Sox game this summer, thinking about quilting. It wasn’t my fault. I was trying very hard to concentrate. I like baseball, in theory. I have been a Red Sox fan for almost 30 years since my husband brought home a Red Sox T-shirt for me from a business trip. Now,
Read on »Garlic & Gooseberries: Midsummer Report
Progress: The garden has been busy growing and the first eggplant has been harvested along with our first and only yellow summer squash so far. There are lots of zucchini and yellow squash blossoms but only one actual squash. I had never heard of anyone’s zucchini plant not producing until I met my neighbor, who
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: Bolting
Browsing in a small bookstore recently, I came across this treasure: Vegetable Gardening in the Northeast by Marie Iannotti. Even in today’s world where it seems every question can be answered by a Google search, there is something very comforting about holding a book of instructions in my hands. It feels like everything I need,
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: Gooseberry Demise
I imagine you all waiting with bated breath for news of the unripe gooseberries I brought home the first day, the very berries that inspired the name of this series, along with the now dead garlic. Well, I have a story for you. My fruit allergy did not stop me from wanting to make jelly,
Read on »Wednesday Wandering: Walking the Labyrinth
When a good friend of mine asked recently if I knew anything about labyrinths I had to pause. If I had thought about them at all, I guess I had always thought of a labyrinth as some sort of dark scary maze from which one might never emerge. My friend is someone who is drawn
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: New Life
A very exciting day at the garden! I visited a few days after the rains from hurricane Arthur had passed, followed by temperatures in the 80s and 90s, and I could practically hear the plants growing. First of all, it had become obvious which of those new shoots were weeds, and which were not. Hallelujah
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: A Bit of Bartering
On a recent weekend day, my husband decided it was time to be proactive in the bunny wars. We had not yet experienced any attacks on our young sprouts, but chicken wire seemed to be a good idea. So he unrolled fencing and hammered posts into the ground to anchor it, and our little plot
Read on »Wednesday Wanderings: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House
A few steps past the bustling urban center of Harvard Square, Brattle Street leads into a quiet, leafy tree-lined neighborhood. The beautiful old stately mansions put one in mind of another era, a more genteel time, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see a horse and buggy come down the street, or to hear the
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: Little Sprouts, Little Critters
There is something going on in my garden and I am feeling a bit uneasy. There are tiny green sprouts everywhere on the rich dark soul. At first it seemed obvious that the seeds I had planted were starting to grow, but now after the first big rain they are coming up even where I
Read on »Garlic and Gooseberries: Meeting the Neighbors
We have slowly been meeting the other gardeners, and they seem to eye us with caution. I don’t blame them. This community garden is sort of off the map, having been grandfathered into the city’s program, and the gardeners are all very happy to be left to do their own thing. The only two rules
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