Dear Nicholas, I just came upon a description of the soul’s afterlife that perfectly describes the intimations I’ve had about what happens to our spirits after death. I was astonished to come across this; I wasn’t looking for any such thing in the book I was reading. The book is A Search in Secret India […] Read More

Nicholas, I’m turning 70 years old at 2:34 this afternoon. A big birthday to anyone who hasn’t yet achieved it, though I know it’s ho-hum to my eighty-something-ish friends. I want to make a deal out of it–increasingly, I feel big birthdays should get their due– but I haven’t fully decided how. What I know […] Read More

Nicholas–My New Year’s Resolve: Find my car in the parking lot. That’s a shorthand way of saying that I mean to pay better attention to what I’m doing and reliably remember what I need to remember. I’m going to improve my memory, at least get it back to where it was a year ago when […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, So far I’ve failed at being frantic about Christmas this year. I can’t say that this is a sign of serenity. Instead, I seem a bit lackadaisical about it. Whatever else the holiday is to me, it has long been a December 25 deadline.  And I’ve never even done much about it. I […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, The power came back on at my house 36 hours after the start of the weekend winter storm. Now I feel like a complete person again. It was only a day and a half– hardly a blip.  But effects of power outage are a psychic shock, much more than simply a sudden inconvenience. […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I’d never heard of the guy until a few months ago or his band Queen. Never expected to be feeling thankful for Freddie Mercury on this Thanksgiving holiday. My acquaintance with his music came about in a curious manner. At Sea With Scaramouches By chance, I’d  joined the first (and for me, last) […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, My new stage of grief is flashing lights. Visual distortions, like at the start of a migraine, but the headache never happens, and the lights go on and on. This past Friday morning, my brothers and I began the process of dismantling the homestead, clearing out my mother‘s house. Much of the time, […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, This subject gets harder to write about. Writing a tribute was easy. Now three weeks after  her death, losing Mom is no longer a hurricane-style crisis full of shock and activity, but instead the start of coping with losing Mom, a long jagged process of dealing with the emotions and changes. First, we […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I don’t know how to begin about losing Mom. Except to say: she died. My mother.  I don’t know what I want to “discuss,” except maybe just to talk about her.  Her name was Margaret Tucker Payne, nickname “Tuck.” Tuck Forever For so long, we — my brothers and I, and a lot […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I’m sorting through the emotional results of riding out Hurricane Florence in my hometown of Wilmington. I was there ten days, nine without power. My brothers and I were keeping Mom company; she’s 96, has sat out many hurricanes there and didn’t want to evacuate. This is not a position paper. It’s an […] Read More