The garden is still giving. The pool is still open. And somewhere underneath the heat, fall is already on its way. I have done my best by summer. I have floated in the pool and walked Patches in the early morning heat and eaten my weight in blueberries, peaches, and cherries. I’ve sat on the…
A quiet word for women who have been making themselves smaller for a very long time I do not remember when I started doing it. Making myself smaller. Quieter. Easier. Taking up less space at the table, not literally, but in every way that matters. Softening an opinion before I had even finished thinking it….
I did not know that I would lose words. Not the ability to speak. The actual words. A particular word I needed (the name of a restaurant, the title of a book I had read twice, the word for the thing I was holding in my hand) simply not there. Gone. As if someone had…
Deer in the backyard, a novel set in Sorrento, garden inspiration from House & Garden, and a weekend of fun It is Monday, which means the weekend is over and I am still smiling about it. Friday set the tone. I looked out into the back yard and there was a doe, resting. Not grazing….
The simple practice of noticing what delights you. It was early morning. My mother and I were still in our pajamas on the porch, both of us with something hot in our hands, neither of us talking very much yet. A hummingbird came to the feeder. And then a second one. They hovered and darted…
She sat in the pine straw for over an hour, then walked over to my container, helped herself and left without an apology. This week has Tuscany, London, Connecticut and a man in London full of wisdom As I passed from the bedroom to the kitchen yesterday to make my drinking chocolate, I glanced out…
Summer corn recipes from bloggers I love, three books for the season, and a weekend with two birthdays to celebrate Friday again, and it’s the start of a busy weekend. Today is my sister’s birthday, and Saturday is my niece’s. Two parties, what is not to love about a weekend celebrating two amazing ladies? It’s…
A letter to every woman holding someone else’s world together I have been watching the women in my life lately. Not in a casual way. In the way you watch someone when you realize they have stopped sitting down. My mother is caring for my stepfather. My sister is caring for her husband, who has…
On Midlife, Contentment, and the Permission to Love the Life You Actually Have Last week a friend and I were sitting on the front porch taking in the flowers blooming in the circle, watching the bees and birds flit from one to the other. And she said, “I keep waiting to feel like I’ve arrived,…
Twelve books worth clearing your calendar for — new favorites, old friends, and everything in between Every June I make myself a small promise: this summer I will read slowly. I will savor. I will not stay up until midnight turning pages under the covers the way I did as a child during summer break….
Making friends has never come easily to me. But somewhere in my fifties I stopped apologizing for a small circle and started celebrating what I actually have. Making friends has never come easily to me. Maybe it is because I am shy. Maybe it is because we moved every two years until I was thirteen…
What I heard in your comments, and what I want to say back I did not expect what happened in the comments on Tuesday. I wrote about words. About the boy who called me Waddles the Duck when I was thirteen, and about the nail and the fence, and about how the holes stay even…
