the narrative thread

Texas may be known for many wild things, but the best, by far, are its wildflowers. Every spring from early March through April, highways and hillsides in Central Texas and the Hill Country are blanketed in blue and pink. More than just the official state… Read More

I am a writer, so I write. Everything. I make lists, jot notes, keep a journal; I pen letters, copy directions, record major events. And yes, I write down New Year’s Resolutions, every year. And then, at the end of every year, I go back… Read More

Four months into WWI, in early December of 1914, Pope Benedict XV called for a temporary Christmas cease-fire between the Germans and the British then fighting on the Western Front. The warring commanders refused, but late on Christmas Eve, the soldiers themselves created a spontaneous… Read More

Here’s what’s wrong with Christmas: it comes too soon. I know, I know, not for children, and not for those earnest holiday celebrators and decorators, those invested in commercial profits, and those for whom the holidays mean being transported to the nostalgic realm of Christmases… Read More

Thanksgiving is our most adaptable, most inclusive national holiday. It is celebrated by everyone who lives in America (whether they are descended from the Pilgrims or not), it has no particular religious or political connotations (beyond the debate over whether Native Americans really shared a… Read More