August 27, 2014 / Thank You, Joel Meyerowitz
If you don’t know this photographer, you should. Years ago, really before I started taking my own pictures, but had forever been enraptured by others’ images, I posted these words of his above my desk. See what you think. “Photographers deal with things that are always… Read More
August 21, 2014 / Solace on the Trail
Some months ago the family decided to spend a couple of days all together at a hundred-year old family resort upcountry in New Hampshire—my husband and I, our daughter Alyson, and Alyson’s sister Susannah and her husband and three boys. After our Alyson died, the rest of us felt we… Read More
August 17, 2014 / Nested Universes
I have a really keen sense of smell, which is a good thing since I love to smell stuff, or maybe it’s the other way around, I love to smell things because I can. However, one of the plants on my deck seems to have no smell that I can discern, even sniffing really deeply. At least the… Read More
August 12, 2014 / I Saw My Mother
I saw my Mother. I was waiting in a line, an interminable line, to board the plane from Amsterdam to Boston, and I saw my Mother. She was sitting at a table in a small café near the line, and she was eating something, I think. Tears came to me and rolled down my cheeks. “Mother.… Read More
July 31, 2014 / Alyson Marie Hopkins, beyond fear and pain
Alyson Marie Hopkins July 9, 1965 - July 28, 2014 It is with the greatest sadness I tell you that Hilary & John's precious and loving daughter, Alyson Marie Hopkins, passed away Monday, July 28th at the age of 49. She had a radiant soul, always cheerful, in spite of her many challenges.… Read More
July 09, 2014 / July 4: Old Ironsides Turns Around
In 1830, the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, distressed by plans to scrap the noble warship U. S. S. Constitution, wrote the following poem of outcry. Published immediately in a Boston newspaper, then in papers in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, his angry words stirred the public to outrage,… Read More
July 07, 2014 / A Gathering in the Water
Hello there. We are Moon Jellies. Please do not call us “jellyfish” as we have been around 500,000,000 years, much before Nature organized fish. One of your kind, called Linnaeus, named us Aurelia aurita, but that was only about 250 years ago. A pretty name though, don’t you… Read More
June 27, 2014 / Summer Solstice in Boston
The Summer Solstice! Longest day of the year! I went downtown to see what people were getting up to on the Boston Common, to celebrate. See all the images I made: https://picasaweb.google.com/100388122118986876441/SummerSolsticeInBoston02 Boston Common, you know, never “commons.” That… Read More
June 20, 2014 / Ravished by Petunias
In the night, intricate scent molecules rise and travel from the deck garden just below, to reach me in my window-side bed. Helpless to answer this drenching invitation, I can only perceive it. If only I were a pollinator! I can only inhale, sigh, and be ravished. Petunias of an… Read More
June 16, 2014 / A Memorial Day Walk at Plum Island
A few weeks ago, on a chilly, cloudy Sunday, eager to get outside nonetheless on the holiday weekend, we drove to Plum Island, about an hour away. It’s one of my favorite places. There’s a long row of dunes, and the Atlantic on one side of them of course, with a huge furl of beach.… Read More