In lost books and in science, Brown Bear is a new chapter

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In lost books and in science, Brown Bear is a new chapter

It doesn't exactly answer the question of where Brown Bear went. But it raises some possibilities. The headline boasted: ``Fossil Indicates Brown Bear Went South,'' which, if you're a scientist or rationally inclined, would indicate that something big had been uncovered in nature. But I read the headline and thought, ``Brown Bear went south? Is this a clue? Is Brown Bear in the cellar? Or in South Boston, maybe, though South Boston is really north of me. Or maybe ``south'' means simply ``under something.'' Under a cushion? Under a bed? Could Brown Bear be hiding?

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Hour after hour, year after year, a group tightens

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We've been meeting for nine years, now - nine years, once a year, for only four hours. Which means we've spent just 36 hours together. You'd think that a single friendship, never mind a group friendship, wouldn't thrive with so little time. You'd think that too much would happen between the years to be able to pick up, in conversation and in feeling, where we left off. You'd think that women who don't see each other regularly and don't share the same work or hobbies would grow apart. Instead we grow closer…

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One granny's lessons live on in another

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I would have more in common with her now. I would sit at her kitchen table and drink my tea and eat the Pepperidge Farm oatmeal raisin cookies she always bought for me and not have one eye on the clock and one foot out the door. I would listen to her stories and take her advice and not be so quick to say, ``But things are different.'' ``But I'm not you.'' ``But you don't understand.''

She understood…

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How wistful our autumn years

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How wistful our autumn years

There's something about growing older that makes a person a little nutty about the seasons. It makes a person behave as if she's never before seen a tree turned all orange, or a pumpkin, or a garden transformed by mums. ``Hey, what do you know? It's fall, already. Hard to believe that summer is over. Where did it go?'' What child says these things? Or adolescent walking to school? ``Look at the way the sun lights up that yard. And the berries on that mountain ash. Wow.'' This does not happen. But adults? We're consumed by the changes a season brings…

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Highway carnage so pointless

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Highway carnage so pointless

I buckle her in her car seat and tighten the straps, leaving her just enough room to breathe and I head out into the world with this baby who is my daughter's and son-in-law's life, who had to fight so hard for life, who is our gift and our joy. She babbles as I drive, unaware of how vulnerable she is despite straps and padding. But I'm aware. I've been aware since her mother was pregnant with her and we were in a cab and the driver was speeding and I said, slow down, she's having a baby.

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Family joy warms the heart all summer

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Family joy warms the heart all summer

This was the summer of my content, months I will look back on always with gratitude. A time I will miss and wish for every day for the rest of my life, but that I will be thankful I had. This was the summer my family truly celebrated life, not every minute of every day, and not with balloons or parties or prayers, though there were these things, too. But with a keen and constant awareness of all the good moments an ordinary day brings, and of how lucky we were to be having them…

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Song silenced but remembered

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Song silenced but remembered

They would have been married 58 years today. Hard to believe, but not hard to imagine. I imagine they would have been good years.

I remember when they were married for only a decade. I was nine then, my mother 31 and prettier than any mother I knew: tall and thin with dark blond hair, which she claimed was hard to curl but it always looked perfect to me. She wore dresses every day. And high-heeled shoes. And a hat and gloves to church every Sunday.

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Listless dog could be a steal

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Listless dog could be a steal

She said she doesn't love him anymore.

She said, ``I don't feel the way I used to. He annoys me. He won't do what he's told. He whines all the time. And there's the issue of his hair. It's everywhere - all over the rugs, all over the furniture.''

But she still loves him, I know, because when he went missing the other night, she called in a panic and insisted, as only someone blinded by love could, that he wasn't lost but that he had been stolen.

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Lazy August days lie at heart of summer

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Lazy August days lie at heart of summer

Natalie Babbitt created this day. Not intentionally. And not really. She simply pointed out in her wonderful children's book ``Tuck Everlasting'' that ``the first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless and hot.''

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Words won't move us for long

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Words won't move us for long

They invoke God and quote Scripture and past presidents (Lincoln, FDR and Kennedy are the favorites). And include catch phrases like ``My fellow Americans'' and ``My friends.'' And they all talk about getting America back on track.

Democrat or Republican, the acceptance speeches by presidential nominees are the same. They're like milk. Hood or Garelick, who can tell the difference? Only the fat content varies. (Some are so thin you can see right through them.) And delivery. Delivery - with milk or speeches - is key.

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The world's explosive enough

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It was a birthday celebration, a country club throwing itself a fun little party. Nothing unusual about this.

Only a lot of people in Canton, which is 15 miles south of Boston, didn't have a clue about Wampatuck's 100-year birthday bash. It was to most a surprise party.

People were aware of other things, though. They knew that the Democratic National Convention was in town, that the terror-threat level was high, that commuters were being searched, that there was more air traffic than usual and that these were perilous times.

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Dems' hoopla leaves behind a party of unnoticed victims

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There's no doubt that the Democratic National Convention is the big show in town this week, pure theater, players strutting and fretting upon the stage, overstating and overdramatizing. At the Wang, they'd get the hook. At the FleetCenter, they'll get an ovation.

That's politics.

But what's happening offstage is the more important show.

More than 900 pairs of soldier's boots were placed around City Hall last week to represent the American servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq so far.

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Xena still a moment to cherish

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Xena still a moment to cherish

I'm surprised she still visits. She said she would. She said, ``When I get my license, I'll be able to drive to your house anytime, Beverly.'' But she was 11, then. And 12. And 13.

``I'll never leave you, Mama,'' I said when I was small. And then I did. It happens.

Xena, the cousin from New York who spent so much of her childhood with me playing Spit, walking, talking and planning her adult life, has had her license for two summers now. And she has visited, just as she promised. She's called and said, ``I miss you. Can I come?'' And then driven two-and-a-half hours, away from her family and her boyfriend and her work and her life, to spend time with me.

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Bask in summer glow of friends, family

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Bask in summer glow of friends, family

The grass needs to be cut. It always needs to be cut. The evergreens need to be trimmed. The roses need to be pruned. And there are more weeds than flowers in my front yard.

I see all that needs to be done. But none of this is bothering me this summer. I'm looking beyond all the ``should do's.'' I'm looking at how thick and healthy the grass is, how the bare spots aren't bare anymore. I'm looking at how the impatiens have filled in, how lush the evergreens are, how red the roses, and how close to perfect my tiny, weedy, overgrown world is right now.

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