I began cooking when I was ten. There are few things in this life better than the taste of good food prepared well. So, it seemed natural to me that I needed to learn to make it myself. I know exactly what inspired it, beyond just good taste. In the late 1950s and early 60s, my parents and five other couples used to gather monthly for what they called “Gourmet Dinners.”  Six course meals with every recipe coming from the two-volume Gourmet...

There is no excuse for poetry. It arises like spring bulbs buried in the sunbaked loam, waiting for what signal, what elemental combination to begin their ascent? What compels the poet that is different from the novelist or the journalist? Does one write truth more truly? Does the use of language differentiate them, the application of simile and metaphor, the cadence, meter, or tempo of the syllables? Does the heart of the poet beat with...

No one would ever mistake me for a rugged individualist. I am much more a ragged collaborationist, which is something akin to Blanche DuBois’s reliance on the kindness of strangers. I have never had any desire to do this trip alone, nor could I. Fortunately, as I have documented previously, nearly 49 years ago, Laura picked me up hitchhiking and I haven’t had to. I know am a lucky man. But more than simply being in a relationship, as if...

For those of you who haven’t heard, the fact that you’re reading this should be evidence of the fact that I am not dead, yet. Of course, I could have written this before my heart intervention, but I didn’t. As some of you already know, my cardiologist placed two stents in a couple very naughty arteries. The upshot, as Laura is tired of hearing, I now receive transmission from 108 cable stations. It’s a technological miracle. And because of that...

This is Not My Last Essay There’s an old joke about a prisoner being dragged to the electric chair, screaming, “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. “ When they finally drag him to the chair, he looks up at the executioner and pleads, “ I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” The executioner looks down at him and says, “Well,  don’t sit down, man.” As I prepare myself for my upcoming Angiogram/Angioplasty, I will...

I've always hated horror movies, something scary popping out of the darkness when least expected. My wife and daughters love being scared. I'm easily startled. In the morning if I rise first and my wife comes in an hour or so later, she always announces herself when she enters the room so as to not surprise me. I suspect it began when I was five, and my sister, Christie, who is five years older than me, took me to the movies along with a girl...

How does love begin? When do we feel ready to open our hearts unconditionally to another and feel theirs in return? How do we know or can we know when it’s right to take that first courageous step of meeting the other, trusting that unguarded space that allows us to know loving another is real? It was what I always longed for with each meeting? And invariably scared away some I thought were right because I wanted it so. I admit, I was usually...

I was looking for a job. A friend had suggested I contact the local economic development corporation (EDC) to see what I could rouse. Since I’ve been working in the world of social entrepreneurs and social enterprise, I looked at the EDC web site with an eye to this particular form of social business making. Not too surprisingly, I found nothing approaching the idea of social interactions outside of an upcoming party. So, as a way to engage the...

Tom Robbins made me envious in the best possible way. His books were the kind I’ve always wanted to write. Simultaneously profound, original, and funny. The man never met a metaphor he couldn’t turn into a mind-expanding drug, and his work was filled with them. He plied them with such panache so that each bite was a chocolatey mouthful of velvety mousse topped with fresh raspberry coulis. The flavor exploded on the tongue without remorse or...

I am an inherently silly person. I am also inherently creative. What happens when silly and creative interact? I get a life filled with wonderful conversations with anyone I’d like to talk to, because convention and propriety are for others. It’s not that I don’t take things seriously, it’s just that I’m predisposed to seeing absurdity where many see solemnity. A very wise teacher of mine, the late Allyn Lyon, told me when I was criticized for...

Wait for it. Wait for it. Nothing to wait for.  It’s always been here. As a writer, I make things up and then put them out into the world, and wait for a response. It’s the time when all possibilities are in play and anything is possible. It’s like day one of the baseball season, and making it to the World Series is both imaginable and conceivable. It’s the moment when the greater my imagination, the greater the response I’m sure to receive....

The landline phone rang at 10:27 on a Saturday morning.  My wife and I answered it simultaneously from either end of the house. It was our younger daughter, barely able to catch her breath through her sobs, calling from her university.  “Emily, Emily, what is it?” My wife asked, her compassion and concern reaching out over the wire. “It’s my roommates. They’re always talking about how much they hate their parents, and I love you guys.” “Oh,...