Mother’s Day Special: Nothing to Say
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I spent last weekend at St. Joseph’s Monastery in Kentucky taking part in a silent guided retreat: no phones, no books, no words. The nuns sang psalms at the appointed hours. Birds awakened us in the morning. I became accustomed…
The First Gentleman, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson, imagines a woman we recognize in the White House. She’s tough and savvy, with a sharp tongue and a sharper mind. Her husband, the First Gentleman, is a charmer who helps…
I’ve been watching a mourning dove on her nest. I discovered the nest while removing some dead branches from the magnolia. Rogelio and his crew got the big branches down after the ice storm. The remaining ones were smallish…
Three people mentioned Belle Burden’s Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage to me in the last few weeks. That seemed like the universe whispering. I read it on the long flight home from Las Vegas after hiking in Death Valley. Burden’s…
Ann Tashi Slater has written an unusual and effective hybrid of memoir and self-help called Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World. Slater’s mother moved to the United States in 1951, the first Tibetan to attend…
Sybil Van Antwerp – our heroine – is the kind of neighbor you might like, or might not. She’s smart, retired, divorced, and keeps to herself. When her past comes calling – stalking, really – she can’t ignore it this…
I thought I had possibly read enough novels about World War II. I stand corrected. One of my book clubs selected The Director, by Daniel Kehlmann – originally published in German in 2023, and in English translation in 2025 –…
“Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond our grasp; but which, if we sit down quietly, may alight upon us.” —Nathaniel Hawthorne This quote is often attributed to Hawthorne. It is sometimes attributed to Thoreau. Many…
Given the state of affairs in Nashville – a heady brew (or frozen mix?) of fatigue, frustration, and relief, for some – it seems the right moment to share an exciting opportunity. Something to think about on these frigidbitter days……