Oct 1 2017
Oct. 2, 2017. Every time it happens, I think of those kids at Newtown. The circumstances change, the body counts fluctuate, the excuses rarely do. Neither do the ghosts that visit me. Their class picture, along with their teacher and…
Sep 6 2017
Feeling overwhelmed? Me too.
It is breathtaking and stunning to take in all that has transpired since I finished last month's essay. Armed Nazis, Klansmen and Confederate sympathizers marching in lockstep through the streets of a city here in my…
Aug 23 2017
August 24, 2017.
And so it is done. The last first day of walking to school. I can now say with some certainty what the distance is between kindergarten and 5th grade - astonishingly short.
We began this journey 6…
Jul 24 2017
July 25, 2017. It truly is a wonderful thing to wake up in the morning. Another day of life, never guaranteed, always expected. But in the era of social media, it is especially so on one's birthday.
It is heartening…
Jun 20 2017
June 21, 2017. The connection between my electric guitar and one of my favorite fruits
Music has always been in my house. I suppose it was inevitable that I would play guitar, and probably the only reason I didn't start…
Jun 19 2017
June 20, 2017. Most certainly an AnceStory of unintended consequences and lifelong implications.
My parents, sister and I just returned from the trip of a lifetime, the "Last Great Nuclear Family Vacation" - a 16-day odyssey to the homelands of…
Jun 18 2017
"Paddy," I asked of my companion, "what do you think of when you look out there across the sea?"
I had met this gentle soul a little farther back down the road towards Donegal town on the way to the…
Jun 15 2017
Long ago in what feels like a galaxy far far away, I went to grad school at UMass to be an Environmental Engineer. My first year I lived in Northampton in an apartment, and right at the beginning of the…
Jun 7 2017
Where to begin on this just completed, epic nuclear family odyssey to Ireland and Scotland? It was partly my discoveries in our family history that got my dad excited to go. And he being the type who likes to plan…
May 24 2017
May 25, 2017. Reflecting on a year's anniversary, with love to cousin Lee and a toast to Aunt Margaret
I am flying into the sunrise, soon to land in Dublin. Sometime during this crossing of the Atlantic we have crossed…
May 21 2017
Our daughter shares her birthday with my grandparents (Madeleine and Andrew) anniversary on this date in 1926. They were a huge part of my life, and continue to be today.
Along with tons of other plants over the decades, Grandma…
Apr 30 2017
For those with absolutely no interest in coaxing green things out of dark dirt and wonder "why do they do it?" as well as those with green thumbs or obsessive orchid disorder.
May 1st is always a bit of a…