the narrative thread

November 15, 2025

Gratitude

So, here we are at Thanksgiving, a time when everyone is supposed to count their blessings around the dinner table. The attitude of the season is gratitude and, in truth, while the search for reasons to give thanks might be difficult when times are tough, the effort to find them and express them is worthwhile and even empowering.

Certainly, this has not been an easy year for many, myself and my family included. Whether the struggles were strictly personal or brought on by broader national policies and global events, the fear, stress and worry over so many issues is enough to make all of us mentally, emotionally and physically ill. Gratitude? Really? How do you muster gratitude while feeling so overwhelmed by multiple, conflicting concerns?

Call me a cold-eyed realist, but I think these days gratitude can only be found by digging deep down inside and recognizing the realities and limitations of your own existence. Only then can you determine what you might rightfully be grateful for. Keep it simple — which is not easy when life is anything but.

To that end, I offer my own expression of gratitudes and wish you some moments of quiet reflection over this Thanksgiving.

Grant Me The Grace

In a climate of chaos
Of hate and division,
When war is called peace
And history’s revision,
Grant me the grace to be grateful…
For what I know.

When people are suffering
And many are needy,
When fairness has failed them
Because of the greedy,
Grant me the grace to be grateful …
For what I have.

In a season of loss
A time of despair,
A period of mourning
For those who aren’t there,
Grant me the grace to be grateful …
For those I love.

When others moan and groan
And constantly complain,
About every inconvenience
And every ache and pain,
Grant me the grace to be grateful …
For simply being alive.

November 7, 2025

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That Time of Year

It’s what I have come to call “That time of year” again — the late fall days in November between holidays when daylight savings time ends and the twinkle of Christmas lights begin to illuminate the darkness. The year is winding down, the New Year is rapidly approaching, and already everyone is asking where the time (and money) went. But for me, these November days bring a mood of ennui. People ask me, “What is wrong? You don’t seem like yourself.”

“It’s just that time of year,” I say.

Back when I was in the thick of my career and had numerous family members, friends and colleagues nearby, my social calendar for the whole holiday season would start filling in by mid-November and the stress of planning, baking, shopping, mailing gifts and addressing cards would reach a fevered pitch by Thanksgiving. Of course, while living in the Northeast, weather was always an ever-present threat to those eagerly anticipated holiday plans.

But all this worry and anxiety now — not so much. We aren’t very social anymore, haven’t many family or friends in the area, don’t attend work-related events, and aren’t heavily involved in clubs and organizations any longer. My closest friends and family called a moratorium on gift giving ages ago (nobody needs more stuff and nobody needs to stand in long lines at the post office to mail packages that probably won’t arrive on time anyway!) I’ve been culling my holiday decorations as I unpack them for several years now, finally gave in and bought an artificial tree, and have long since sold all my china, crystal and silver with place settings for twelve. At my age, who needs to take care of all this stuff, much less store it.

Now I don’t mean to sound like a South Texas Scrooge, but you know what? Shedding all that merry-making effort is freeing. I may feel a bit at loose ends during this “time of year,” but I’m not as stressed and certainly not as frantic about meeting all the expectations of others with those family dinners, wrapping gifts, writing cards, making calls, etc. I’ll admit it: I can relax a little, and even chuckle while watching everyone else race to the “doorbuster specials.” Been there, done that — all of it and then some.

Thankfully, some “fallish” weather has finally arrived here, albeit in wild, almost daily swings of 50 degree temperatures. I sometimes have to bundle up for my morning walk in 40° and then don a light-weight T-shirt in a 90° afternoon outing. We are constantly adjusting our thermostat from air to heat to off, but hey! This is Texas, and temperatures aren’t the only weather story.

November days here are generally crisp and clear without a single cloud in the pure blue sky above; sudden dust-ups of wind swirl leaves and sway trees and the sun is somehow lower and less intense overhead. Now that the clocks have changed and the sun sets earlier, my husband and I have started to sit out on our patio in the dusk of a late afternoon and enjoy a glass of wine among the arrangement of pumpkins and mums around the fireplace. Now that we’ve finally found outdoor furniture cushions that the squirrels won’t tear apart, we can even enjoy them and their antics as they scamper about the yard. It’s a calm, civilized way to end the day.

Now that I’ve slowed down enough to “smell the roses” (and we do grow roses in our garden), I find time to pay more attention to Mother Nature and find her signs of each season to be both a comfort and an education. The one great thing Texas has is the vast open sky, and it was the one thing I always missed when we didn’t live here. Even in urban areas and neighborhoods where I live now, views of the night sky are broad and accessible.

At the moment, we are experiencing another full moon, this year also a supermoon, called the Beaver Moon (its high was Nov. 5). It was given that name by early Native Americans because beavers were most actively preparing for winter in November by stockpiling their food caches and fortifying their underwater lodges and dams. Thus, they were out and about and more plentiful, which meant that hunters were also out and about after them. Beaver fur thickens in the fall and so their pelts are warm and waterproof, and therefore desirable for human protection in winter. Not surprisingly, the Beaver Moon also came to represent an astrological and spiritual period of preparation and reflection for the darkness of winter to come.

Regardless of today’s push to rewrite history and eliminate “wokeness,” there is no doubt that much of our own American history and spiritual values emanate from early Native American practices and beliefs such as all those about the harvest and preparations for winter. I’m sure many remember those pictures in history books of newly-arrived pilgrims alongside Native Americans celebrating the first Thanksgiving with corn and foul. (Wonder if such pictures have been purged from elementary-school books by now?) Today, November means Thanksgiving to almost everybody, even though it took until 1941 for the 4th Thursday of November to become a nationwide federal holiday of celebration.

The great thing about Thanksgiving is that it is a truly American, non-secterian designation honored by all faiths and all ethnic groups, each in their own way, as a collective expression of gratitude for the bounty and the beauty of the American experience. While it may aptly be considered as “the calm before the storm” of the holiday shopping season, Thanksgiving has managed to resist the crass commercialism of other major holidays and to retain a clarity of values and purpose. Our families — large or small, blended or intact, old or young, religious or nones, multi-ethnic or monocultural — as messy and contentious as they might be, are who we are. And we willingly come together to share a meal and spend time with each other.

