Personal
What’s this stuff falling from the sky?
It is raining in California. Raining, pouring, pelting, pissing down in a way it hasn’t for years. Hillsides slump, culverts fountain, trees collapse. Feet mildew and children climb the walls. The cell phone has taken to blaring out really quite redundant flood warnings, to suggest to the oblivious or catatonic that the creeks may be rising. The last time…
Read MoreMoving forward
As I write this, there is a new Occupant in the White House—my White House, the one I inherited when I was born a citizen, the place that my family and my ancestors have looked to and protected since the day Thomas Jefferson moved in in 1801. This Occupant is moving in because of a…
Read MoreThe King’s Stilts
As a child, one of my favorite books was The King’s Stilts. Unlike Sam I Am or The Cat in the Hat, this may be a Seuss book you haven’t met (Indeed, Wikipedia says its initial sales were “a disappointment.” Perhaps in 1939, people did not welcome pointed lessons about the evil nibbling at their roots.) so…
Read MoreThat super moon
No matter what goes on here on the ground, looking up is always spectacular. Even without a super-moon.
Read MoreRecovery III: our roots
The last two blog posts I’ve talked about shock and its treatment. I’ve been incredibly moved by the comments you’ve posted. Has any other election ever brought a reaction like this? Sure I felt depressed when Bush was handed the election by the Supreme Court, and angry, but weeping? Terror? No. As Joyce, living overseas, says…
Read MoreRecovery II: new soil
Part of my recovery process the day after the election was pottering in the sun. I had several long-neglected pots of Christmas cactus, that had got badly choked with grass and oxalis. Some weeks ago (okay, months) I’d bought a long wooden planter intending to put them all in that. Also, of course, by now…
Read MoreRecovery
I spent yesterday in recovery, as much of the country did. Watching the television Tuesday night felt like watching the plane go into the towers on 9/11: shock and disbelief and a terrible knowledge that somewhere, there were people watching that same horror and celebrating. And before you rise up in indignation, no, I am…
Read MoreCaramel(ized) corn
I love the foods of summer. Bye-bye squash and cauliflower, hello strawberries and tomatoes with actual flavor rather than vague redness, a panoply of peppers, Romano beans, white peaches, and… corn. Ah, corn. When sweet corn first begins to appear—ears that haven’t travelled a thousand miles, with kernels as chewy as the husk—just giving it…
Read MoreNovel therapy
One of my favorite bloggers, The Passive Voice, reposted a piece about novel therapy: British libraries offer full bibliotherapy services, including recommendations and exhaustive reading lists based on condition, to anyone, at every library in the U.K., at no cost. Experts say books featuring characters or people that share a patient’s struggles can be an…
Read MoreThe King lecture
Once upon a time there was a man born in India, educated in England, working in Africa, who was hired by a visiting American to help set up a new college and program at the newest jewel in the crown that is the University of California. When Noel King came to Santa Cruz, most of…
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