SCHISM
I’ve decided to try an experiment—using train of thought to write a vignette about my parents, beginning with:
We hardly ever did things together as a family—as far back as I can remember, anyway. Nor did my parents spend…
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
In my journal I wrote:
Friday, when I was driving Emma to my house, half a block away we saw two turkeys strolling nonchalantly down the sidewalk. I looked around for someone they might belong to but…
TO A LIGHTHOUSE – Part III
On the road again, we head north to the town of Pescadero and Duarte’s restaurant, famous for its artichoke soup. It’s a rustic tavern with wood-paneled walls and huntsmen’s trophies overhead—sets of deer antlers with and without heads. I marvel again at how beautiful...
TO A LIGHTHOUSE – Part II
As I’ve said:
After we’ve bought our tickets, we have to scuttle to catch up with the last tour. A hundred and thirty-five steps, our guide tells us—Earl essays them despite his bad leg. I’m secretly grateful for…
TO A LIGHTHOUSE – Part I
From A Patchwork Memoir:
“Hi! It’s me!” I greet Earl when he answers the phone. “Hi, me!” he humors me. (Pippa, his boarder, tells me when Earl recounts one of our adventures he always begins, “Me and I…”)
KISSING GAME
In a box of childhood mementos, I came across my Bluebird autograph book with the entry above. In A Patchwork Memoir I wrote: The Cow Pasture wasn’t one, and there wasn’t a single desiccated cow pie to prove it ever had been, as far as Wolfy and I could discover. It was a…