The meal matters, of course. Many of us have vague recollections of those Norman Rockwell images of the perfect family (that don’t look anything like us) gathered around the holiday table, but spending time with those we love IS what matters most. As I reflect on “that time of year” that is November, I realize that time itself is the greatest gift of all.

October 31, 2025

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All Hallows’ Eve

All Hallows’ Eve is an old-fashioned term for Halloween. You seldom hear it these days, perhaps only in old New England towns or in some isolated ethnic communities. It brings to mind ancient history, Puritan superstitions, Celtic mysticism — all the myths and legends and beliefs associated with Halloween, remnants of which are part of America’s secular and quasi-religious Halloween celebrations today.

When we talk about Halloween, most people immediately think about the thoroughly commercialized American version of the day in black-and-orange with candy-corn and pumpkin-carving. For sure, while not being the most popular holiday in the US (Christmas and Thanksgiving are numbers one and two), Halloween does have very high celebration rates, especially among younger people, with roughly 73% of Americans admitting that they celebrate the day in some way. The National Retail Federation projects that we will spend $3.9 billion on candy this year (the government shutdown notwithstanding). Trick or Treat!

But the roots of Halloween and contemporary celebrations go way, way back. The ancient Celts celebrated a festival called Samhain around November 1 to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. They believed that the night before their November New Year was a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead were blurred. They wore costumes and masks to ward off evil spirits and and danced and sang around the fire at night. Today’s traditions of bonfires and scary stories come directly out of this ancient festival.

In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III sought to Christianize Samhain by assigning the feast of All Saints or “All Hallows” as it was called (“hallows” meaning holy) to November 1 and naming November 2 All Souls Day; these feast days remain today in the Catholic Church. In addition to highlighting their importance in the Christian calendar, the period of October 31 to November 2, once known as “Allhallowtide,” was intended to substitute and ultimately replace Samhain. But instead elements of Christian and pre-Christian beliefs and rituals mingled to create the Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, we observe today.

Early immigrants, especially Irish and Scottish, brought many common Halloween traditions to the United States; the notion of trick-or-treating, for example, evolved from customs like the Irish tradition of “guising,” going door-to-door performing tricks for treats. In the Middle Ages, children of the poor would go “souling,” collecting food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day. (The guisers dropped the prayers part and offered songs and jokes instead.)

All Souls’ Day in particular reinforces the ancient belief that the living can be in direct contact with the dead, for better or worse. Thus, the spectre of ghosts and goblins, of people being possessed by spirits, or of witches casting spells through their black cat “familiars” have become the commonly recognized, and recorded, darker aspects of All Souls’ Day. One need look no further than accounts of the famous witch hunts of the past, of the 700 witches condemned in Catalonia, Spain, over three centuries beginning in 1424, or to our own historic records of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-3 in Massachusetts to see the worst manifestations of believing in the interactions between the living and the dead. Even today, there are many who associate Halloween with witchcraft and sorcery and believe the holiday to be anti-Christian. (Hobby Lobby, the nation-wide arts and crafts stores, do not sell Halloween decorations for largely religious reasons.)

Yet, many cultures of the world maintain that the communion between the living and the dead is a positive reality and find ways to celebrate their ancestors and traditions in a good way, an appropriate way in this season when nature mirrors the cycle of life. In Japan, there are Yōkai Parades (ghost parades); in Nigeria, the Awuru Odo Festival honors returning spirits with traditional ceremonies; in Cambodia during the Buddhist festival of PcheumBen, people visit pagodas to offer food to the dead and to guide their ancestors’ spirits to peaceful rest; in Haiti during Fet Gede (Festival of the Dead) on November 1 & 2, Voodoo practitioners dance in the streets to communicate with the dead and then walk through the graveyards bringing “food” to feed them; and in Portugal on the Dia das Bruxas (Day of the Witches), families “trick-or-treat” asking for bread, fruit or nuts to then take to the graves of their relatives.

While our common Halloween customs originally found their way to America with Western European immigrants, a similar merger occurred between the Spanish Catholic All Souls Day and the indigenous Aztec ceremonies honoring deceased ancestors in early colonial Mexico. This produced the holiday known as Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrated for several days over November 1 & 2 and now as familiar as Halloween itself to most of us in the United States. (The US Postal service even issued Dia de los Muertos forever stamps in 2021 and they are still available today.)

The tremendous numbers of Mexican Americans and Central and Latin American immigrant families, particularly here in South Texas, have spread their cultural traditions to be enjoyed and respected by all. For example, the Catholic Churches here in San Antonio all build altars (ofrendas) in the vestibules to honor the memory of departed loved ones with flowers (marigolds), photographs, candles, and calaveras and catrinas (skeletal figures and dolls dressed to represent the deceased — see photo above). In the public squares and plazas there is music and dancing and recitation of family stories, and food — lots of food — often taken by family members to be shared on visits to the cemetery. You don’t have to be Mexican to celebrate Día de los Muertos and you certainly don’t have to be Latin to embrace its spiritual philosophy.

Día de los Muertos is NOT an occasion for mourning, but for remembering and celebrating lives well lived. Having been born from five generations of German immigrants and raised in South Texas, Mexican is my culture of immersion and Día de los Muertos is my All Hallows’ Eve.

“Viva los muertos!”

October 11, 2025

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Shine On

The romance inspired by moonlight was first given voice back in 1908 when the married vaudeville team Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth debuted Shine On, Harvest Moon in the Ziegfeld Follies. It was one of several moon-related Tin Pan Alley songs of the era, but Shine On was received with special acclaim. It became a romantic pop standard and it continues to be performed and recorded even now into the 21st century.

Oh, Shine on, shine on, harvest moon Up in the sky;

I ain’t had no lovin’ Since April, January, June or July,

Snow time ain’t no time to stay Outdoors and spoon;

So shine on, shine on, harvest moon, For me and my gal.

Songs have been written about it, photographers have chased it, superstitions have arisen around it, and cultures and societies have relied on it since ancient times: it is the Supermoon, a full moon rising closest to the September equinox. It appeared this week on October 6-7 and it is the first of three Supermoons we’ll see before the end of 2025. But this one is special because this one is the famous Harvest Moon.

