Grace, pensive at the library on Sunday. I like the Hopper-esque light. Sometimes I think I give the erroneous impression that Grace is serious all the time. She can be serious, yes, and she is certainly, more than anyone else, my clanging gong of truth and clarity, bringing me back to awareness. But she’s also [...]
Yesterday was a tough day. I was sad and tired and emotional. Midmorning, driving home from an errand, I instinctively turned into a big cemetery near my house. I love this cemetery; I grew up visiting it with my mother. We’d walk around, admiring the trees and flowers in the various seasons. I have also [...]
Elizabeth. How to introduce Elizabeth? Even her blog title, Boy Crazy: Finding Clarity in the Chaos, could be the subtitle of my life (sans the three sons of course, though my one gives me a run for my money). Or, hell, the TITLE. Elizabeth writes lyrically about her day to day life with her three [...]
“I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.” -Ernest Hemingway I’ve loved this quote for a long time. And ever since Saturday night I’ve been thinking about it in light of Margaret Atwood’s provocative poem, Spelling. There are so many lines of that poem that echo in my head, but [...]
Grace tonight told me that they were studying poetry at school, and asked if I still had the poems she had written for me ages ago. I did, I said. As she was getting into bed, she caught a glimpse of this framed poster on her wall, and stared at it for a minute. I [...]
Ice Storm (excerpt) – Jane Kenyon The most painful longing comes over me. A longing not of the body … It could be for beauty – I mean what Keats was panting after, for which I love and honor him; it could be for the promises of God; or for oblivion, nada; or some condition [...]
Diner breakfast on a holiday Monday A heart-shaped cloud in a stunning blue sky (this week of weather has been outrageously beautiful). Chaperoning Whit’s class trip to the MIT media lab. I was probably more excited than he was. Hours of robots and Legos and intimidatingly intelligent people exploring the frontier between technology and the [...]
The effort to be present in my life has been the single most important thing I’ve undertaken in the past couple of years. Maybe ever. It has transformed how I think about the world and myself, and the relationship between the two. When I say “being present” I mean, literally, being engaged in and awake [...]
Today I am delighted to welcome Jen Lee to Present Tense. Jen was one of the first bloggers I read regularly, and it is a distinct honor to have her words here in my humble space. Jen is a storyteller, a writer, a photographer, and, in my opinion, an all-around exemplar of a life thoughtfully [...]
Spring – Mary Oliver Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring I think of her, her four black fists flicking against the gravel, her tongue like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There [...]
