Commentaries

In August, the nightmares start. It's not that I don't love my job. I do. But still, like every teacher I know, I experience excitement, worry and even a little dread as the first day of school approaches. 

Looking back at the iconic photos of Woodstock, people seem amazed how skinny everyone was. 

Why is that? Is it today’s fast food? Portion size? Big Sugar?

Among the casualties of modern era — which at present include the rotary dial telephone, black and white television and good grammar — another cherished part of my childhood stands poised on the edge of extinction: the snow day.

A bully was stalking the nation’s capital. Insulting people, intimidating Congress. Someone should stand up for American values, congressmen said behind the scenes. Someone from the bully’s own party.

Each Sunday, The New York Times Book Review asks an author what three writers she would like to invite for dinner. And each Sunday I wonder: Does it have to be dinner? Can’t it be a walk instead?

Sometimes it’s the smallest details that reveal the most. Emily Dickinson knew that. More than many other poets, she distilled, zeroed in and elevated the minute. 

This coming Christmas will be my third without my father, and I still miss him terribly. But it was during the first Christmas season without him, while I was shopping in one of my favorite bookshops — fantasizing about which book to give to which person — that I found myself feeling surprisingly giddy. I thought, “Oh good! Dad's gone!”

When I get the urge to watch the PBS home renovation series, “This Old House,” I don't bother to turn on the TV. I just look out my window.

I’m sure I’m not the only home baker to have fallen in love with Truman Capote’s reminiscence, “A Christmas Memory.” 

My adult daughter learned the identity of her father before I did, myself.

Tears flooded my pillow on the eve of my fifth birthday.

This fall marks the 100th anniversary of the infamous Black Sox scandal, where eight players from the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to deliberately lose the World Series.  

The truth is that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Bhutanese regime, in its quest to become the happiest kingdom on the earth, adopted a "One Nation, One People" policy. 

September 11 was my late mother's birthday. When I called her that morning, I worried about whether to wish her a happy birthday or tell her about the towers. 

A couple weeks ago, I had a plumbing issue. My garbage disposal came to a grinding halt, and none of the usual tricks to get it going again were working. 

Two years ago, I saw 10 bears, but after breaking my leg last year, I didn’t get out much, and saw only two. 

Each time, it brought my legs and breathing to an abrupt halt. 

When I heard the news of Justice John Paul Stevens’s death, I'd just finished teaching a summer course on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

This commentary will last a total of two and a half minutes. That is, I have 425 words to make my point. It isn’t much.

There's a woman I've worked with who never stops moving. She might visit the program office in the morning for a few minutes. Then she’s out the door, two or three shopping bags full of belongings on her arm.

We need to sign up for summer camp! I forgot to send that permission slip! Increasing drought means global unrest and potential war! We're out of laundry detergent!

Walking in a forest on a gusty day, I see lots of dead wood — branches snapping off trees, trees snapping in two — and I think of how productive these trees are. 

Improbably, one of the triggers that brings my father to mind is herring. 

I was called one morning to substitute for a Latin teacher. I never studied Latin, so I was grateful she left me thorough lesson plans for the day. 

Most of us know it’s good to talk about our feelings. 

I first met Jerrie Cobb two decades ago at a space shuttle launch. Tall, lanky, unassuming, a person of few words — Jerrie was all but invisible to people intent on watching the countdown clock.

Seventy-five years ago, on May 1, 1944, a unique group of American soldiers boarded transports at Hampton Roads, Virginia.  

When I first began camping, it seemed like so much work. 

Every night, I cuddle with my preschooler and I tell him he’s my prince. Not just my prince — “Mera shehaazda.”

A recent survey conducted by Smith College found that only a meager 3 percent of students identify as “conservative.” From over 1,000 respondents, only two identified as “very conservative.”

Floating in a wooden boat soothes the soul.