The constant gargle, whether crashing or calm, gloriously filling your ears against small or faraway sounds. At the ocean, it is just you and it. The broken sunlight forever chasing its changing surface, cloistering its depths from we outsiders. The bobbing lightness of standing shoulder-deep just beyond the break, rising on tiptoe in each swell, […]
I missed it: skipping. Skipping stones … skipping sisters … skipping heart beats. I showed my kids how to skip. We used to skip often down sidewalks … across lakes … into the ocean. Then we stopped. Because it embarrassed them, and I embarrassed them. These things that once made us smile, they were gone for […]
Last Christmas I wrote about the community I found by accident … because of an accident. This season has me thinking a lot about the community we make on purpose. Our lives are wound up in our communities, whether we ask for it or not. Our communities make us feel welcomed or ostracized, safe or afraid, […]
What do my grandparents have to do with wind in my hair? A 1960s gold Plymouth Valiant convertible. My first memory of riding in a car. Top down, sun on my shoulders, wind whipping my hair into my eyes and mouth … pure joy. So, even though I work to design places for walking, biking, and […]
My grandma was a birder. I caught her enthusiasm for spotting and identifying our flying feathered friends on a trip to Sanibel Island in 1980. She introduced me to Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets, Ibis and Roseate Spoonbills. We saw Cormorants and Little Green Herons and Cattle Egrets. These most magnificent wading birds stood poised for us in […]
We humans have a complex relationship with nature. Those of us who work to conserve, restore or design with nature often take for granted humanity’s dependence on and innate love for nature. “Biophilia” was E.O. Wilson’s suggestion that we as humans have an instinctive bond with other living systems. I feel this when I’m in urban […]
Love the where you are. There will always be things we don’t love about the places we live. Maybe it’s the traffic, or the trash, or the loneliness, or the violence. Maybe the graffiti gets you down (not everyone sees it as art). Or the broken sidewalks. Or the vacant businesses. Or the thriving businesses. […]
I don’t remember why I decided to drive to work yesterday. I’ve so enjoyed my morning commutes by train: reading two books in the past three weeks … happening into Lori and then Foongi for a friendly catching up … jostling through Union Station to the sound of the Salvation Army brass band. But yesterday […]
AMTRAK DAY EIGHT November 28, 2014 I fall instantly in love with places. These eight days on the train I have given my heart to the mesquite-laden hills around Austin … the sun-drenched center of Forth Worth … Saint Louis’ sorrowful elegance the night after the non-indictment … a distant Illinois farm house friended on […]
AMTRAK DAY FIVE November 26th, 2014 I slept the least last night so far. Maybe due to a cup of Earl Gray in the early afternoon. Or the decaff coffee after dinner. Or the wine bought by the man who shared our table. Or the billions of bumps and bangs and big sways back and […]