God bless the wonderful John and Kitty, who built and later sold us this house! I never would have thought to put in a little gym, but they did. Since the shutdown, my son Adam has been working out harder than ever, video-conferencing with his awesome trainer.

Here’s the thing, folks: Adam is doing this because he wants to. He decided to start working out when he was in high school. I’ve never been able to force any of my children to do anything. I lack the stamina. But when they follow their bliss, they do things that blow my [...]

A bit of searching online will tell you that “Spring in the Northern Hemisphere will begin on Thursday, March 19.” You can repeat this to others in a confident voice, and everyone will believe you. 

Meanwhile, the trees and flowers in the woods around my house are calmly celebrating Spring on their own damn schedule. Bright-green crocus and daffodil shoots are pushing leaf litter aside. The exposed spot on a dogwood tree, where woodpeckers have revealed the cambium, has also turned green, flooding chlorophyll upward to every little leaf bud on every little twig.

I love the stubbornness of nature. I [...]

“Hey, everyone,” I said to my family. “Listen.”

We all stopped talking, and quiet wrapped around us like a warm blanket. A light breeze rustled the oak leaves above us. Bees and hummingbird murmured in a patch of wildflowers.

“Do you hear that?” I said. “Wherever we end up going, I need that.”

We were enjoying a cool summer sunset on the porch of our little house at the edge of a national forest in California, planning where to go next. For six years we’d been saturated with the awesome beauty of nature. Now we hankered to be near the awesome beauty [...]