The beach

I’m out in Westhampton Beach for a couple of days celebrating Tami’s birthday. It’s a special place for us: we were married on this beach, our youngest son was born here and we’ve lived here for stretches off and on. The weather has been gorgeous, the kids are having a blast with friends and we’ve had a…

Perpetual care

My great grandfather John W. Rogers rests under this lawn somewhere. He died in January 1920 in Little Rock. His wife Maggie had…

Heather

My mother walked every day by the beach and in the sea grass and heather. Her dog ran in and out of the thick heather, chasing rabbits and running down scents that mixed with the bright smell of the ocean.

The horizon runs long and low. To find dimension and perspective on these walks…

The faint odor of love

This I know from hard-tested experience. In relationships that went bad, the experience of smell was painful at the end. Stress and anxiety makes odor more rank and potent. When that odor is wrong, the wrongness of each moment was more pronounced.

This love now is chemical and aligned…

Porch

Over the course of the summer, each morning I’ve been home, I’ve sat on the porch in the early morning. I’ll have a cup of coffee. The dogs sit nearby. I have two regular spots where I sit, which offer two different perspectives. The one I use most often looks away from the house, to the field, trees and pond below…

Two dawns

One

The rainbow is gone now — just a matter of minutes, two sips of coffee. The light is gone also. At this hour, the sun sits low on the horizon and sneaks into the yard as it passes above the house and trees, which eclipse the lawn and lush growth below the house. The quality of…

The power of clear communication

Regardless of where you stand on the proposed health care legislation (if you can figure it out!), the drama around President Obama’s speech tonight was stirring. A young president with an ambitious agenda, standing before a divided Congress, on national television…