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Thank you Ma’am.
Regardless of my feelings about the British monarchy as an institution, I am saddened to learn of the passing of Queen Elizabeth, an institution herself. She was an extraordinary figure – and, if you’re from that part of the world, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I talk about the ways in which she was “there” for us. She looked like the nation’s gran, a symbol of reassurance and constancy, with her handbag and her gloves; her silhouette on our pennies and our pound notes; her corgis and her pearls and her annual televised message to her subjects every year after Christmas dinner. Queen Elizabeth II understood duty, and,…
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After death of a spouse, Animals, Arizona Humane Society, Best friends, Dog Rescue, Dogs, Friendship, Love, Mary Oliver, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Rites of passage, Themes of Childhood, Van Morrison
an emotional rescue . . . for national dog day
A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. It’s National Dog Day, and I’m thinking about a little Chihuahua in Phoenix Edgar came into our lives almost nine years ago. I vividly recall our first encounter. There he was, standing in the center lane of 16th Street busy with Monday morning traffic. I had just left the gym with my daughter, and she noticed him before I did, alerting me to that fact by screaming at me to stop the car, jumping out, and flailing wildly at the oncoming traffic which she successfully brought to a…
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on my mother’s birthday
Old Smoothing Iron by Seamus Heaney Often I watched her lift it from where its compact wedge rode the back of the stove like a tug at achor. To test its heat by ear she spat in its iron face or held it up next her cheek to divine the stored danger. Soft thumps on the ironing board. Her dimpled angled elbow and intent stoop as she aimed the smoothing iron like a plane into linen like the resentment of women To work, her dumb lunge says, is to move a certain mass through a certain distance, is to pull your weight and feel exact and equal to it. Feel…
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A Capitol Offense
No matter how much I zoom in, I barely recognize the woman in the blue suit standing in front of the nation’s Capitol. Who is she? Who was she? It’s odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone, and became her. Then I began to like what I’d invented. And finally I was what I was again. It turned out I wasn’t alone in that particular progression.” Anna Quindlen on approaching 60 No, as it turns out, Anna Quindlen was not alone. Once…