Some astronomical facts explain why that’s special. The moon’s orbit around the earth is not a perfect circle; rather, it is elliptical. So a full moon always appears bigger and brighter because it is closer to the earth at that point in the month. The Supermoon appearing near the September equinox, however, is at the closest point to the earth and has the smallest differences in rise times of the entire year. On the evenings surrounding this particular phenomenon, the Harvest Moon rises at virtually the same time every night and sets roughly 12 hours later. Cloud cover notwithstanding, we can usually still see the moon shining in the Western sky when we get up in the morning.

Reflections called moon illusions make the Harvest Moon appear exceptionally bright and full on the horizon and causes it to illuminate everything around and below it. Beyond the illusions, though, the Harvest Moon is, in fact, about 30 percent brighter than average full moons and about 14 percent larger in diameter. The vivid orange and yellow colors come from atmospheric particles and, on a clear night with a magnifying lens (such as on a good camera) you can actually see some of the contours on the moon’s surface. (Photo above taken this year on the night of Oct. 7.)

The Harvest Moon is also known as the Hunter’s’Moon, again due to the dazzling illumination lasting long into the night. In ancient times, October was traditionally the month when hunters would be busy gathering meat for the long winter ahead and so it became known as the Hunter’s Moon. In subsequent agrarian societies, farmers were able to harvest their crops and work to prepare them for winter storage late into the evening hours, so the name Harvest Moon became more common.

Over time, full moons, especially Supermoons, begat all sorts of superstitions and beliefs. One of the earliest associations, which still holds sway today, is that of a full moon’s effect on human behavior. In fact, the word lunacy comes from the Latin “luna” and references the Roman moon goddess Luna. Craziness, madness, accidents, and bad luck are all likely to befall humanity during full moons while all those folkloric manifestations of pure evil such as werewolves, vampires and zombies emerge to roam the world. Not surprisingly, all sorts of rituals developed to ward off some of the evil spells and spirits, rituals such as bonfires, candle lightings, singing, dancing, and crystal cleansing (in the moonlight, of course)..

Yet, the Harvest Moon can also present an occasion for good, for making wishes and achieving that perfect balance between light and dark. It is a time for gratitude and abundance, for celebrating the “inner harvest” of what has been cultivated in one’s life, and for synchronizing one’s spirit with the never-ending cycle of nature. For me, the Harvest Moon (yet another sure sign of my favorite season even in Texas) is a time of reflection, a time of letting go of the past and what no longer matters, and a time of reordering and reckoning as I prepare for the winter darkness to come.

This week of the Harvest Moon was also my birthday week, as it often is because my birthday is early in the month of October. In spite of their association with lunacy and craziness, I often find that I feel especially grounded and in synch with nature whenever a full moon is in the sky. The metaphor prompted by a Harvest Moon on or around my birthday is particularly meaningful.

When I was younger, birthdays were big celebrations — huge parties, special excursions, unexpected surprises. I claimed “birthday girl” deference not only for the week, but for the whole month, sometimes even for the whole season! Fall was always my favorite time of year, and since Halloween was also my favorite holiday, the Supermoon around my birthday became the ultimate symbol for the Halloween theme that dominated my days and my decorations. You know the look — the silhouette of a witch on a broom flying in front of the big, orange moon: I even made a front door wreath with that image one year. The Harvest Moon spoke of mystery and excitement, of another year of new adventures and new challenges ahead.

Big birthdays (40, 50, 60) sometimes presented some existential pauses over the years, but I always managed to adjust to the new seasons of my life. (I do remember saying, though, that I didn’t get over turning 30 until I was 35!) While not quite at a “landmark birthday” yet this year, I am getting close to a big one and there is no denying that I am now well into the autumn of my life. I’m slowing down and pulling back and not always able to meet new challenges with enthusiasm. Curiously, though, I also find myself calm and peaceful, truly in synch with the season, as I take stock of my own “inner harvest.” I am proud of what I have sown and reaped, and I am filled with gratitude for the life I’ve had with my little family.

“So, shine on, shine on, harvest moon, For me and my [guys].”

September 23, 2025

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Look to the Light

Fall officially arrives this week, though you might be hard-pressed to know that in South Texas. Yes, some pumpkin patches are popping up and garlands of faux autumn leaves are for sale in Michael’s, but temperatures here this week will still be in the 90’s. If you want to find any of Mother Nature’s colorful display along country roads and hillsides, you’ll have to drive due north and maybe even wait another week or two to do that.

Fall has always been my favorite season, especially when I lived in New England. Every year we would take a day trip out to Eastern Connecticut or upstate New York around my birthday in early October, where fall colors were already exploding. (Local newspapers and television stations actually provided “leaf-peeping guides” for the area.) We’d head to our favorite restaurants for squash soup and our favorite roadside stands for pumpkins and fall produce. Most years, the air was clear, the sun was bright, and you came home feeling good to be alive.

Even though I had never had the full New England experience while growing up in South Texas, fall was still my favorite season even then. In those days, fall meant football games (I was a cheerleader) and homecoming dances and my own birthday parties, and Halloween (my favorite holiday) was always just about to flip up on the calendar. Most of the time, we’d get a “norther” in late September or early October, which would then lower the temperatures and render the air crisp and clear. I could hear the Friday night football cheers and band music at the local stadium from across town as clearly as if I were next door.

I don’t do much cheerleading these days and I no long have big birthday parties, but there are other sure signs of fall that I have become acutely aware of here in San Antonio as the autumnal equinox is upon us. Absent brilliant fall foliage, the biggest sign of the season is the changing light, especially in late afternoon. The Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun in the fall, causing it to appear lower in the sky. With the sun lower on the horizon, light travels through a thicker layer of the atmosphere, which makes the sunlight is more scattered. The scattering of shorter wavelengths means the light reaches us with more red and yellow tones. Everything takes on a sepia tone, if you will.

While still intense, the late-day light is more diffused and not as direct because it is not high overhead. A lower sun angle also creates longer, more distinct shadows. Since autumn air usually contains less moisture and fewer dust particles than in the summer, the sky actually appears brighter and whiter and the air seems especially crisp and clean. With less atmospheric haze, the colors of autumn foliage (if you have any autumn foliage) will naturally appear more vibrant against the clear sky. Now if we could just get one of our famous Texas “northers” to rustle our branches and cool our temperatures down, it might actually start to feel like fall.

