They come and go across an ocean, which for centuries separated people. They talk on wireless phones that weren't even a dream until a few decades ago. They write e-mails that traverse the world in seconds….
Read MoreYou can tell that times are good by the flowers in everyone's yards. Chrysanthemums in all colors, carefully tended impatiens that refuse to let go of summer, marigolds so big they look like dahlias, dahlias so big they look like sunflowers. Everywhere there are pots and plots of flowering things that disappear with the season, that people go out and buy and then replace with other things they go out and buy. How not frugal is this?
Read MoreEvery year, for many years, since I first read Natalie Babbitt's wonderful children's book "Tuck Everlasting" to my children who are now grown, I have celebrated Top of the Ferris Wheel Day. "The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning," Babbitt wrote. "The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn." The first week of August, she believed was magical.
Read MoreAnd I thought he didn't love her. He never said this, but it's how he acts sometimes. "She's a dog. She'll be OK," is as close as he ever gets to affection, when I moan about having to leave her again, or if it suddenly rains and she's outside. My husband never wanted a dog. He said dogs are too much work. That a dog on our street…
Read MoreI am prepared for moments of divine intimation, while on vacation, while driving through the Rockies or sitting on a rock in Maine or walking along some tropical beach. Epiphanies, those heady moments of sudden knowing and peace, occur in the midst of beauty and solitude, not on crowded Route 138 in Stoughton. But it happened there this week, on a road without charm and not a whole lot of trees, everything green and innately beautiful knocked down or paved over.
Read MoreI should have taken her to the vet weeks ago. She's been dragging around for at least that long, her gait a little slower these days, her eyes a little less bright. I notice these things, but I ignore them. I sit on the floor and scratch her ears and pat her head and say, "How's my puppy?" And she sighs and wags her tail, the way she has always done. I see that the hair under her chin is more white than black and that there are tufts of white under her belly and that…
Read MoreFor most of my early life, I never thought of Memorial Day in terms of remembering the dead. Memorial Day was, in my untroubled youth, simply the celebrated beginning of summer: time to polish white shoes, iron the seersucker suit (there was always a seersucker suit), dig out last year's shorts and sandals, stock up on suntan lotion and get ready to soak in three months of sun-filled days and moonlit nights. When I was even younger, Memorial Day meant that the amusement park at Nantasket Beach and the drive-in at Neponset were finally open. But what you see depends upon where you're standing and what you're looking at. ..
Read MoreIt snowed Friday, horrid stuff, and it's a bit chilly today but tomorrow is the first day of spring. And I know it's on its way because Wednesday I saw my first sign: neighbor Al outside with his wheelbarrow, working away. Forget crocuses and robins. There he was, my very own harbinger, across the street in his bright yellow hat (a hard plastic thing he's had since he lived in Quincy, he once explained), light aqua jacket with a little pink trim, (very colorful), blue jeans and sneakers and work gloves, rake in one hand, shovel in the other, scooping up a winter's worth of dead leaves…
Read MoreShe is not your typical movie star. She sings in the choir at St. Elizabeth's in Milton, MA. . She works in the advertising department at The Boston Globe. When her husband died at 34, she had four children, aged 1, 5, 7 and 8. The 7-year-old suffered seizures and permanent mental impairment from an inoculation. He died two years later.
Read MoreI cut her some slack, the not-so-young woman who gave me the finger and mouthed the companion epithet. I thought, OK, maybe she's from another country and doesn't know the rule about funeral processions having the right of way. Maybe this cortege of cars with headlights on in the middle of a sunny day, funeral flags on each roof, was a new experience for her.
Read MoreI know that if I looked in the plastic storage box under the bed, I'd find Valentine's Day cards I sent to my husband when we were first married. I must have sent him valentines in the beginning.I sent him all kinds of cards back then: "Missing you," "Thinking of you," "There's no one like you."It didn't matter that his birthday was the day before Valentine's Day and that his birthday card and Valentine's Day card would say the same thing.
Read MoreLyllian doesn't know what day it is or how old she is or if her daughter has been in to visit, even if her daughter has just left the room. She is in her 90s and lives in a world where time isn't linear and memories aren't sequential, but are like tracks on a CD programmed for random selection.
Read MoreI spoke - or wrote - too soon. Sunday I praised Amtrak. Today I have to eat my words. Sunday I said my ride to New York late last week was convenient and comfortable and quick. Today I report that my ride back from New York Sunday evening was none of the above. I should have known we were in trouble when we didn't pull out of Penn Station at 4:55 p.m. as scheduled, but started heading south instead. Seems there was a stalled train on our track so we had to take another track. No problem, we'd make up the lost time.
Read MoreABOARD AMTRAK'S ACELA - It's the new train. Well, not really the new train but not the old train, either. Because this new and improved new-old train promises to get me to New York's Penn Station in three hours and 40 minutes, the speed of sound compared to past trips.
Read MoreIt arrived among her Christmas cards, a dunning letter informing Mary Dowd of Somerville that Social Security had made a mistake, and that she, not Social Security, was going to have to pay for this mistake. "We are writing to give you new information about the retirement benefits which you receive," the letter began, "how we paid you $ 7,874 too much in benefits [and] how you can pay us back. You should refund the overpayment within 30 days."
Read MoreOf course I read every word of Boston magazine's cover story, "Do You Need A Facelift?" The question seemed personally addressed to me. I hate the lines on my face and my droopy eyelids and the age spots on my hands and the creeping invisibility that comes with age. And I envy all the women I know who have had surgery. They look young and taut and confident.
Read MoreThe worst thing about the movie "Angela's Ashes" isn't that it's a bad film. That it's too long and grim and plodding and depressing, and that it's an indictment of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the Irish themselves doesn't matter. It's only a movie. It'll be gone from conversation and the big screen in a few weeks and relegated to video stores a few months later.
Read MoreTwo weeks until Valentine's Day and I still have my Christmas decorations up. We're not talking a few decorations, a snowman here and a poinsettia there. We are talking Christmas from head to toe, the creche, the garland, holly, wreaths, the lighted Christmas scene, the collection of Santas. We are talking cards still taped to the walls. Only the fa-la-las are missing.
Read MoreJUPITER, Fla. - At a friend's condo, ten stories above the ground, we are transported from winter to summer. The condo is all glass and balcony, the indoors like the outdoors only with comfortable furniture. Our bedroom faces east. The kitchen faces west. For the four days we are here, we wake up early every morning to watch the sun rise and hurry back each evening to see it set.
Read MoreIn the words of my good friend Anne King, who owns a hair salon, not a baseball team: "It boggles the mind." Derek Jeter, the 25-year-old Yankee shortstop is about to sign a seven-year $ 118.5 million contract and one can only wonder, has this country gone mad? Money doesn't fall from the sky nor does George Steinbrenner have a printing press in his office cranking out whatever he needs to keep his players happy. There's only so much hard cash in this world and when ballplayers get fat, other people - people with real jobs - get taken.
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