How to win friends, influence Europeans and learn German (or French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian…)

When I  invest in a relationship with a person who speaks a different language, I’m forced to communicate and motivated to learn that language better. It works. Combine the pen-pal concept with collaborative learning methodology and call it e-tandem. You …

How to Learn a Foreign Language: I became a Spanish orphan

I’ve been thinking about how we become the people we are. Becoming is a theme I like to explore… I wrote a memoir about becoming a writer. And I’m always becoming something new. These days I’m working on becoming someone …

How to get through the first Mother’s Day without her, in 10 steps

Let your lonely subconscious mind protect you from dwelling on your loss. You’ll forget what’s coming. And when all the merchants try to make you remember, you’ll naturally close your eyes, cover your ears and hum a rousing Sousa march, …

Suppose aliens are monitoring our facebook posts

Here is an actual condensed conversation from my facebook wall, minus last names and photos which I’ve removed from this post to protect Dennis’s and Beena’s privacy.  Dennis: I am about to blow your mind. In television and film, and possibly …

Clammin’ for Chowdah in Rhode Island

Wear your Wellies or old shoes, because it’s messy. It’s like making mud pies, with the benefit that you get to wear adult-y pride while you’re mucking around, because  you’re about the adult-y business of actually feeding the family. It’s like …

My Diamond Jubilee!

This is my 75th, my diamond, my brilliant, sparkling, exquisitely-valuable blog post! I’ve been blogging for a year now. Thanks for coming to my Jubilee Celebration. I’m still in shock over the tragedy in neighboring Boston, and I can barely …

After Grief, We Might Make Something

After the terrorist attacks of September 9, 2011, the citizens of Providence responded by making art. The process of creative expression served to offer children, teens and adults a way to express feelings and seek healing, Thousands of these tiles …

Boston

Reblogged from Suzanne's Mom's Blog:

I love this poem.

For me, the poet is saying that darkness can never completely win; focus on what it can't touch.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World
Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.

Read more… 104 more words

When emotion becomes so inexpressible that I can't put it into words, and yet I feel compelled to put it into words (whether the emotion is bitter bereavement, desolation, or the sweet comfort of love/solidarity), poetry is the answer. Music, which is like poetry's sibling, both coming from the same parents of rhythm and sound, is the other answer. Today has been a day in which words failed me. Thank you, to Suzanne's Mom for posting this poem, for the reminder that there exists a "gentle light that strays and vanishes / and returns."

Easter Morning

This painting (by Ken) and this poem (by me) were inspired by an Easter sunrise. I’ve been told that repeating the same ritual twice makes it a tradition. Today we visited Conimicut Point in Rhode Island, making it our new …

A Formal Change, inspired by Emily Dickinson

After great pain a formal feeling comes– (to read Emily Dickinson’s entire poem, click here). The day before my birthday in January, we buried my grandmother. On that same day, January 30th, my granddaughter was born. For more than fifty …