Through my daughters’ childhoods, late August meant birthdays and late nights— the house silent, the dining table cleared, I would slip on an old shirt, tear inch-wide strips of newspaper, mix a paste of flour and water, and begin—shaping a mermaid, a rose, a pufferfish where once there had been only an idea. A decade […]

When I walked ‘round Walden Pond on a warm March day, I traced the foot- print of the small cabin and wondered  about Thoreau and his solitude,  deliberate yet close to all he held dear.   Days later, home in my city,  my eldest simmered and coughed. I gathered her and her sister, pulled  the […]