I love to look out the windows or sit on the back patio and watch the light filter through the trees as dusk approaches. And I love to watch the squirrels as they scamper and play up and down the tree trunks and across the yard. Their activity is another sure sign of autumn. While we don’t have big oak trees (white oaks or red oaks) in South Texas, we do have live oaks which are indigenous to the area and fiercely protected. Unlike their stately New England cousins that are deciduous and shed their leaves once a year in autumn to carpet the ground in red and gold, live oak trees are semi-evergreens that may only lose their leaves (always green) for a short time in the spring. But live oaks do produce acorns, which are a staple of the squirrel diet, and their arrival prompts a feeding frenzy and frenetic digging as the energetic little critters bury their provisions in caches for the winter. Believe me, you don’t dare walk outside barefoot once the acorns have begun to fall!

A week or two after Labor Day every year I dig out my home decorations and create some autumn color indoors. This year, in keeping with the subtle signs of the season that I am noticing more and more, I decided to forego the traditional oranges and reds and employ more subdued beiges and whites. My dining table is situated in a front window, a window that catches the lengthening rays of light through the trees and highlights distinct shadows from both inside and out. If I walk by the dining room at just the right time in the afternoon, I can’t help but stop and admire the way the light and the shadows cascade over my newly-designed table arrangement (photo above). Seems it changes with the movement of the sun a little every day.

Every time I look to the light, I see something different.

September 13, 2025

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Desert Discoveries

When you think of deserts, no doubt you picture the great exodus scene in The Ten Commandments when Moses (Charlton Heston) leads his people out from Egypt onto the wide sands of the Sahara. Certainly, the Sahara is the quintessential desert, the largest “hot” desert in the world covering 3,600,000 square miles and spanning 12 countries in North Africa. It is massive, powerful in its vast immensity and wise in the scenes and secrets its desert sands have buried over its 4.6 million year history. The first time I set foot on the Sahara in Egypt, I cried.

I love deserts, but not all deserts are like the Sahara, or even like each other. Experts say that there are roughly 30 major desert areas in the world as defined by the amount of precipitation they receive, the temperatures that prevail, and the geographic locations where living conditions create unique biómes and ecosystems. There are “hot” deserts and “cold” deserts, “polar” deserts and “oceanic” deserts; some are barren of any visible life or vegetation, and some, such as the Kalahari in South Africa/Zimbabwe, are actually sandy savannas with trees and bushes and grasses over which wild animals roam. (I’ve been to the Kalahari too, and was profoundly moved by the primordial connections I felt there — but not moved to tears.)

A couple weeks ago, we went to Scottsdale in the Sonoran Desert for a few days. Needed a nice little get-away, and Phoenix is an easy trip from here: 2 hours non-stop and you land when you left (because of the time change). Fabulous resorts, great restaurants, and lots to see and do without crowds in the end-of-summer off season. (Gee, wonder why tourists don’t flock to Arizona in late August???) Yes, it was hot, but we had been running weeks of triple-digit days here in San Antonio, so we were prepared. Really, once the thermometer hits 100°, why quibble about the number of additional degrees. Besides, as they say, “It’s dry heat.”

One third of the earth’s surface is arid or semi-arid. While those conditions are not strictly synonymous with deserts, they do describe most of them based on their low levels of precipitation. We typically picture deserts as hot, dry, sandy landscapes, but they can also be cold and feature various terrains. In a desert ecosystem, it is the extreme lack of usable water rather than temperature that is the defining characteristic. The subtropical Chihuahuan Desert in West Texas is recognized as a desert (the 11th largest), but much of the surrounding western areas of the State have semi-arid climates and desert ecosystems. San Antonio, situated between the semi-arid climate of the west and the humid subtropical climate to the east, is considered a “transitional” subtropical climate, though San Antonio residents continually worry about water shortages and fear that our ultimate “transition” into a bona fide desert is soon to come.

All of this is by way of explaining why we didn’t think twice about going to Scottsdale in the summer. The climate is familiar and we have the hats for it. Moreover, the town sits at the foot of the beautiful McDowell Mountains in the Sonoran Desert, home of the famous Saguaro cactus (its blossom is Arizona’s state flower). And let’s not forget that I love deserts!

Scottsdale didn’t disappoint. At first glance, it’s reminiscent of Palm Springs, which sits in the low desert of the Coachella Valley at the foot of Mt. Jacinto. Scottsdale has a similar look, with its palm trees and upscale shops and galleries, but without that retro-mid-century vibe (though you can visit Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Scottsdale, and you can’t get a better mid-century vibe that that!) Like so many other popular desert cities — Las Vegas, Taos, Santa Fe— Scottsdale is a casual, comfortable destination offering cultural amenities, a lively arts and dining scene, and numerous outdoor activities (besides golf) all set in a stunning desert landscape at the foot of Camelback Mountain. Somehow, even if you get a little over-heated now and then, you still feel good in Scottsdale.

A few days into our visit, we realized that Sedona, that Mecca of mystic renewal, was just a two-hour drive north from Scottsdale, and that — surprise! — it is located in yet another desert. But this is a different kind of desert, a cold winter high desert of the Colorado Plateau with red rock canyons and multi-layered formations created over some 350 million years. People use the word “awesome” all the time to describe the most mundane things, but the landscape of Sedona is so massive, so magnificent, and so truly awesome as to figuratively, and literally, take your breath away (especially given the town’s moderately high 4,350 foot elevation). One of the massive red rocks is pictured above.

Sedona is best known, of course, for its energy vortexes, four of the most powerful in the world. (Some other major vortexes are at the Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, and Ayers Rock.) According to the Sedona Visitors’ Bureau, vortexes are areas where the earth’s energy is thought to be highly concentrated, creating a unique environment that promotes healing, introspection and personal transformation.

Now I won’t claim to have been transformed by the vortexes, but I will say that I felt calm and collected among them, and completely at home among the colorful canyons and sandstone monoliths. I also felt small and insignificant, realizing that the things I worry about are as minuscule as the grains of red sand in the rocks. Given the millions of years of history and the collective wisdom of all the ancient people who have been there before, my life, indeed my very existence, is but a nanosecond in time. Somehow I find that as comforting as it is humbling.

