I think I’m late to the garden this year, although I’m not sure—I seem to have kept notes of everything last year except plantings. What I remember is that by the time I went to buy tomato starters last May, they were mostly gone. The person at one garden store shook her head sadly while telling me I was about two weeks too late. Because there was still...
Read More
An ex-boyfriend once told me that every day is an anniversary of something. I suppose that’s true, especially as I scan social media “memories” from one year ago. I was especially active that first month of the pandemic: sourdough starter photos, music playlists for students as we all scrambled to finish the school year online, and photos of a bluebird at...
Read More
On a recent Saturday night, I found myself sitting on the floor reading notes from a graduate class in philosophy taught by Bud Ruf (pronounced “roof”). Even in my 30s, I could not bring myself to call him “Bud,” but always “professor” or “doctor,” to his annoyance. “Call me Bud,” he would say, and I would reply, “OK…Doctor Ruf.” I understand his...
Read More
This English teacher’s heart beat more quickly this past week, reading quotes from so many people who seem to have read George Orwell’s work. Of course, it also was laden with the hope that people had actually read Orwell’s 1984. As time went on, I realized that it’s easier to invoke an idea of intelligence than it is to actually dwell in the realm of...
Read More
Once in a while, an idea takes hold of me and sets me off on a hamster wheel of adventure—always scrambling, but not quite arriving anywhere. My singular mission the past few weeks has been finding a recipe for pumpkin pie. Not any pie, mind you, but the ice cream pumpkin pie my mother made for Thanksgiving sometime back in the late 1970s. It was the first...
Read More