Dear Nicholas, I regularly have trouble getting my point across to people on the first try. This results in my having to write far too many drafts of my books. And in conversation, people will seize on some minor detail of what I’m saying as important and miss the point altogether. Or there’s some other […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, With all plans scrambled by Covid,  I forgot to take a vacation this year and instead have worked, steadily, barely pausing to look up, from my laptop on my sofa. On the late afternoon of December 10, I ran out of gas and came to a halt. I’m still halted, seven business days […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, The three-and-a-half minute video below has already been heard/watched 993  million times. A while back I had played it a few times myself. By chance (or algorithm) I ran across it again yesterday while checking out the new Saturday Night Live skits on Youtube. What a mood-booster to view again! I’m so pleased […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I didn’t expect this Thanksgiving to be exceptional except for the smallness of the crowd (just Bob and me). But the traditional meal we threw together produced in me some surprise gratitude. Not just a review of the list of loved ones, an overview of everything good, but a sharp upwelling of feeling. […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I’m losing a very dear friend to a terrible disease. Her story is not mine to tell and so I guard her privacy, but need to say: this is hard. Right now it’s not loss that’s worst; it’s knowing that a loved one is suffering. There is nothing at all that I can […] Read More

  Dear Nicholas, I was lying on the floor staring out the hall window– the spot where we get the best phone reception– involved in conversation about a friend who is seriously ill. While I watched, a pink cloud filled half the window frame, covering a huge expanse of sky. Pink light? I moved around […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I’m talking about my own– my rage. Tonight when I got the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died, my mind–which could have been lingering on “what a heroic woman, thank you for all you’ve done!” instead went almost instantly to elaborate imaginings of what the Supreme Court without her could do to […] Read More

I hesitate to say this, Nicholas, even to friends, maybe especially to friends, for reasons that will surely be obvious.  But I’m going to say it here and now because for me it’s a little breakthrough that may give me a little more ease in the world. Or a lot more. Here it is: seeing […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I think I’m getting to be more of an introvert. I understand this happens with age, but staying home for seven months (excepting runs to grocery, bank drive-through, etc) seems to have speeded up the process. When I moved my office plants home in early March, I felt a little silly imagining I […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, In the midst of the current pestilence plus a wildly dangerous hurricane spinning toward the Gulf Coast, the loss of a gathering place–a shopping center cafeteria–may seem like small potatoes. But these potatoes are a big deal to me and a lot of others in Raleigh, North Carolina.  The Raleigh paper announced today […] Read More