Call me Brash. Call me Bossy. Hell, call me the other B word. Just don’t call me a Lady. I’m a bit old school when it comes to the “L” word. In my mind, those four letters are a gilded cage, a choke collar fastened to the twin chains of “modesty” and “demureness,” ones meant to keep women in line. And they still make me flinch. Ladies please. I am old enough to have been…
When Miranda utters these words in The Tempest, it’s clear they are the words of a naif. She’s young and sheltered and–frankly–lusty. Her “brave” means handsome; Miranda is all about the surface. Most who invoke these words miss Shakespeare’s irony or haven’t read Aldous Huxley’s novel by the same name—What they summon, instead, is excitement about a changing landscape. For our new Emperor without Clothes, the phrase is clearly spin. He’s the confidence man selling…
Cabin in deep snow One must have a mind of winterTo regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the windIn the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in…
Smell Rome might very well be burning. There is no denying the smell of smoke in the air and a horizon that looks so much darker than it did a just a few weeks ago. I have spent my days out of focus and a bit out of my mind. And yet, cooking up a storm. Sight Chopping has become meditation as I let my hands move slivers of onions, chunky shards of carrots and…
For a week now, the freezer door has refused to stay shut. I will close it, only to have Greg complain it’s been cracked open all night, a puddle of water the damning evidence on the floor. Both of us have tried in our own haphazard way to shove bags of peas and protruding ice packs back into the maw of the deep freeze, announcing triumphantly that “I fixed it,” only to find the door…