“What I do remember, and perhaps few others are alive to share these memories now, is that, before the tourists, came the painters. Greece, and the Cyclades in particular, with their ethereal, stunning…

“He was old when last I saw him. He’d quit fighting the mirror. His hair was clipped short, unlike the Cinnabon concoction of the 70s. No more that hopeful objet trouvé swirling over…

“Affliction is a well-visited destination, but one on no one’s published itinerary. Our visas are universally stamped (in invisible ink) at birth (and, often, before birth) in our mutable flesh. But, until we…

“On the first of January, though, these dreams abruptly ceased after Dean and I drove north, out of Florida, through Georgia, and on up into the Piedmont of South Carolina. Drove home, in…

“I hasten to declare that I have been married to my present spouse only since 2002, though I knew I loved him the moment I saw him on 3 October 1999 and, in…

“I know I made some small talk then, but the rest is a blur: the pot-bellied stove and the shelves (and shelves and shelves) of pickles and preserves, put up by Mama Boleman…

“Reader, pause here. What followed was, and remains, an utterly unique experience in my life. This was no shop girl waving strips of scented blotting paper, hawking mass-produced aromas in a mall. This…

“Mademoiselle—I never knew her last name—was a Romanian refugee, a member of the royal family and, we were told, a princess. There were many royals in Romania until the last king, Michael, was…

“Throughout the land, Democrats and Independents alike await (like Godot) the reappearance of Special Counsel Robert Swan ‘Bob’ Mueller III, who, we pray (to no one in particular) will come forth, sooner rather…

“I have asked, I have begged, all of you to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s book so that at least we will be on the same page. We are on the same planet and if…