Getting There

So you accepted the invitation to spend a few months in a caravan of RVs orbiting a couple of hundred miles above earth’s recent mayhem. Your friends are in the RV just ahead of you at the same altitude. You’d like to catch up with them, dock, and play some board...

Irrational Fear

The knowledge that we had no sharks in our back yard pool did nothing to relax the grip tightening around my spine as soon as the water enveloped my body. Nope. No night swims that summer. Not long ago, a similarly irrational fear—that there might be a large predator...

The Center

Dense vegetation lining the creek bed across the street from my home houses ants, rats, opossums, squirrels, racoons, hawks, owls, bees, and an uncatalogued menagerie of other species, all sallying into the neighborhood occasionally, just as the undergrowth itself...

We Are the Echo

Near Terlingua, TX, cradling the Rio Grande, is a deep, narrow, rock-faced canyon: Santa Elena. Our kids suggested we visit it while celebrating our 41st anniversary with stays in the Texas desert and hill country. High waters from recent rains kept us from hiking up...

Pathways

When possible I ride my bike to work, not on multi-lane highways, thoroughfares, and avenues, but on the trails provided by Dallas Parks and Recreation. Although often no more than narrow pavement over old railbeds, they provide a perfect path: flat stretches edging...

Change Is Coming

Routine is a powerful thing. After I graduated college, our family spent 11 years in a starter home. We sold it and moved about 5 miles away, where we lived the next 11 years. A little more than 5 years after we had moved into that second house, I found myself driving...