Letter from Home | A collection of essays originally written for Flagstaff Live!

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Interdependence Day; Meditations on Indra’s net

Interdependence Day; Meditations on Indra’s net

Posted by on Jul 14, 2022

The town of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, is famous for its oysters, its beaches and its Interdependence Day parade. The parade takes place on the Fourth of July as neighboring Cape Cod towns are hosting their own celebrations, but only in Wellfleet is the notion of independence scrapped for the higher ideal of interdependence. It seems to me, especially given...

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To Find Home

To Find Home

Posted by on Jun 2, 2022

Sometimes I just want to tell you who I am and where I come from, forget the need to write and polish a piece for a newspaper column. I want to leave behind my professional training, my writing skills, my accomplishments, and open the heart’s door. I’d start at the beginning if I knew where that was. Oh, so many ways to tell a story. I’ll just say there...

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Walking the Wall; Where poetry and presidency intersect

Walking the Wall; Where poetry and presidency intersect

Posted by on Apr 21, 2022

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. These are the words of Robert Frost in his poem, “Mending Wall.” It’s been years since I sat down and read that poem. I spent most of the month of March thinking about walls and I was curious about what the old Vermonter had to say. If you’ve never read it, please do. Two neighbors are walking the wall between...

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Here, again; The war in which we lived

Here, again; The war in which we lived

Posted by on Mar 10, 2022

It’s the second day of March. This won’t go to print for more than a week. We all know what a week can bring. It was exactly a week ago that Ukrainians woke up to their country at war. But I am writing this now because the moment feels more important than a newspaper timeline. And because acts of aggression are timeless. Our friend Laura Kelly writes from...

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Pockets: A history

Pockets: A history

Posted by on Dec 30, 2021

There sometimes arises a subject matter so unextraordinary, so taken for granted, that by its own pedestrian nature it becomes something of a rockstar. I hope you’ll agree with me that this is certainly the case with pockets. Pockets. Those rectangular appendages we’ve come to count on, those utilitarian bits of fabric we entrust our lives too, lives that...

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