When I was a child, I always thought of hills & mountains as barriers that hindered my family’s annual drive from the valley to the coast: They were obstacles to be gotten over – or more accurately, around – before we could begin our seaside...
Last month some friends & I went to the Chicago Flower & Garden Show, an annual event strategically timed to free me from the iron grip of Seasonal Affective Disorder & to offer me a welcome respite from the sight of my winter-weary backyard where last...
Tom & I are currently staying in the area where I grew up & on our first night here, a freight train went through town. We had arrived late; it was almost midnight before I was ready to tumble into bed. For me, travel days are always...
One of the great joys of our recent trip to Europe was seeing the 16th & 17th C. Dutch art that has thrilled my soul since adolescence. Standing a few, trifling feet away from the very paintings that I had once pored over on the pages of books was,...
At the end of September, Tom & I drove to Les Collettes, the estate where Pierre-Auguste Renoir lived for the last dozen or so years of his life. A 3-hour drive from our rented apartment in Arles, it is located up a narrow, winding road in the town of...
The other evening – specifically, a gentle June evening blissfully free of wind & high humidity – Tom & I sat out on our patio, gazing at the sky & enjoying what the French call l’heure bleue, “the blue hour.” If you’ve ever wondered, this...
