Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Oh, how my own father and I struggled to say good-bye. I sat at his bedside throughout his last night, holding his hand, stroking his head, administering morphine under his tongue. Knowing his death was imminent, my brother Rod had chosen to stay the night and was asleep in an upstairs bedroom. I have sat […]

“At the beginning of ‘the curriculum that will be COVID,’ I read whatever I could find regarding the influenza pandemic of 1918, an experience that has all but vanished from contemporary memory with the deaths of the last of us who were affected by it. I wanted to educate myself about how viruses jump from […]

“When you called to tell me not to worry. To stay home, wear a mask, wash my hands, but not worry. I listened, because I knew that your words meant more than all the barking idiots at White House podiums. Because I knew that your level-headed efficiency in dealing with the worst human maladies was […]

“We need a designated verb tense for this indeterminate present. What day is this, we wonder, what month? The one thing we’re not foggy about, however, is the time. You’d think that the presence of sorrow and danger everywhere would have a galvanic effect, but here in 2020, it’s always exhaustion o’clock, as though the […]

“I have learned that most people are ‘Takers,’ in the spirit of Daniel Quinn’s 1992 novel, Ishmael. ‘Leavers’ formed cultures that thrived for more than 300,000 years before the agricultural revolution. ‘Leavers’ comprised indigenous people: herders, hunters, and gatherers. Those cultures lived lightly and took only what they needed. ‘Takers’ are the ‘civilized’ version of […]

“We also marvel that Greeks, who have known so many hardships during wars, civil war, dictatorships, and the like, have not cleared the shelves of toilet paper, pasta, beans, flour, or other staples we read are missing from supermarkets in Anglo-Saxon countries.”—Diana Farr Louis Eating Well Is The Best Revenge By Diana Farr Louis ATHENS […]

“But that’s only half the story, at least for me. I also need to break out of the routine now and then, turn away from ritual, and engage with the outside world, which means connecting with others, especially my companion. She lives in Athens. What I usually do is spend a couple weeks alone in […]

“Fast forward to Weird Easter 2020. I live next to a church in Athens whose Easter program has always been the usual elaborate Friday beeswax-candlelight procession with the bell tolling and the heavily overdressed clergy, the appointed mourners carrying a flower-smothered catafalque through the local streets and a trail of parishioners singing a dirge, meeting up […]

“A dear friend of mine, a Southern woman long expatriated to England, sent me the following letter, and I would like to share it, anonymously, with a larger readership . . . for its poignancy and precision. For its perfection in this time of woe. My friend would cast a wan eye on those alliterative […]

“I am constantly relocating, moving from room to room. I dare not stay in one place for too long . . . . When Emily starts a home project, she is relentless—a project Terminator. It’s too early in the season to work outside on the flower beds, so she has armed herself with a paintbrush. […]