Columns & essays
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Writing Home: My annual shameless plug
“A book has no unwanted calories and you don’t have to worry about sizes as long as the subject matter appeals to the recipient.” ~Sue Grafton Is there a reader on your holiday gift list? The 93 previously published pieces in Writing Home ($16.95) first appeared in a variety of national magazines and newspapers. Though the stories in this collection are personal and written from my heart, they chronicle the victories and losses we all experience as we raise our kids, lose our parents, make a living, and find our way through daily challenges. The late Detroit News columnist, George Cantor, wrote about the book after spending a day visiting my favorite hometown haunts…
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The gift of receiving
Excerpted from my book of published columns, Writing Home, this essay was first published in Chicken Soup for the Soul (Healthy Living Series) and reprinted in Catholic Digest, April 2007. It was also featured on Sirius Radio. THE GIFT OF RECEIVING A few years ago, when I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both hips, I read everything I could find about coping with chronic pain and illness. I was amazed at how often I’d stumble on a paragraph that advised patients to “look for the gift in your pain.” Pain is a gift? Thanks, but no thanks, I’d mutter to myself. I had just turned 44 and hadn’t planned on slowing…
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Zen and the art of gardening
—Titled “The Art of Midlife Gardening,” this essay was originally published in Victoria magazine. Last spring, members of our local Master Gardener Society invited me to speak at one of their meetings. I was honored, at first, but as soon as the date of the talk rolled around, I started getting nervous. And with good reason. Master Gardeners aren’t just fooling around with bulbs and blossoms. These folks earn a minimum of 40 hours of instruction in horticulture science. Meeting for at least 11 weeks, they take classes in caring for indoor and outdoor plants, establishing lawns, growing vegetables and fruit trees, designing gardens, and more. I bow to their…
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Happy New Year!
“Kindness, kindness, kindness. I want to make a New Year’s prayer, not a resolution. I’m praying for courage.” ~Susan Sontag Here’s to 2022! Let’s make it The Year of Compassion and Kindness. Right now, that sounds like a tall order, but if we can find even the smallest ways to practice humanity every day, I believe the sufferings of this world will be easier to bear. To borrow from today’s Susan Sontag quote, my prayer is that 2022 will be a year of mending broken fences, healing broken souls, resolving our anger, remembering the needs of others, and finding peaceful solutions to our conflicts. Yes, that will take tremendous courage. Along…
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Where everybody knew your name
“The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving: Even the simplest food is a gift.” ~Laurie Colwin Another version of this column appeared in The Daily Tribune, March 20, 2019 When a family diner closes, you might feel as if you’ve lost an old friend. Here in Royal Oak, Niki’s was a favorite neighborhood hangout — our own private Cheers without the booze — for about 30 years. When my son was a small boy, it was also my home-away-from-home. In those days, I was writing freelance for several local papers, so I’d often head to…
