My siblings and I jointly own a summer cottage in Canada that my father left to us in his will. Growing up in Buffalo, we spent our summers in Canada, in our early years at a place we called Three Acres upon which my father and his buddies hand-built six very rustic cottages in the 1950s. Our current cottage Old cottage Almost fifty years later my dad upgraded to a new place—bigger, with reliable...
It has to be a coincidence. Randomness on display. One world is fiction and the other is real. But something just happened to me that is eerily reminiscent of what happened to the character Robert Besch in my novel In Flight. In the book, after the news spreads that the Plane-Crash Hero had suffered from a dissociative fugue, all kinds of strangers begin contacting Robert. From the novel: There...
1. I’m on my bike riding through a residential neighborhood, zipping down one of the only hills in Bethlehem to gain enough speed to climb up the other side. Ahead of me, I spot two other riders, a man and a woman heading in my direction. They’re on my side of the road. Someone has to move to the other side, and it should be them. They just keep on coming in my direct path. I take a quick look...
I’m mesmerized by kinetic art—the sculpture that spins, the mobile that sways—and because of that I’m compelled to hang windows in our yard. Every window is a world, and when a window is suspended, when a window floats or sways in the breeze, another facet of that world is yours to behold. My first kinetic window I sourced from the double-hung I saved from our bathroom remodel. It had the old...
Within walking distance or a short bike ride from our place in Thunder Bay are a number of tennis courts. I pass by them and am reminded of another era, the 1970s when most of these courts were probably installed and tennis was booming on the global stage. The big stars back then were Bjorn Borg, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Billie Jean King, and Chris Everett. Bob Klein, serving big...
Where Thunder Bay comes to a rocky point I came upon a cairn along the shore. I’d say this is an intentional design—a creature on sturdy legs with arms spread taking in the wide expanse of the lake. It’s a finished work, but I’m tempted to add my own flair, to say I was here too and admired your art. If you look closely you can see what I did, a little weight for each...
My transformation started innocently enough. I was scrolling through my news feed and came across this headline: “5 Zodiac Signs That Thrive Under Pressure.” The last time I paid attention to my zodiac sign was probably fifty years ago—I’m a Capricorn (December 25)—when I would read my horoscope every morning in the long-defunct Buffalo morning newspaper, The Courier Express. It was fun. Not to...
Ah, Sunday morning. Do you ever get sucked into one of those existential moments? When you’re deep in the throes of contemplation about the nature of human existence—all its mystery, uncertainty, and complexity. Its pleasure and suffering. Its beauty and horror. And you’re compelled to evaluate your role as the architect of your brief and minuscule life? They can be a struggle, these existential...
It’s been ages since the four of us have gone out for dinner, but finally the stars align and we decide to go out to celebrate some family milestones. We choose a restaurant with a good reputation that we’ve been to before and that works for all of our tastes. Some of us have a cocktail, and we order two appetizers to share and four entrees. So far, so good, except Harriet’s cocktail, although...
Today I honor the two most influential mothers in my life: my own mother, Irene Klein, and my life partner and mother to Julia and Owen, Harriet Jaffe. Irene It’s been forty years since I’ve had a mother. I have only the same few memories of my mother, and many of them are foggy. I can form no new ones. And many memories are long forgotten. But I know this: I loved my mom deeply. I felt a strong...
All it takes is one tulip to brighten the landscape and calm my mood. Good thing, because all we got at our house is one damn tulip. One! Over the years, the deer have decimated our tulips, yet somehow the hungry buggers overlooked this one. Our one and only and likely lonely tulip. Fortunately, we have the Tulip Festival in Washington Park coming up. We went to gaze at the blooms yesterday...
The first ten seconds Riding U.S. Route 41 North, about 30 miles into a 42-mile ride around Lake Skaneateles, we’re cresting a long and tiring climb, with a sweet downhill about to unfold before us. Steve is pulling away ahead of me. John bringing up the rear flank. I don’t know what I’m thinking about, just pedaling, breathing. It’s a two-lane highway, well-paved, with a wide shoulder. On...
I found myself on the patio at the house of a guy I’d just met that day. I was among a group of people I mostly didn’t know and one of them happened to be my high school rowing coach at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute some fifty years ago. Coach Bernie didn’t remember me, of course, but I’d had advance notice from John that he would be a participant in the group bike ride I’d been invited...
I’m helping my beloved niece, Lucy, paint her apartment bedroom. More accurately, she’s helping me. She doesn’t have experience painting a room and today I’m going to teach her. Fortunately, my sister Susan made sure the walls are prepped and ready to go. Putting on the paint is the easy, rewarding part. There are two tasks to painting a room wall: cutting in the edges using a brush and rolling...
Dandelion season is my lawn at its finest with a constellation of little golden suns on a spring green canvas. I wish it could last all summer. The blooms set at night and rise in the morning and shine all day, but only for a few weeks, and then the flowers are gone to seed, and a lucky few of them will be new suns next year.
