My husband showed me a TikTok video the other day of a chicken high-tailing it across a field headed for the henhouse, while a hawk swoops down repeatedly trying to snatch it. The people filming the video are too far away to help, but they’re screaming at the chicken. “Go, RUN, go, go, go!” Some...
I so enjoyed the new movie, Nyad. It’s the true story of Diana Nyad who, at the age of 60, decides to try again to complete the grueling 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida, a feat she first attempted 30 years earlier. How can you not be inspired by someone who pushes her body beyond...
A frequent reader of this blog wrote to me in response to my post titled, “Does Art Need a Purpose?” “Just as beauty is its own excuse for being,” she said, “so is art.” I found the full quote about beauty online. It’s from a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson called “The Rhodora.” It reads:...
I was an “indoorsy” kid, as comedian Jim Gaffigan would say. My idea of a relaxing Saturday was sleeping in late, eating a big breakfast, reading my book, and then watching back-to-back showings of classic movies on one of our four channels. My mother would often push me outside and tell me to stay there....
I was that child who never pulled a leg off a grasshopper or a wing off a bee. I never burned an ant with a magnifying glass or kicked a dog for barking. I was that kid who named our plants and urged them to grow. I named our cars, too, and was furious with...