It’s Easter Sunday. My step kids have gone home. And my husband is at sea. So I decided to get myself up from the computer where I’ve been spending a lot of time lately and go for a walk. I took my iPod to keep me company and stave off those lonely holiday blues. But no sooner had I closed the door behind me than Life grabbed me by the senses. I was so impressed; I could not put the earbuds in my ears. So off I went, down the quiet tree-covered lane I like to walk, with...
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Some days I just feel so much love for the Earth. Today I was out for a walk, because the sun was out for a few minutes this morning. I had a plan to go one way and got to a turning point and turned a different way. I thought I would come back by way of the village, and instead I turned toward the beach. I was looking for windsurfers. But when I got to the beach, there weren’t any. So I had this huge expanse of desolate, isolated beach with nobody on it. And it was low...
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I suppose I was in a romantic mood. Less than 24 hours after my husband’s return from seven months at sea, we sat at Le Safari on the Cours Saleya in Nice. We just escaped a downpour of rain that had been building since we left the beach an hour earlier. The fruit and vegetable vendors tore down their stalls as the world-famous marché closed for the day, and street cleaners washed everything down. I’m not sure exactly when I spotted it, but there among the tourists, locals...
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This has been a tough week for me. I could cite circumstances and reasons, but the real difficulty has come in my response to them. So I’ll just go directly there, and save us both the boredom. One of the most intimate pieces of advice I’ve ever received about writing (and it holds true for just about everything else in life too) is: “You can’t take someone where you haven’t been yourself.” I guess that little ditty sits at the heart of what I’m up to in the world. It’s...
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Today I am flying to France after two weeks in the UK. It’s the first time I have taken this route to the airport, and it involves taking a bus from the train to the airport. While waiting for this bus in the fresh Spring air of May Day, I find myself standing beside a tree. As I like to do with plants, I move toward this tree to inquire about the condition of its health. I look at its leaves, and they look a bit dry to me, even this early in the season. I look for...
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The concrete jungle has hardened our hearts. We do not feel our impact on the Earth anymore. We eat the meat of animals without seeing them die. We drink liquid chemicals denying their potential to harm us. We produce tons of trash every day without owning our land fills. We accumulate things we do not need or cannot use because they please our senses. And we throw them away when they bore us. We say we “love” these things, but we love with greedy minds, and our hearts lie...
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