I have been to ten of the 30+ major deserts in the world, and every one of them has left me with some lasting memory or lingering insight about myself, whether there were vortexes or not. The Bible is full of desert stories symbolizing places (periods) of hardship and despair where strength is tested and clarity results. Prophets of old emerged from the desert with messages of hope and redemption; Jesus himself went to the desert to be fortified and prepared for his public ministry. When you step outside of yourself into the vast stillness of a desert, you make some profound discoveries.

Sometimes that discovery is you.

August 15, 2025

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One Thing At A Time, Please!

Remember all the hype about multi-tasking back in the 1990s and early 2000s? I certainly do, because I was wearing multiple hats then: I was a writer, publishing articles and books and doing writing workshops; a college professor teaching undergrad and graduate courses; a public speaker, a local reporter, president of the Connecticut Press Club; and a participating member of other community and church organizations. I was also a wife, a corporate wife, with an active personal and corporate social life, and a mother managing a home and household chores and homework and school events. Oh yes, and did I mention that I was taking care of my elderly mother who lived across the country? Honestly, I wore so many hats that it’s a wonder my head didn’t fall off!

But I wasn’t the only one. Those busy years set the stage for so many of us to adopt the hype over multi-tasking, even though the very idea of multi-tasking had first emerged along with the development of computers back in the 1960s. In fact, the word “multitask” was first published in an IBM paper describing the capabilities of the IBM System/360 in 1965. The term referred to the concurrent execution of multiple programs or tasks on a single CPU (central processing unit); in truth, while the CPU could only really process one instruction at a time, the rapid switching between programs created the illusion of multiple programs actually running simultaneously.

In the context of computers, multi-tasking was all about efficiency, productivity and speed. And so it was inevitable that rapid expansions in technology combined with cultural shifts toward a 24/7 work and service environment would eventually bring the promise of time-saving multi-tasking to human endeavors. The advent of social media along with the rising influence of celebrity culture created a “more is better” climate of conspicuous consumption that led to high expectations even among those of us who weren’t necessarily aiming to be “rich and famous.” But a booming economy celebrated wealth, materialism, and images of success just as we women were flooding into the workplace driven by a new determination to “have it all.”

Peggy Lee’s song I’m a Woman, became the battle cry for a new generation.. The empowering message for women was that they could have both a successful career and a satisfying personal life if they just figured out the work/life balance. And the secret to that was … you guessed it … multi-tasking. By the late 1990s, “multi-tasking” was even touted as a desirable skill on job resumes for both women and men, although women had a distinct advantage having already had a lifetime of practice in the home. Who among us hasn’t talked on the phone while cooking on the stove while setting out dinner dishes while listening for the washing machine to cycle off?

Human multi-tasking is the concept that we can spread our attention over more than one task or activity at the same time, such as speaking on the phone while driving (or texting a message or scrolling for directions or searching in Spotify), along with eating a donut and drinking coffee. And yes, accidents happen for the same reason as that pot on the stove boils over while you’re on the phone: lack of focused attention. Human beings are not computers; harried homemakers and overworked employees have known that all along, even as they doggedly continue to try to prove themselves superhuman.

Mountains of research have shown that multi-tasking is mentally and physically stressful for almost everyone. Some (few) people may perform one or two tasks well and be able to shift rapidly between those tasks, but even they overestimate their ability to get more done. Only when tasks become rote and automatic can you effectively perform them without thinking, and then people become prone to careless errors. And when errors increase, it takes far longer to correct them than it would to have performed the tasks thoughtfully and sequentially in the first place.

Yet, old habits are hard to break. While we may not wear as many hats and have the same competing personal and professional demands as we age, we can still become overwhelmed by life’s daily choices and struggle against time restraints even when retired. There is always something or someone else demanding our attention, and human beings seem innately compelled to be driven by to-do lists. The myth of the mighty Martha Stewart notwithstanding, we simply cannot do it all, have it all, and be it all to everybody all the time regardless of how many time management tricks we try to employ. Multi-tasking is a ruse.

Here’s the thing: life is finite and there are only so many hours in a day, so many days in a week and — roughly 4,000 weeks in a lifetime if you are lucky enough to live to be 80. According to British writer Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, s2021), “…restoring our capacity to live sequentially — that is, focusing on one thing after another, in turn, and enduring the confrontation with our human limitations that this inherently entails — may be among the most crucial skills for thriving in the uncertain, crisis-prone future we all face.” Amen to that!

I have, of late, been on a quest to simplify my life by eliminating the busyness of my own to-do lists and building safeguards against the interruptions that come my way. I am sooo tired of looking for my glasses because I set them down somewhere silly while distracted, sooo tired of forgetting what I was going to do next because I got derailed by a different request, and sooo tired of being tired because of sleepless nights worrying about what I didn’t get done! So I have begun to consciously and carefully prioritize everything everyday in order to devote my attention to only one thing at a time. It isn’t easy though, because doing only onething at a time means giving yourself permission NOT to care equally, if at all, about other issues and demands in your life. It means learning how to set limits and say NO without guilt or apology.

I have been cleaning up and clearing out at home for a couple years now, ridding myself of all the things that I used to need for all those roles that I now no longer have: teacher/professor, hostess, club woman, world traveler, reporter, daughter. Since I’m wearing fewer hats these days, I feel somehow encumbered by lots of “stuff,” including clothes and housewares and books, linens and holiday decorations and furniture, all the things I don’t need. While I still love to cook, I now plan lighter weekday meals that involve less prep and less time, and while I am still devoted to my fabric art, I no longer chase every juried show or attend every available exhibition.

Perhaps my biggest effort has been to severely limit interruptions and distractions by monitoring social media, including listening to the news, searching the internet, and even engaging in idle conversations. With few exceptions, I respond to e-mails or texts at a pre-set time rather than whenever they come in; likewise, I rarely, if ever, drop what I’m doing to answer the phone.

The good news is that since I’ve been on this quest to sequence and simplify, I feel calmer and more focused and my fears of early Alzheimer’s have all but disappeared. But I have to admit that I can’t claim complete victory over my ambient anxiety yet, since it has taken me all week to get this one post written due to an inability to sustain a block of time to work on it.

One project, one thing at a time. Hats off to those of you who can manage it!

