AMTRAK DAY FOUR November 25th The train rolls through the backside of cities, past loading docks of old industrial buildings adorned with faded painted monikers and fresh graffiti. Heading out of Dallas-Fort Worth, under the gleaming skyline, we pass the common visage of suburban growth: curving cul-de-sacs lined with crisp new homes and newly-planted twig […]
AMTRAK DAY THREE November 24, 2014 “In Fort Worth, you have to see the Kimball Museum,” Jinny said at lunch. “It’s been a couple years, but what I remember most is the brisket and the Kimball.” Jinny’s husband Jim had grown up on the same corner, 110th and Amsterdam Avenue, where my mom lived when […]
“You always meet such nice people on the train,” said the man sitting next to me at lunch. The dining car followed the railroad tradition of community seating. The dining room attendant sat each person or party in order from the front of the car to the back, filling each table. So Mom and I […]
My two teenage sons and I started the summer with a road trip. A road trip of the sort that we all both dreaded and looked forward to at the same time. A trip across the entire United States … or at least most of it. Their dad and I had taken our two oldest […]
Twenty-two years ago, I had just married, was graduating college, and on a search for a place to live. I imagined myself settling into family life and raising children in one place, wherever that place might be. Instead, I moved through six communities as I raised three children, went back to school, divorced and began […]
Twenty-eight feet never looked so small. On our third day in Costa Rica, we went deep sea fishing, me battling my life-long fear of the ocean to spend a day at sea with Jacob and Jasper. The young man who we purchased the tickets from had a shared history on North Carolina’s Outer Banks where […]
Last year I toured several environmentally focused schools to learn how innovative programs are addressing Nature Deficit Disorder: the growing issue of children (and adults) lacking enough access to nature and its restorative qualities. At one of the public elementary schools, remade with native gardens, fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, I sat in on an […]
Twenty years after moving to the Appalachians and eighteen years after leaving them, I had the chance to visit for Thanksgiving with my cousins. All the beauty, charm and isolation came rushing back … with none of the loneliness. I recalled the closeness to nature I felt during my two and a half years in […]