Downton Abbey Redux

I believed the beauty, orderliness, and stateliness of the great house would offer a balm for my current sense of things falling apart, of immense changes not only in my life but in the world. However, I was mistaken.

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After the Storm

Ironically, the morning after Ian left Florida to move on to South Carolina was astounding. After two days of angry wind gusts and a steady downpour, we were rewarded with a cerulean sky and a few wisps of white clouds along with temperatures that herald in the wonderful Florida autumn.

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The Stranger

Here is a photo of us. I am sitting in her lap; our heads are close together. We are both smiling. No, I am not smiling; I am grinning from ear to ear, holding a black Fury horse with wheels on its feet and a Joey doll on its back. A gift from this woman who says she is my mother. It is Christmas Eve, my fifth one.

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Nostalgia

I tend to get nostalgic and think of my early childhood in Germany, when the landscape turned orange, red, and yellow, a precursor to the bare and wintry landscape soon to come. Time to collect chestnuts and stock up on firewood. Memories of Oma climbing wearily out of our cozy featherbed in the mornings and crank up the wood-burning stove to warm the kitchen before she came to get me up and dressed.

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The Swinging Pendulum

For sanity’s sake, I choose to believe in Emerson. His compelling essay “Compensation” offers hope that wrongs will be righted, and that good deeds—and diligence— will be rewarded. In other words, do the right things and the universe will restore balance: gifts and burdens are the extremes on the spectrum, the balance is the middle and the universe always returns to this.

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Positive, for Corona and for Life

In 2019, I visited Germany in December to celebrate my father’s 93rd birthday, with plans to return in spring of 2020. By March, the Corona virus had changed the world and my plans to travel dissipated. It would be 2022 before I got on a plane to my beloved country again.

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Sleepless in Iceland

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My brain registers an insistent ringing as I groan and roll to the wall in defense. The room is dark as night within light-blocking drapes. I can’t seem to remember where I am. Then… it’s my phone that’s ringing and we’re in a pristine Icelandic guesthouse, the Sulur.

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Mother’s Day 2022

For three days we snuggled in our private hospital room, staring at each other. I had never felt this kind of connection to anyone. I devoted my entire being over to this tiny beautiful creature who needed me so much. I knew my heart was not my own anymore.

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Fifteen Thousand Miles

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The Taiko drum starts. Thump thump thump. The chanting begins, a breakneck liturgy in an insistent monotone. The timpani accentuates. Clang clang clang.

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A few days ago, I received an email from my father that made my heart clench. At ninety-five, he is part of a dwindling number of WWII veterans, in his case one of Hitler’s teenage boys conscripted to the army. He fought on the beaches of Normandy, was wounded, and captured.

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