True, woodland paths are lovely this time of year, with their overarching greenery, their jutting rocks and their rooted, earthen steps, but if you’ve never hiked a 60-block stretch through the concrete canyons of New York, you just don’t know the whole story when it comes to the joy of walking. Rarely are sidewalks shown to better advantage than in New York City. They are broad, they are wide, they are thronged with people going somewhere. An elastic energy bounds over the p

All week it has been raining. I wake early each morning and sit by the window to listen. The science of rain sounds like poetry: droplets increase until they can no longer be supported by upward movement of air … I am supported by an upward movement of air, gusting in the window. There are the crackles of droplets exploding on the sodden ground; the steady ping ping ping of the drainpipe; the shiver of leaves bowing under the onslaught; the tatting on the sill of the open gla

Grace Recently Dave, an older friend of mine, asked me in a concerned undertone why a mutual friend – a much younger woman – colored her hair the way she did. That is to say, in all kinds of unnatural shades and hues usually seen only on God’s more splendiferous creations. Like parrots and peacocks. I told Dave that nothing was wrong with our young friend: weird haircuts and multi-colored hair was a big fad in the city – lots of people did it. It was just self-expression. But

Most writers are familiar with the term “elevator pitch.” Serendipitously trapped in the shiny little box with your quarry (whether she/he be a producer, editor, agent, or another writer), in the 30+ seconds it takes for the doors to close and the elevator to rise or fall the appropriate number of floors, you must succinctly pitch your story in such a manner, with such language, such incandescence, such effulgence, that said producer/editor/agent/writer will be irresistibly c

We were all rather proper in my home, even though we were poor – especially before my mother went back to work when I (the youngest of three) turned six. My dad was an actor and always made a living at it, but sometimes that living consisted of unemployment insurance. The table had to be set correctly. It was set with Mom’s silver, given to her at the time of her marriage. The fork was on the left of the plate, the knife to the right with the cutting edge facing in, and the s

When I sit on the shorn grass, feeling its silk brush my toes and its scent tickle my nostrils; or when I walk a path in the woods where the trees arch overhead, passing layered granite etched with moss; or when I take a chair to the wide creek stubbled with smooth, dry stones and I sit under the overhanging limbs, listening to the black water curl and skid around rock – of all these country pleasures, the greatest is the dappled light. How should a layman like me explicate i

Photo by Carol Fassler. I am stopped this morning by the sound of a bird song very loud, very close. Four notes, expressed, then a silence. Then four notes repeated. Tilting my head up, the sun full in my face, shielding my eyes with one hand, I search the branches above, but can’t find it of course. As usual, the interlocutor is invisible to a mere human, even though the leaves have not yet unfurled from the trees and nothing more than my own inability to see obscures it. Fr

It is good to praise something you hate. Lately, my friend’s kitchen has been invaded by carpenter ants, and they make me shudder. It’s visceral. I’m making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a plate and they come scuttling from God knows where, waving their little “elbowed” antennae in celebration, and I just quiver all over with revulsion. “Ants,” I yell, snatching my plate off the table before they can attack. “Oh yeah,” says my friend, nonchalant. “It’s spring.” Carpen