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A year or more before my father died my parents decided to sell their house in Waco and move into a new apartment complex intended for people over fifty-five. The move felt impulsive to my brother and me because they had never talked about doing something like that. Even the
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When we left for Ireland, I had visions of journaling everyday and keeping track of all the details, as well as writing every night to provide a travelogue of the trip. Obviously, that didn’t happen--mostly because I filled the time doing things and being with people rather than taking
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We’ve seen a lot of stones in Ireland. Much of the land is made of giant rocks masquerading as mountains, enormous pieces of ancient earth rising upwards. Somehow, the land feels older here. I learned about stone walls when we moved to New England. I had not seen them
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We are one day past the midpoint of our time on the island of Ireland. The morning here is cool (59°) and clear. The cottages where we are staying on the outskirts of the coastal village of Kitkeel are surrounded by green fields marked by stone walls that were stacked
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Ireland is a lovely and complicated place, which, of course, means it shares much in common with the rest of the world though its story has often gotten more publicity over the years. A number of years ago, Gareth Higgins and Brian Ammons began doing Ireland Retreats from this vantage
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I have been working my way through Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants for several weeks now, moving slowly on purpose because it feels like I need to let each chapter take root before I love on. It feels like the
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We have always had a passport drawer. It is the top drawer of an old Singer spool cabinet that sits on top of a table that used to hold a Singer sewing machine. Both were handed down from my mother’s parents. They have traveled with Ginger and me to
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I am a couple of days away from marking ten months since my second knee replacement and three years and three months since my first. As you can see, I have the scars to prove it. Though they got me up hours after I came out of recovery to start
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It was already over by the time I got there. Ginger and I went to dinner with some folks and I turned on the Red Sox game when we got home, as I am wont to do on a summer evening, to find that the score was 14-3 in favor
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A couple of weeks ago, I got an email telling me I could sign up for a lottery tog et a link to buy tickets to one of the concerts on Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming tour. The date closest to me is in March 2023 at a relatively small arena,
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A friend from Texas called yesterday and asked how I was and I said I was hot, and then I said I knew the irony of statement talking to him since the high yesterday in Guilford was only three degrees warmer than the low in Houston. A heat wave in
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I got up early this morning, thanks to our middle Schnauzer Lila, made the coffee and sat down to write my Morning Pages for the first time in two months. It felt good. For those who are not familiar with them, Morning Pages are a practice I learned from The