I am not one for striking up conversations on airplanes, but my brother is. He was maybe 22, he told me this past weekend we spent together, and this older man sat beside him. A simple conversation began. As the man spoke, Michael sensed that he was somehow successful, even wise. So he asked the […]
If I Can Just Get Past This
It began, as these things always do, with a routine visit to the dentist. Except that this time she noticed what looked like an abrasion on the roof of my mouth. Had anything happened, she asked, that might have caused it? I might have burned my mouth on a piping hot slice of cheese pizza, […]
When the Head Drops Into the Heart
The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter. ― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking None of us can be sure of half the things we claim to know or believe. The congressional bill we’re either for […]
How I Turned My House Into Pompeii (And What I Learned)
Crash. Pam, from downstairs, “[Unintelligible outburst punctuated by very intelligible curse.]” I close my laptop and hurry to the scene. Pam is standing in front of a kitchen cabinet, white from the knees down. The shelf has given way and a bag of flour has fallen, exploding on the floor. Two pounds “Let me get […]
Creativity and Hope
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery It was hard work today, transplanting things that should have been dug up more than a month ago. But today was the day. Snow was coming, and that […]
I Don’t Need Heaven
It is a moment of no significance. We are standing Christmas Day in the outdoor kitchen—adults in parkas and kids cavorting—gathered around the big propane burner my wife pulls out to fry doughnuts or fish and hush puppies or French fries, like her father did. Today it is paper-thin potato slices, bound with butter and […]