I was fortunate to get away for a long weekend to Florida with Harriet to visit her mom in Sarasota. There are benefits to sunshine and warm temps. There is joy in biking, tennis, swimming, walking on the beach, and seeing loved ones. There is calm in putting aside work and responsibilities for a few days. But about Florida, I’m conflicted. Beautiful beaches—yes. Fine weather—for the winter...
What is it about skating on a frozen pond that makes me feel poetic? There was “Skating on a Winter Night” a few years ago with Owen and my friends when we had sticks and pucks. And then there was this past weekend on Black Creek Marsh. We had to hike a snowy trail down to the windswept ice and we tested its thickness, walking out on the surface, gingerly, one step and then another...
It doesn’t happen often enough but when the sun comes out during the winter, I’m compelled to have its rays upon me. The bare trees cooperate by letting more of the light land on me. Bennett Hill is just fifteen minutes from my house and a favorite hike because of its well-marked trails, a dose of steepness, and its winter landscape of gray and white and brown. Bare trees cast long...
Not to be mean-hearted to the grieving or entirely self-serving, but I’ve discovered an upside when I hear about artists’ deaths. Recently, the American novelist Russell Banks died. Some years back I read one of his novels, The Sweet Hereafter, and found it compelling and intelligent. When I heard of his death, I remembered that his novel, Affliction, was sitting on my bookshelf. I don’t...
I have Harriet to thank for this one. She asked me and a few others in our circle if we wanted to join her in registering for the Helderberg-to-Hudson half marathon scheduled for April. I initially scoffed at the idea. My days as a runner have been dwindling in recent years. Various age, injury, overuse, and motivational factors have taken their toll on my “elite runner” status. It was almost...
Here’s another post from my favorite guest blogger, Julia Klein. It’s a new year. For many of us, that means New Year’s resolutions. People resolve that this year is going to be the one where they “get healthy.” Although striving to improve our health is a worthy cause, it is often twisted by diet culture. Our cultural rhetoric around health has shifted. In recent years, diet culture...
In a previous blog post, I pondered whether New Year’s resolutions are helpful. Most resolutions fail because most are focused on self-sacrifice and self-improvement, and that stuff is really hard. As Arthur C. Brooks wrote in The Atlantic, it makes sense that such resolutions rarely succeed: “If meeting self-improvement goals were so easy, we wouldn’t need to make resolutions in the first...
Dear Cherished Readers: It’s that time of year again: the end. Which can only mean it’s time for all the “best of the year lists.” Best books, best movies, best albums, best hockey goals, best startups, best advice . . . There are a lot of “best of” lists! Did you ever wonder who compiles these lists? Who gets to decide what’s the best? It’s a subjective...
While I was listening to a podcast, an advertisement came on for a company called BetterHelp, offering me 10 percent off my first month’s subscription. Subscription to what? Therapy, delivered online or over the phone. The pitch started like this: Unfortunately, life doesn’t come with a user manual, so when it’s not working for you it’s normal to feel stuck. Therapists are trained to help you...
I’m sitting at my desk hearing icicles break off from my roof edge and crash to the ground during the winter storm that’s passing through, and I’m reminded of the time I almost won a Darwin Award. For those who don’t know Darwin Awards, they are given out to “commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate...
My daughter Julia is one of those people in my life I want to check in with every day. Not to keep tabs on her, or her on me, but because deliberately and proactively thinking of the people I love the most is time well spent. Enter Snapchat, that simple social media platform that claims it’s the easiest way to share a moment. Snap a photo, usually a selfie, add an optional caption, and send...
President Joe Biden, who I voted for (what a surprise), stepped into a labor dispute between railroad companies and the unions representing railroad workers. In September he helped broker a compromise labor agreement that prevented a rail strike, but that deal was ultimately voted down by four of the 12 unions that represent about 115,000 railroad workers. With a strike deadline looming this...
I wake to a strange reddish cast of light in my room. Is it the apocalypse? I get out of bed and stumble my bleary way to the window and there in front of me is the most incredible dawn. By the dawn’s early light. This has to be an omen of good things to come. Sure enough, while I’m getting dressed, I choose a shirt from my drawer I have not worn in months, and folded inside it is my...
That’s my friend Howard on the left. He’s the frontman for the rock band the Coal Palace Kings. They get it on every Black Friday, this year at the Hangar on the Hudson, a cavernous, spartan venue in Troy, NY. If you miss the Black Friday performance, you don’t get to see the Coal Palace Kings. They perform once, maybe twice a year, these oldish guys who’ve been loving and playing music all their...
I don’t usually re-run a blog post, but this one is too important and was extremely popular when published last year. Naturally, I didn’t write it. My daughter, Julia Klein, has a bachelor’s degree in Nutrition Science and is finishing her master’s degree in Applied Nutrition to become a registered dietitian. She contributed this guest post, just in time for the holidays. It’s...
