Visual subtlety is lost on us these days, as we greet and see strangers while wearing masks. I’ve commented while in grocery stores to people ahead of me, “Maybe you can’t tell that I’m kidding.” I’ve also had those same strangers tell me, “I can see that you are smiling seeing just your eyes.” What […]

A man once stopped to talk with me. I had become frozen with fear, five stories up, trembling with the weight of the load of lumber I had hoisted on my right shoulder, balanced on an 8-inch I-beam on which I found myself, unable to move forward and becoming overwhelmed by the weight of the […]

It felt like going back in time to visit my friend in Bowdoinham from my downtown Freeport home. Freeport, with its shops and shoppers, was a bustling metropolis compared to drowsy Bowdoinham. My teaching partner in American studies at Freeport High School had invited me to dinner on a Friday night in early May. I […]

It took months for spring to finally make a good impression on me. Sixty-four days after the vernal equinox, while the Earth journeys toward summer solstice, I journey to the nearby Foothills Land Conservancy. I drove its perimeter of fields. And, as the sun beams its full self onto this patch of pasture slathered with […]

How many times in my life have I been wrong about a first impression? Too many times to count. First impressions are often visual. I might see something or someone and immediately form an opinion. But who am I to judge anyone or anything? Now I am amused when I discover that my first impression […]

“You can go, but there has to be a chaperone.” Words spoken by my mother, when I asked to go to the beach with my high school sorority sisters. Going into my senior year, I was naive and sheltered, but ready for adventure. And boy, did I get it. We girls were invited to a […]