Call me impossibly stubborn, but I'm having a really hard time letting go of summer. I long for the slow pace of the days, the lack of (senseless) meetings, the ability to sleep in--even if just until 8:30 a.m. (yes, things are now so dire that this seems like the epitome of living large). Of…
In May they had finally made up their minds to go. But summer came and went as usual, with preparations for winter, the cooking of preserves, the bottling of apples, pears and cherries. By the end of August they wrote to say it was too late again. They were still stuck at home, too…
But then who can tell what it really is that flickers up there in the dark above the houses--the luminous name of a product or the glow of human thought; a sign, a summons; a question hurled into the sky and suddenly getting a jewel-bright, enraptured answer?-Vladimir Nabokov (Mary)The past week has been a lot…
Riuscire meglio a pane che a farina. [To succeed more with the bread than with the flour, i.e. to have more success than expected.]You could say that this Italian proverb, which I found at the beginning of Carol Field's The Italian Baker (sadly, I speak no Italian), has been the overarching theme of the week.…
Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled--to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. -Mary OliverA small but important fact about me is that, while I'm not at all a picky eater, there are three things that I'm…
Dining with Dostoevsky 