Driving into Rappahannock County this morning, I took a backroad that meandered beautifully through farm after farm along rolling hills. I was enchanted with the light gleaming off the white barren branches of sycamore trees, the shorn hayfields dotted with giant round bales, the cows of many colors, the horses of many more. It was so picturesque I almost didn’t slow down when I suddenly came upon a sign for a “one lane bridge.” I have encountered these before, but there are

I am looking down on G Street from the 4th floor of the MLK Library and watching a man cross the street who must have Parkinson's or some other condition that makes his head jerk violently to the left every few seconds. He reaches the sidewalk on the other side and I see that his arms also have a life of their own, every so often they dance up and down. It is as if he is moving to a jazz trumpet nobody else can hear. He is well dressed. He is moving with purpose. He may be le

This spring I found a dandelion seed clinging to the edge of a parsley leaf in the garden. The white of its delicate fluff held by the finest threads and a soft breeze moved it gently, not hard enough in the time I watched to lift it away to its next destination. Some moments in life feel like that. You know you are about to be lifted into a new plane of existence but you’re in the resting place, grasping just a bit to the things that are known. I thought of this image this

“Write a poem today,” said the stranger I met waiting for my lunch, looking me straight in the eyes, demanding acceptance of the challenge. “Okay,” I said. “I will try.” How to begin a poem that starts with a goodbye in a crowded airport terminal before the sun has risen? My son departs for another ocean whose salt will mix with freshwater in Mission Bay and greet his steady oar. My oceanic tears held in until I am back on the road. My heart aching with longing for

For several weeks I watched a pair of robins raise their young in the butterfly bush that runs along the driveway. Their nest was at eye level so I could peer in and watch the proceedings but it was also well-hidden behind the foliage - better than some of the others that dot the yard. The robins were devoted parents, both taking turns to sit on the eggs and then working tirelessly when the eggs hatched. From sun up to sun down, they would fly back and forth with beaks full o

March 22, 2024 Dear Ross, I heard you speak for the first time when I was working in my garden in March of 2020, listening to the On Being podcast that was a rerun of your 2019 interview. I did not know about your work. But as the interview progressed I felt for the first time in months that I was listening to someone who was asking the questions that were duking it out in my own head and offering a way to be in this world that I desperately needed. What turned me into a de

The world is slowly opening up again. And for the first time in nearly two years I find myself encountering people who don't really know...

For a few years I've been shedding hair at what, to me, feels an alarming rate. But I still have a lot on my head and each strand I lose...

Years ago I had a thought that the most wonderful job in the world must be being a doula. Not responsible for the medical side of...

There are six swallowtail caterpillars currently making their way through one of my larger patches of parsley. Hard at work, they may...