This morning when I set out on my run, I put on my orange reflector vest. It was dark. I ran down the road, scudded across Rings End Bridge and turned to follow the Goodwives River as it pours brackish into Long Island Sound. The moon was high above the black silhouetted trees, its gauzy […]
Happiness
The Day After
The day after. It so depends upon the day before. The wedding was bliss. My daughter Sharon was beautiful, smiling radiantly throughout the ceremony, and my new son Anthony was strikingly handsome in his navy suit and light blue tie. The bridesmaids and the groomsmen were all in a row, childhood friends and college buds […]
Me and Mr. Bennet
Christmas will come tomorrow. This Advent we have been watching and waiting for a wedding. My younger daughter Sharon is to marry Anthony Damelio at 4 o’clock tomorrow. Sharon always wanted a “Christmas wedding.” She loved the season, and she adored the church, festooned each year with pungent evergreen garlands and red poinsettias. To her […]
Leaving a Bad Relationship
Dear Janet, Good to get your email, though of course I’m sorry that this is a rough time for you. Having to cut off a relationship that held such promise but that ended up being destructive—that’s hard to do. People like Craig are hard to cut off, right? They’re so charming. They promise so much, […]
Shopping Under the Influence
Today is for shopping. What do you want? Retailers this year are pushing a lot of “Merry Christmas to Myself.” Despite the obvious narcissism in that phrase, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s all right to know what you want and to get it. I know scores and hundreds of people (unfortunately) who are […]
Make Your Vessel Small
Thanksgiving is always about bounty, cornucopia, an overflowing with excess. Yet many of us are not feeling cornucopian these days. The bounty isn’t exactly flowing. Excess seems only to be the measure of our debt. We’re not feeling the Thanksgiving. In the gospels Jesus tells us, “Do not worry about your life, what you will […]