The month of April is playing tricks on me. No sooner do I shed the fleece jacket for a morning walk one day, a sweatshirt all I need, than I find myself putting it on again the next day. Expectation really resists being defied. Okay, so the groundhog screwed up, promising an early spring; instead [...]

There invariably comes a moment at a Leonard Cohen concert when singer/songwriter gives way to pure poet.  The softer he speaks, the more closely you listen. It’s a marvel to me, hearing echoes of a song I love, words that were their own music before they would become a song. If the achingly gorgeous  ”A [...]

What tools do we use? One only.  It’s called attention.  – Charlotte Joko Beck                                                                     Monday, December 10th. A dreary morning, the sky [...]

 . . . I go for a walk. The lure of mid-afternoon autumn light – even more gold and crisp through the filter of magnificent white clouds – is all I need.  Or so it would seem. I settle my eyes on the clouds, anything but diminished by the sweep of cliché  (cotton the queen [...]

Many years ago, as a single woman living in NYC, I would spend an occasional Saturday afternoon with my mother. A little shopping, a little eating, a little walking.  On one visit, we sat at the dining table that dominated my two-room studio on the Upper West Side and, with absolute nonchalance, she removed a [...]

It’s late afternoon, a beautiful summer day, and all I long for is the most innocent of pleasures, sitting in a chaise on the deck, music resonating through the wide-open sliding doors. Any random selection from my shelves might do but today it’s Rachmaninoff I crave, “Piano Concerto No. 2.” If music has a way [...]

.  .  . Fireworks. Say what you will about the calendar (with its celestial reminder that there is an order to our days), something more spirited is at play when one season slips into the next.  By the time the summer solstice arrives, Memorial Day has already jumpstarted the season.  Then comes  the build-up to [...]

It’s here — the shortest night of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere), a good a reason as any to join in the International Short Story Day celebrations across the globe and (re)post a short piece of fiction that first appeared in The Potomac. Charmed “I have a surprise for you,” he whispers, his finger [...]

Like most people, I have several clocks in my house. One may tell me it’s 11:30 a.m., another may say 11:35. This drives my husband crazy. I kind of like it, the notion that the measurement of time is only as accurate as the device. Some clocks like to run fast, others slow. Just read [...]

October 31, 2011. I’m sitting in my living room, two sweatshirts over a long-sleeve shirt and a tank top. The only sounds I hear are a buzz saw and a neighbor’s generator.  This is a Halloween trick, no treat at all.  The first snowstorm on record in October hit two days ago.  At its height [...]