July 25, 2025

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When I Am Old

(Photo above of Leah Chase, philanthropist, chef and owner of the famous Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans, joyfully cooking at age 95.)

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

Thus begins a well-known poem named “Warning” (often titled with the opening line) by English poet Jenny Joseph (1932-2018). It was written when Joseph was just 28 years old, and has often been reprinted and included in anthologies by and about women. Ostensibly, its specific meaning is about a woman’s desire to shed society’s expectations and embrace a carefree life as she gets older, but the larger theme of women at any age rebelling against social conventions and pursuing their rights to individual self-expression has been an on-going issue for women over the decades.

I’ve been thinking a lot about age lately as our son approaches a “landmark” birthday, as the grim reaper claims more and more of my life-long friends and family members, as my husband and I wear ourselves out trying to manage and maintain our large home and garden, and as my priorities shift regarding how I want to spend my time. Am I getting old? When did it happen? How would I know?

Old age isn’t what it used to be. Back in the early 20th century, people who were 50 or 60 considered themselves old, and they were old, probably because they had worked hard at labor-intensive jobs and enjoyed few of the comforts and conveniences that we now take for granted. But with today’s emphasis on health and fitness, people are generally more active and in better physical shape than they used to be. And then there are the cosmetic enhancements and nips-and-tucks of eternal youth so readily available. I don’t know about you, but I find it very difficult to assess someone else’s age by appearance alone; heck, sometimes when I look in the mirror I find it difficult to asses my own!

In spite of all those retirees who are out sky diving or trekking as intrepid tourists through ancient ruins, the onset of older age has generally been marked by retirement age. Demographers call this category of 65-74 the “young old.” The “middle old” designation is 75-84, and then the “old old” (or over-the-hill crowd) is anyone beyond 85. But chronological age alone is not the only classifier that matters; today, 24% of Americans live to be 90 or older — 30% of women because we live longer. Take a look at 92 year old Joan Collins, who is 32 years older than her husband, and tell me if she is “over the hill!”

Beyond the birthdays, demographers point to functional age as a more realistic indication of how old a person really is. Qualities such as fitness, vitality, cognition, and overall health affect not only the lifestyle one can continue to enjoy, but also how one feels about that life. We have all known people who are “old” in attitude and behavior way before their time, people who give up, opt out and drown themselves in a pool of pity over whatever ailments and limitations befall them; hopefully, though, we have also known those who continue to live life with joyful exuberance in spite of the their physical limitations.

I am not a doctor or a psychologist, but having spent much of my life around very old people (90+) —my mother, my mother-in-law, my grandmother, my aunts, and even some friends —I have arrived at some key attitudes and behaviors that I believe guard against becoming truly “old before your time.” While I have a healthy suspicion of the whole “golden years” myth and the notion of “aging gracefully,” I do believe that we can help ourselves navigate the inevitability of age in a way that makes it less lonely and foreboding. So here’s what I’m trying to do:

Keep moving: I may not walk as far or work out as long as I used to, but I try to adhere to an exercise regimen every day. Walking (not running or jogging) just 30 minutes a day or so is the simplest and most beneficial daily routine anyone can do. I also do the recumbent bike every day (for my knees) and lift weights and/or do yoga on other days. Low-intensity, but regular exercise does more than just work out the kinks, it keeps you out of that Barcalounger.

Learn something new every day: Whether it’s the foods I eat or the places I visit or the books I read, I try to push out of my comfort zone and try something different now and then. Whatever seems new or strange or confusing, I research for a better understanding. On-line courses and You Tube videos offer a world of easy-to-access information and instruction to keep me growing.

Stay current: I always knew that computers and digital technology would be a lifeline for Boomers as we aged, and I was fortunate to be in professions (writing, publishing, education) that forced computer literacy early on. I had my first home desktop, an AT&T System 2, in 1983, because even then, newspaper and magazine articles were submitted on line through dial-up, not on paper through the mail. The continuing challenge, of course, is staying current by upgrading systems and integrating all devices to remain in the conversation and function in a world that is increasingly paperless and robotic. Covid-19 underscored the incredible benefits the digital age has to offer in services and communication for everyone, not just the elderly or home-bound. E-mail, smart phones, social media, on-line learning, banking, investing, shopping including groceries, telehealth, video streaming and Zoom meetings for clubs and groups — absolutely everything can be managed from home, including personal relationships.

Live in the present: It isn’t always easy, particularly when your present isn’t so great, but except for being grateful for those good times and happy memories, I don’t want to waste my time by dwelling on what once was. After all, the only reality we have is right now; the past is over and the future hasn’t happened yet.

Letting go: I’m not sentimental and except for my cars, I don’t tend to get very attached to things, but still…letting go as we age, both emotionally and physically, becomes harder. Old habits, useless beliefs, hurts and disappointments along with the people who precipitated them, all weigh us down and keep us mired in the past; likewise, a house full of stuff, maybe even the house itself, ends up becoming a chore for us and/or a burden for others after we’re gone. I am determined to lighten this load while I can.

To help with that, I offer my brother-in-law’s very effective five-step guide for downsizing:

1. Do I need it? If the answer is no … 2. Do I want it? If the answer is no … 3. Would the kids want it? The answer is always no… 4. Do I think I could sell it? If no … 5. Could I donate it? If the answer to this one is no, then it gets kicked to the curb. This checklist works well, if for no other reason than by the time you ask all these questions about every tchotchke you’ve accumulated, you’ve grown so tired of the clutter that you just get rid of it all!

Don’t complain: No use complaining about anything — about the weather, politics, other people, all the things that you cannot change. Most of all, I do not complain about my physical aches and pains except to a doctor. Talking about problems and ailments only reinforces them, and nobody needs to hear the litany of our afflictions.

Keeping up appearances: A good haircut, a manicure, moisturizing skin care, personal hygiene, appropriate clothing, and even a little make-up (with a light touch and fresh cosmetics, not ones you’ve had forever) can do wonders to lift my spirit when I look in the mirror.

Having a sense of humor: My humor has always been on the dark side, tinged with sarcasm and satire. These days, the worse the news, the more I am inclined to laugh, especially at myself. Sometimes that’s all you can do to relieve the absurdity and hopelessness of a situation.

