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Beauty Parlor Night
In my twenties, when I was young and carefree, I rented a house with four other women. We all worked, dated, and fret about the number of pizza slices we ate in front…
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Spring Charms
I used to think my modest house took on its beauty only by candlelight. But that was before I had a new front door installed with a half-moon transom built into the top.…
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Easter Finery
When I was too young to understand anything spoken in church, I asked my big brother why we had Easter. His wise, all-knowing answer was, “Easter holds us over ’til Christmas”. And it…
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In Memoriam
I’ve introduced you to this handsome chap before. He was the grandfather of a good friend of mine and I was delighted to see this newly-found photograph of him. Known mostly as the…
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Vanity Fair
In Chapter Nine of Little Women, the March sisters prepare Meg for a journey to Boston for the long-awaited Sally Moffat coming-out party. Meg Goes to Vanity Fair is one of my favorite chapters…
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Help from the Shelf
Long ago, I clipped a quote from an article about Joan Didion. She told the journalist that when she was small and upset by something that happened in school, her parents would tell…
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The Big Tease
Lace is a big tease – it both provokes and conceals. The women above are all “laced up” but they’re not telling any secrets…except to each other. Today’s lace is different – it’s…
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Lyrical March
I came home yesterday with 4 petite rose-colored calla lilies and some long stalks of irises. They look so pretty in my etched crystal pitcher. I want to think that they are harbingers…
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There Be Dragons
Dear Readers, you may know that I do not write for a living. At least not all my living. My style writing and other contributions, paid writing, etc. have never filled the coffers…
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The Three Graces
Recently, I received a text from my first childhood friend which accompanied the picture above. “I saw this at the Smithsonian today and thought of us”, was all she wrote. The mystical soft…
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A Mute and Elegant Testimony
My pretty mother wore a grey vertical striped shirtwaist dress the day she brought my little brother home from the hospital. As she knelt in front of us with her tender white bundle,…
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In January – The Things I Didn’t Write
There are so many things I wanted to write about in January. I really wanted to tell you about the quintessential snowy New England weekend I spent many years ago at a old…
