The smell of a sun-warmed apricot transports me backwards in time, reliving a day spent picking fruit fresh from the tree with my great-grandmother as she regaled me with stories of living in a sod hut on the Colorado-Kansas border. Orphaned at an early age, she traveled west with her relatives, rode in a covered […]
Sunshine on Apricots Read More »
For me, the act of writing is like drinking from a tinted blue glass filled with clear, cold water, the sides of the glass condensation-streaked with ice shards clinking against the heat of a summer day. The experience is waxing organic, like a growth in the soul. Phrases appear as exotic plant sprouts, joining together
Maybe you’ve heard the old saying about teachers not being competent enough to actually do the thing they’re teaching. After all, the logic goes, if someone is proficient at their craft, why would they forgo fame, acclaim, and the ability to purchase frighteningly expensive houses just to slum it as a teacher? The horror. I
Teachers and Doers, or: Those Who Can Do May Also Do Teaching Read More »
When I was a kid my family lived way out in the country and my brothers and I had a ninety-minute bus ride to school. I always sat in front because I was one of the youngest. I dreaded the stop a few miles away from home where this kid Danny got on the bus,
Don’t Hit My Sister, That’s My Job Read More »
A garden full of sweet odours is a garden full of charm, a most precious kind of charm not to be implanted by mere skill in horticulture or power of purse, and which is beyond explaining. It is born of sensitive and very personal preferences yet its appeal is almost universal. Fragrance speaks to many
Pleasures of the Nose Read More »
When I was in my twenties and living in New York City, I decided to impress my new boyfriend by serving Julia Child’s classic dish boeuf bourguignon in my apartment, which sat on the third floor of a dingy tenement walkup with a tiny and outdated kitchen. Some relevant facts: I was not a very