Jenny Joseph’s poem ends with this short stanza:

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Frankly, I’ve been “wearing purple” and shocking people most of my life, so I don’t think I need more practice. Besides, nothing can prepare us for the shock of getting old.

July 15, 2025

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Flooding Back

It was early September of 1961. I was just beginning my freshman year of high school, excited about being an upperclassman, and eager to pursue the academic classes and special extracurriculars that would pave my way to college and beyond. Already I had my sights set on editing the school newspaper and maybe even trying out for cheerleader for next year. But already my enthusiasm was being tempered: a hurricane was coming and everything, including school and work and Friday-night football, was shutting down.

As early as September 1, the weather service was aware of a tropical “disturbance” tracking westward across the Caribbean Sea. Low-level wind circulations continued to develop and then shifted west a couple days later. On September 4, when the depression was situated about 250 miles east-southeast of Nicaragua, the Weather Bureau Office in Miami issued its first bulletin. The depression strengthened into a tropical storm on September 5 and was named Carla. The very next day, September 6, observations obtained by reconnaissance aircraft compelled the Weather Bureau to issue another bulletin indicating that Carla had reached hurricane intensity. In light of her new-found strength, Carla promptly curved northward in the Caribbean and intensified into a Category 2 hurricane.

And this is how I found myself at home on that Thursday afternoon, September 7, with school cancelled for the next day and maybe for days into the next week, depending on the path Carla would decide to take. Interesting that even in 1961, without any sirens much less the kind of sophisticated tracking equipment we have today, people in South Texas were always alert during hurricane season (June through November), especially so when there was a growing storm headed toward the Gulf. Preparations born of past experience started early. In Victoria where I lived, we were just 20 miles inland from some of the small coastal towns of Port Lavaca and Indianola, and not that much farther from the larger ones like Corpus Christi.

Carla crossed the Yucatán Channel on Friday, September 8, entered the Gulf of Mexico and become a Category 3 storm. By then, many of us were already plotting her position at home on our hurricane tracking maps given out around town every season. By then, community angst was visible: cars queued up at gas stations, harried shoppers mobbed grocery stores, and scores of the faithful lined up outside church doors. By then, Mother and I had filled the bathtub with water (no bottled waters then), gathered candles and kerosene lanterns, assembled canned goods on the kitchen table, and collected old towels to sop up water coming in through the porches’ doors. And by then, squalls of wind and rain were already approaching. My grandmother, who was both religious and superstitious, was pacing the floor, praying out loud, and exclaiming with certainty that we were all going to blow away.

“Never mind, Mom,” my Mother told me. “She’s always been hysterical in bad weather. This old house has weathered many a storm. We’ll be fine.”

But a lot of people didn’t share that confidence. As Carla entered the Gulf of Mexico and headed toward the South Texas coastline on Saturday, September 9, over a half-million residents in low-lying areas were encouraged to leave. Most did, and that became the largest mass evacuation ever in Texas up to that date. Carla kept coming straight at us, and on September 10, she was upgraded to a Category 4. Moving into the northwestern Gulf on Monday, September 11, she was believed to have strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 175 mph (though a reanalysis of data in 2018 concluded that she did not reach a Cat 5 intensity).

But let’s not quibble: all I know is that Carla made landfall at Matagorda Island just a few miles south of Victoria on Monday, September 11. Officially, she was a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 145 mph. It was my first major hurricane and it was outrageous: hours of howling, house-shaking winds, sheets of torrential rains delivered with thunderous applause as the northern-most eyewall approached.

And then, all of a sudden, a stunning quiet. Clouds lifted, rain stopped, sunshine peeked through; we were in the eye.

Those who didn’t know any better might have thought the whole disaster was over, but they would have been wrong. I don’t remember how long the lull of the eye lasted in Carla; it can range anywhere from a half hour or so to several hours, depending on the size of the storm and where you are in relation to the outer eyewall. But once the eye passes, the worst is yet to come: the winds on the other side of the eyewall rotate and blow in the opposite direction, bringing with them all the accumulated debris and the heaviest rains.

The rain continued to fall steadily, but tapered off by the next day. Carla was downgraded to a Category 2 on September 12 after passing over Port Lavaca, and then down to a Cat 1 as it moved inland. As she headed due north into Oklahoma, she became simply a tropical cyclone. Hurricanes are generally a long time in coming, but they dissipate quickly. Carla became the largest hurricane (in terms of area) then on record in Texas. The severe damage along the Coast due to prolonged winds, high tides, and flooding from torrential rains resulted in $326 million worth of damage, $3.4 billion in today’s monetary value. Incredibly, though, only 46 people lost their lives, a miracle attributed to early warnings, massive evacuations, and sensible preparations by coastal residents. Experience counts in hurricanes.

However, the effects of Carla lingered. Resulting flood waters rose in the aftermath because of the sea surge and heavy rains pounding previously dry earth. The highest storm surge reached about 22 feet above sea level at Port Lavaca, and the waters spread inland for miles. As well as I can remember, we had a couple feet of flooding around our house, maybe more. I had sat on our screened back porch during the waning hours of the storm watching things fly by in the wind, things like sheds and cars; days later, I sat on the porch and watched the remnants of what was left float by in the flood water: lumber, furniture, tools, toys, and trees.

I sat out during the daylight, of course, because we had no electricity for several days, no phone lines, and no potable water except that which we had stored in advance. I don’t remember exactly how many days we were at home or how long it took for things to get back to normal, but it seemed a long time to me since I was anxious to get back to school. But I can still see those bent fences looking like strainers for the debris and the uprooted trees that blocked the streets for a very long time. (Similar remnants of Hurricane Harvey are still around in Victoria now eight years later).

The constant news coverage of the recent flooding of the Guadalupe River up in the Hill Country has caused all my own memories of major storms to come flooding back, some of the worst prompting moments of PTSD. Victoria, you see, is also on the Guadalupe River, and so all of my past experiences, whether begun with hurricanes from the south or converging rivers from the north, somehow end up with the Guadalupe. Coincidentally, I recently found a photo of myself at 5 years old standing on the edge of our front porch and pointing down to roughly three feet of water in the flood of 1951 caused by Tropical Storm Dog (yes, “Dog”). It made landfall in August of that year and subsequently caused the Guadalupe to rise and flood almost all of Victoria for days..

