Today I finally unpacked my fountain pen collection. I also hung a dream catcher that my old boss at Cornell gave me when I left my job there in 1998. Since then, it had been hanging in my writing room window, …
Back from the Friendly Skies
I arrived back to sane, springing-ahead Portland last night, weary from my sojourn to home turf in northeastern Pennsylvania and a pilgrimage to icy, snow-drift and dreary Ithaca for a friend’s memorial service on March 1st. It was a grueling trip. Lots of down time, time to observe the shabby, broken-down weariness of that part of the east
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More Boxes, Bins, and Piles
I think it’s hitting me tonight—after a spate of days spent socializing and the Arctic air and sun along with the piles steadily growing, day after day, on the edges of the rooms on the first floor of the house—here we go again! I am so longing to be settled, to be home…
Crisp and Clear
Arctic chill has blanketed our corner of Oregon. Winds are stirring the firs and sequoias, up from the Columbia River which isn’t that far from our house. Even around the summit of Mt. Hood, it’s so clear you can see the snow swirl….
Olive Oil and Tea Lights
What a whirl life has been of late! It is barely five days since we had an offer accepted on a beautiful home barely two blocks down the street from where we currently live. …
Our Portland Clown Tree
Usually we have two holiday trees. But now that we live in the Little House in the Big City, that wasn’t an option this year. Also, neither of us were in the holiday mood, for a whole host of defensible reasons. So, not long after my St. Nicholas Day birthday, …
The Sacred in the Ordinary
The rhododendron’s leaves and branches in the sunlight across the back of the orange living room chair.
The crisscross lines of the window’s panes bisecting the shadow of the candlesticks with their red and yellow yet-to-be-lit candles on the butter yellow wall….
Desperately Seeking Words…
Photo by Avishka …to convey the utter gray blear of this Monday afternoon. Here’s all I’ve been able to come up with so far. Rain …
Cold Wind Whipping Down the Alley…
It’s not dawn but it’s a cold wind out there. The emperor gong hanging off our bedroom above the deck is getting a workout today.
I walked to and from the grocery store where certifiable madness is in progress: too many people with too-full carts,
Other Details of a Morning
Here’s what gets noticed when a person’s isn’t trying to figure out how to get an imaginary person into and out of a rental car at a diner along the highway in the Coast Range of western Oregon: One of the yellow tulips in the blue porcelain vase droops.
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