In winter, Route 19 splits West Virginia in two,and the mountains lean back from the road:old men with thinning hairyou can see right down to the roots. Everyone lives up close:a farmhouse with tire swing and tractor, pushing snow and pulling snow and piled upto windshield with it, white and idle; double-wide trailer wedged on […]
Read moreMost of the time I forget all about it. I forget about it in the way that you forget Christmas, or what you had for dinner last Wednesday. I forget about it because it is irrelevant. Most of the time. Most of the time I am up before light, anyway. I make breakfast and bed […]
Read moreCotignac, France Provence has a basically Mediterranean climate, one wafted by winds that give it a special character. The most notorious is the mistral (from the Provencal mistrau, or master– supposedly sent by northerners jealous of the south’s climate), rushing down from the Rhone and gushing east as far as Toulon and west to Narbonne. […]
Read moreFlush ice cubes down the toilet (as many as possible)Throw carrots out the window (preferably in the direction of the school)Place spoon under the mattress (the bigger, the better)Place a quarter under your pillow (heads up)Dance around a snowman candle (for as long and as wildly as possible)Wear your pajamas inside-out (no further explanation needed)Sleep […]
Read moreI didn’t realize that autumn had arrived in the South. I’ve learned somehow to adjust my expectations, and so wasn’t looking for the change in temperature and leaf until November, really. I had noticed some yellowing here and there, but nothing flagrant, nothing bright. The change was still pending; the change was yet something to […]
Read moreIn the last few days, the humidity here has almost disappeared– the humidity that all summer hangs like gauze in the air and on my body, so that out for a walk or even going to the car I feel I’m wearing a shirt I don’t remember putting on. But sometime on Sunday evening the […]
Read moreMay is here and, indeed, is already more than half gone. May in North Carolina means green everything, trees in full leaf, and the roses along my fence blooming in abundant frenzy. And it also means– again, in North Carolina– heat. Generally speaking, this time of year means the warmest of my dress-clothes for work. […]
Read moreIt has been raining now since Friday, Thursday, even. I can’t remember anymore how long the rain has been coming down. My students today, looking out on yet another shower, expressed disbelief. It isn’t like North Carolina to behave like this. Tonight as I tucked Emma Grace into her bed, the rain came down with […]
Read moreThe word is coming in to us from around the country these days: eight inches of snow in Chicago, a foot and a half in Michigan, so much snow in Las Vegas (Las Vegas!) that they had to close the airport. The snow was falling steadily during the Seahawks game in Seattle on Sunday; since […]
Read moreToday, for the first time in months, I could watch the football game on the screen of my neighbor’s television in the house behind ours, the house that, for all the months of summer, is screened from us by leaves. Today Emma Grace and I went for a bike-ride/walk. She created a basket for her […]
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