Strap on your seat belt
All of us were children, weren’t we?, so this applies to all of us, even if we don’t have any mini-me’s of our own. Many thanks to Liesl for sending it to me–in the midst of a Very Very (Very to the 10th Power) Taxing Day with My Supreme Monster …
My Book of Longing
It may seem a far piece, that long walk from waiting for the next Tiger Beat poster of Bobby Sherman— those double-paged ones with the staples right about his collar bones–to longing to see Philip Glass in concert again, but there you have it: two ends of a continuum. And …
Explore your prison cell
"The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear." – Aung San Suu Kyi I have written before about one of my most memorable high school teachers, a man who is now in prison for the rest of his life. My correspondence with Mr …
Give a child a book, a look at a larger world
I remember so vividly the day I went to the post office to buy stamps and the man in blue handed me a book of self-adhesive stamps! Of course! Why had it taken so long to move from licking stamps to peeling stamps? It all made sense to me, yet …
A real reunion.
I was at my 30th high school reunion on Saturday night. I’m still processing the lifetime of living I saw on people’s faces, the disappointment and pain and joy in those lines around everyone’s eyes. While pondering that reunion experience this morning, I saw this photograph, a soldier returning to …
Perspective
I vividly remember my mother telling me that she was going to her 25th high school reunion. Time slowed to a grinding, smoking halt as I turned and looked at her, blinking, blinking, blinking, all the while thinking loudly inside my head, "My lord, woman, how old ARE you?" "That’s …
Be thankful for brick walls.
Oh, man. Many colleges and universities are sponsoring what they are calling "Last Lectures," inviting speakers to deliver what they would if they knew it was their last lecture. For one professor, the "last" part of "last lecture" is very real. Jill Fallon has posted a must-see story and video, …
Be a coach. Step in.
I really loved seeing this tonight on Johnnie Moore’s blog. As Johnnie mentioned all the way from London, it’s so nice to see someone helping on YouTube, not someone laughing at or ridiculing another’s misfortune. Simple acts of kindness. I so resonated with a comment left by Jack Yan on …
Y’all come on down
November is a really lovely time to visit my town, here in the mountains of North Carolina. The weekend of November 16-18 should be especially lovely, I’m thinking, capped with a tiny reading by yours truly at Asheville’s spectacular independent bookstore, Malaprop’s, from 3-4pm on Sunday, November 18th. [More importantly, …
