For most of my life I’ve had only a few friends. Now I have added to that roster. Not that I’ve become more social (I’ve become less, if you can imagine that), but I’ve expanded my definition of friendship. I have local friends who help me feel anchored to my community. Historical friends that have been deeply entwined in the fabric of my life for decades. Writer friends who understand that...
Today was the first day in a while I’ve gone out to tend the gardens and property. I realized how behind I was. I pulled out and pruned. I trimmed and cut. I got covered in milkweed milk. I arranged rocks. Watered. Fixed a fence. Dumped wheelbarrows of organic debris over the ravine. Turned the compost pile. Sometimes I do all that work and forget to pay attention to the beauty surrounding...
Do you ever wonder how often you think of the ones you love the most? Certainly, anyone you’re living with—a partner, a child, a parent, a friend—you think of every day, at least once a day, because they’re right in front of you as a reminder. What about the parent or friend who died months or years ago? The old friends who promised to stay in touch? Or the person you were once romantically...
I planted two hazelnut saplings. You need at least two for pollination purposes. It takes 3-4 years to begin bearing fruit. Each season, I prune and shape them. One tree grows steadily; one lags. I risk digging up and moving the struggling tree to a location with better light. I water it every day. It survives the shock of transplantation. I protect the trees with cages. And this year, their...
We’re halfway through the U.S. Open tennis tournament and the fireworks are popping. I’m not referring to blistering service aces or smashing overheads or 20-shot rallies punctuated by down-the-line winners. I’m referring to post-match confrontations between players. Tennis has an annoying and prissy culture of “tennis etiquette” consisting of a number of “unwritten rules.” They’re unwritten...
We could solve many environmental and climate change problems if only the promise of teleportation had come true. I first saw beam-me-up magic on the original Star Trek series: Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and crew standing in the transporter room, their figures dissolving into glittery confetti and then reanimating on one of the strange new worlds they’re exploring. If we had teleportation...
My mom, Irene Klein, died more than 40 years ago when she was 58 and I was 24. I was still largely undeveloped as an adult, and losing my mother was a huge blow. I drifted rudderless and without purpose for some years after. I’ve always wondered what my life would have been like if she’d been around to continue loving me and guiding me. Then when I was 35, in marrying Harriet, I gained a mother...
I walk into this view and greedily soak in every color and texture until I’m drunk on beauty, cool sand beneath my feet, demure waves rippling onto shore and out again, sun spraying the sky pink and casting golden upon the water, a solitary bird my companion, the horizon and the tree line the extent of my world. I want to appreciate this moment completely and I also want to take a photo for...
I must have been six or seven years old, hopefully not nine or ten. Our family was at Crystal Beach, an amusement park located on the shore of Lake Erie in Ontario. We went there once every summer, having earned ride tickets based on the grades we got on our report cards. My older siblings were going on the Magic Carpet, a walk-through funhouse with crooked rooms, funny mirrors, moving walls...
We are emotionally available, we have words to express our feelings. We rally for our friend in need. We are men. I can’t trust her. You shouldn’t trust her. She’s admitted to everything I’ve found out but nothing more. You’ve got her cornered. She’s on the defensive. She won’t even talk to me. Let’s have a beer. I’m a mess right now. I’m in a bad space and it feels like it will never end. We can...
The New York Post is not one of my go-to information sources, but you never know what will show up in your feed, and I clicked on an article about something called the Gen Z gaze. The first line in the article: “If you’ve ever walked up to a cashier or front desk and been met with a silent stare, you’ve been a victim of the ‘Gen Z gaze’.” Maybe you know the stare. You’re next in line and when...
I annually repost this column from an earlier date of ten dad lessons I’ve learned in honor of all fathers on this Father’s Day. With every passing year, these lessons feel more relevant and continue to guide my evolving role as a father as my kids become independent adults. They’re all based on my experience. 1. Show Up Regardless of whether you live with them or not, a father’s job...
While Trump presided over a noxious display of military might at his Soviet-style parade in Washington yesterday, we participated in the No Kings protest against dictatorship and for democracy. Thousands of people in Albany came out to peacefully protest the accumulation of unconstitutional power by the current administration, to denounce its cruelty, to speak out against its policies that favor...
Since the day I was old enough to stray from my mother’s watchful eye and wander off from our blanket spread on the sandy, modest public beach at Thunder Bay on the shore of Lake Erie in Canada, I would take beach walks along the curve of the bay. Walk east, and you come across Root Beer Creek, so named by us for its water color. Walk west, and you come across a flat rock area abutting the shore...
One of my favorite punctuation marks—the em dash—(see what I did there?) is under siege. I’ve made liberal use of the em dash in all five of my novels, deploying it early and often in my writing style: STASH (page 1): “But she reminded herself that Nora was only seven, a loving, intelligent girl, tall and strong and for the most part capable, yet fearful of small things going wrong—such as...
