momlinch:

Magic, pure and simple.

For me, one of the gifts of growing older is the understanding that my life is blessed with moments of magic. My pace has slowed and I’m no longer terribly rushed or distracted so that cornball stuff about stopping to smell the roses has new meaning, although I still…

Fortunately, there still are hungry journalists out there who dog stories, pound pavement, call every number their sources have and relentlessly work a story from every angle they can. But the following is fun.

moorehn:

One of the biggest disappointments in the development of professional newsrooms over the past 30 years - that is, as journalists morphed from drunken outsiders to clean-cut Woodward and Bernstein Ivy-League careerists - is how increasingly standard “news” writing consists of bloodless prose,…

I’ve been thinking all day about this thoughtful, eloquent eulogy by Mona Simpson for her brother. There is so much to consider, especially as we all will die at some point. Great heart and great grace are shared here.

These lines, at the end, struck deep:

We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I suppose it’s not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve’s death was unexpected for us.

What I learned from my brother’s death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died.

Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us.

He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, “Wait. I’m coming. I’m in a taxi to the airport. I’ll be there.”

“I’m telling you now because I’m afraid you won’t make it on time, honey.”

When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who’d lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze.

Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple.

Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us.

His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.

This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.

Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night.

He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again.

This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.

He seemed to be climbing.

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

shannonpareil:

tea party vs occupy wall street, via @NPR

npr:

happy (birth)

day:e.e. cummings

A bit of perspective regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement.

To know what Ernest Hemingway was really like, don’t read biographies of him. Read his letters. That’s the advice of Patrick Hemingway, the author’s surviving son. Soon readers will be able to take that advice, thanks to an ambitious publishing project, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway. The first volume, covering the years 1907 to 1922, comes out this week from Cambridge University Press.

The younger Hemingway has given his blessing to the project, which seeks to collect and publish as many of the writer’s surviving letters as it can find. An editorial team led by Sandra Spanier, a professor of English at Pennsylvania State University at University Park, has spent a decade scouring the world for Hemingway correspondence. She and Robert W. Trogdon, a professor of English at Kent State University, edited the first volume. The work is expected to run to at least 16 volumes, maybe more, and to take 20 years to complete.

I love reading cookbooks and good food blogs, especially in autumn and winter. One of my new favorites is domenica cooks, by Domenica Marchetti. Today’s entry is a lentil soup, but the posting offers an extra, a link to ragu recipes. I’ve already made a shopping list of the lentil soup ingredients. Now we just need a bit of cool weather. The past several days have been warm and humid, as though summer is not ready to let go, even though the trees are turning colors and geese V past at dawn and dusk.

It’s that time of year. People are plunking pumpkins on front porches, in windows, on doorsteps. Stores feature pumpkins spilling out of baskets and bins. Big pumpkins, tiny pumpkins. For those inclined to carve their pumpkins and wondering what to do beyond a smiley face with bad teeth, Colonial Williamsburg has ideas for you. The CW site has free pumpkin carving patterns ranging from a smiling pumpkin in a tri-corner hat to a classy black cat in front of Bruton Parish. Easy patterns. Tough ones. Worth checking out.

Gideon loves walking a trail not far from our house. Greensprings is tucked behind a high school, but includes a couple of looped trails through trees and over bridges spanning ponds. Lots of wildlife and foliage. In fall, the trails are carpeted. We’re just starting to see the leaves underfoot. He doesn’t really have “alien” green eyes. Instead, he has warm brown eyes and a kind face. Children love him.

I love reading cookbooks and food blogs almost as much as I love cooking. Food 52 is one of my favorites. Today felt very “early autumn” with a light breeze and a bit of warmth, but I loved reading about greens with penne pasta. Also loved the blintzes with lemon. I’ve tried several recipes from this blog and all worked. Best, I could play with them. Worth checking out.