-
Miscellany
My daughter and I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their wonderful exhibit, “Impressionism, Fashion, & Modernity”. (And by the way, if you visit New York City in early spring, you are…
-
Irish Girl
My father moved us to my beloved homecity when I was in kindergarten. It didn’t take many St. Patrick’s Days to realize our school had lots of Irish kids. These pals were descendants…
-
The Key
Remember the job I told you about in September, the one I said was too small for my soul? Well, I never left it but I will be exiting the cage as…
-
Snow Day
We woke up early on snowy days in the hopes that we would hear “No school, all schools Marlborough…” from the hi-fi radio in the living room. With bated breath and crossed fingers,…
-
A Garnet Week
I’ve loved garnets since reading the following passage in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady: Niel liked to see the firelight sparkle on her earrings, long pendants of garnets and seed-pearls in the shape…
-
Someone at a Distance
I loved this novel by Dorothy Whipple. Someone at a Distance kept me ruminating about the characters between readings, and it’s difficult for me to find literature (except for the classics) that keeps…
-
Valentine
I found this lovely Modern Priscilla magazine at a rare book fair recently. It’s dated February 1918 and it is a gem. The condition is nearly perfect and it cost $5.00. What drew me to…
-
The Way She Looks Tonight
I picked up “The Way She Looks Tonight” while staying in my friend Karen’s guest room in Rochester last month. It looked like a light read that would lull me back to sleep…
-
Nana’s Home
I learned elegant homecaring from my grandmother. Nana never had a house of her own and always lived on the streetcar line in Boston. She and my grandfather rented a great old apartment in…
-
A “Meg” Winter
Imagine my thrill after reading Little Women at age 10, to be told that the March sisters resided a mere 20 miles away in Concord, Massachusetts. But then, Orchard House was not open…
-
Christmas Assembly
In the 1960’s, every public elementary school in my town held a Christmas assembly each year on the last school day before the holiday vacation. These programs took place in the…
-
Why don’t you…..wear a tartan skirt?
The inimitable Diana Vreeland included a column called “Why don’t you….?” in Harpers Bazaar when she was at the magazine’s helm. Her little suggestions were at times audacious as in, “Why don’t you…
