Parables of daily life

What hopes for the future make sense when you know, for sure, that you are dying, and you’re pretty sure you know what you’re going to die from? Does knowing these things relegate you to Make-A-Wish sort of bucket list stuff? Or are deeper dreams possible?

Lydia is an o...

Loss. Pain, loss and illness: of course they affect us. But do they define us? As with so many other big questions in life, the answer most likely to ring true is, “that depends.”

Nana reached out to me through Facebook.  I first met her back in prep school. She was of...

I first met Jubilee, by accident, several weeks ago.

I knew immediately that I had come across a rare personality, a true force of nature. She was a strong high note in an otherwise dull symphony, a field of energy and feeling that cut though the bland winter weekday mo...

It’s hard to have hopes. It’s hard to have dreams. We assume it’s a given that all people have some ambition that they either do or do not pursue, either in secret or in the full light of day. We act as if everyone has taken the time to formulate specific goals, and th...

Hopes and dreams are funny things. Sometimes you achieve them -- then what? Maybe, to paraphrase Willie Wonka… you live happily ever after.

And maybe dreams are elusive… maybe achieving dreams is a chimera, maybe just having them is our best chance to be happy.

Elliot is...

I was alone for dinner tonight, and ended up in a restaurant in a small town near here that I’d been to before, where I knew the food to be decent and the bar atmosphere friendly. I figured, half hour, forty-five minutes, in and out. I left my dog, who had recently had...