I have been both amused at the ignorance and irritated by the statements of politicians and others attempting to deflect blame over what happened — or what didn’t happen —in Kerrville. “Nobody could have seen this coming,” some said. “Who’s to blame is the word choice of losers,” accused the Governor. “Nothing like this has happened for 200 years,” the President proclaimed. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. They don’t call that area of the Hill Country “Flash Flood Alley” for nothing. In my lifetime, I have directly experienced the two disasters recounted above, plus the River Flood of 1998 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and I’m not 200 years old, though I may feel like it sometimes. [Scroll back to see blog posts about those on this site: “Come Hell or High Water,” 9/4/2017 and “Part II: The Debris,” 9/17/2017.]

People who live in disaster-prone areas, even if not actually in a designated flood plain, are aware of the risks, or should be. I have always longed for a home right on the Gulf, but Mother Nature has no obligation to accommodate my dreams. Better to rent a condo for a while in late summer, but even then …

As all these memories come flooding back to me, the one thing I appreciate, besides my survival, is the knowledge gained through experience. Who knows? I might need it again sometime.

June 27, 2025

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By the Board with Viola

When I was a little kid, I spent a lot of time on our back porch. Our house, built by my grandfather in the late 1920s, was an early Craftsman style, high up on piers with five very large rooms inside, many tall, double-hung windows, and wide French doors separating the living room and the dining room. There was a huge wrap-around front porch with a hanging swing and a screened-in L-shaped back porch from which you could access the back yard. Supposedly, our house had been the first private residence in Victoria to have both an indoor bathroom and electric lights, and I’m told people came from all over just to see such modern innovations when my grandparents first moved in.

Of course, what it did NOT have was air-conditioning, and it was well into the 20th century after I had left for college before my mother finally installed some window units. Yes, we had fans and we could open those tall, double-hung windows to let the breezes blow through (when there were breezes), but South Texas is hot. In my memory, it seems almost my entire childhood was in the summer, which is why I spent most of my time on one of the porches.

We lived in this house with my grandmother who was at home with me while my mother, a young widow, went to work. She was only about 60 when I was born, but she seemed already old with all sorts of ailments as far back as I can remember. She cooked some, made chili or mustard greens or malfouf, and she talked on the phone a lot, but mostly she complained of the heat and sat in the kitchen or on the front porch fanning herself and watching the world go by. Everyone knew “Miss Annie,” since she had lived in this same house since she was a young married woman, and she knew who to call for whatever needed to be done.

And most things got done on the back porch. When I was really little, we still had an “ice box” and a man with giant tongs would come regularly to put a giant ice cube inside it. Service men — plumbers, electricians, repairmen, exterminators, yardmen (yes, they were always men) — would come to the back of the house first to check with my grandmother about what was to be done. Many of our own everyday chores also took place on the back porch: that was where we peeled pecans (from a tree in our front yard), where we shucked corn (bought from one of the local farmers who sold from his truck), where we made homemade ice cream (the old-fashioned way with rock salt), where we did the laundry (in a rattling, “walking” washing machine), and where Viola did the ironing.

As soon as the screen door slammed and I heard her lilting voice lamenting the heat, I knew “Aunt Viola” had arrived and I’d come running. She wasn’t really my aunt, of course, but children back then were not supposed to call adults by their first names, so women friends were addressed as “Aunt” first name or “Ms” first name. Viola might as well have been a relative, though, since she had such a long history with three generations of women in my family. Long since retired by the time I came along, Viola was still a regular part of our lives and made herself available to help out when needed, when one of us was sick, for example, or with chores that my mother couldn’t get to. One of them was ironing, and we had a lot of ironing because, in those days, we wore nothing but natural cotton and linen fabrics. Even the bedsheets were all cotton.

For me, it was a delight when Aunt Viola came to iron. After depositing her purse and in the kitchen and exchanging small talk with my grandmother, she would head out to the porch, gather up the laundry basket, and start sprinkling the clothes and rolling them up like jelly rolls to absorb the moisture. (We had an electric iron by then, a GE if I remember correctly, but one without a spray steamer.) Viola had a whole system, a set of rituals if you will, to her ironing and she was deservedly proud of her crisp and wrinkle-free results.

I, meanwhile, would settle myself in the doorway on a step down from the kitchen to watch her. I brought my dolls or my books or my drawing paper and Aunt Viola always engaged me with questions about what I was doing. “What you got there, Missy?” she’d ask, and then she’d listen as I went on and on about the stories I had made up for my dolls or the pictures I had drawn in my tablet. She never failed to be anything but interested and encouraging. “I do believe, you are one smart lit’l girl,” she’d say smiling and nodding her head. “You sure do have one smart granddaughter, Miss Annie,” she’d then shout up to my grandmother who was usually sitting at the kitchen table.

As I got older, the conversations with Aunt Viola got more interesting. She told me stories about my grandparents, how the family got their first car and Viola’s husband drove them everywhere (and fixed the car when it regularly broke down). She talked about my mother when she was a little girl, how her older brother was always trying to drag her into mischief and how she always had sense enough to say no. “Your mama was a smart little girl too, just like you,” Viola would tell me.

Sometimes she’d just hum softly while she was ironing, moving back and forth with a mesmerizing rhythm, and I would just sit still and listen. Naturally, she was the one who eventually taught me how to iron, how to begin with the collar and cuffs on a shirt and finish with the back yoke, or how to fold a pair of pants or shorts so as to iron the front creases sharply down the center. Once done, Viola would carefully put each garment on a wire hanger, hold it up for inspection, and then say, “See there? If you’re gonna’ do it, do it right.” Later on, when I was a teen and Viola was no longer able, the ironing fell to me. I think I made her proud.

My mother, my grandmother, Aunt Viola — even the house I grew up in — are all gone now, but I think of those afternoons on the back porch every time I’m at the ironing board myself, which is often. I don’t have a back porch these days, but I do have an ironing board permanently set up in my sewing room, (because you can’t sew without an iron at the ready). And since I have always preferred natural fabrics and we now live in South Texas where every season is summer, we wear cottons and linens all year long. Most of all, I actually like to iron. For me, it’s a domestic meditation. In my mind’s ear, I can hear the humming and I find that soothing, as soothing as I did when I was a child and actually sat by the board with Viola.