What’s in a name? In my case, irony.
In 1987, in a fit of feminist righteousness, I changed my surname to Toussaint. I was filing for my third divorce and tired of name changes. Having chaired a “women’s own name task force” a decade earlier, I… read more →
I didn’t plan to spend extended periods with nurses in the year of COVID-19. But after three eye surgeries gave me an up-close and personal view, I came away convinced that nursing must be a “calling,” something akin to ministry.
These days, cataract surgery is almost routine (or was…
read more →
My roof is equipped with an 8.5 kilowatt solar array, enough to supply household needs and to charge Sparky, our electric car. Our 25 solar panels free us from an electric bill; they don’t make us energy independent. In the summer, Xcel Energy sends us checks to pay for the… read more →
On Fridays, I teach a color-mixing class to five artists, aged 11 to about 75. They bring a burst of light to my week, piercing the gloom of my current shut-in/shut-down life.
At the presidential inauguration, poet Amanda Gorman, resplendent in her sunshine yellow coat, similarly…
read more →
Recently, my friend Jessi Hempel, a nationally-known journalist, asked Facebook friends how they felt about “having it all” in this time of COVID-19.
Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown used that phrase to title her 1982 memoire, and at the height of my career, it seemed something… read more →
“You’d think a white girl like me woulda had a better relationship with money.”
I blurted that out during a recent “Money Matters” interview. Across Colorado, financial disparities are widening, particularly across racial and geographic lines. So the Bell Policy Center, with funding from the Colorado… read more →
“Nothing gold can stay.” So wrote Robert Frost in 1923.
That phrase haunted me Friday after I saw a small golden bird – a Wilson’s warbler – staggering across my lawn. I kept one eager cat away, so maybe that bird survived.
There has… read more →
Every Roaring Fork Valley town (except Carbondale) has at some point changed its name: Glenwood Springs was once Defiance. Basalt was Aspen Junction. Aspen was Ute City.
What’s in a name, usually, is history. Which is usually written by the victors, then revisited as times change.… read more →
About a week ago, a local lady, Marlene, asked online: “If I may, I have a question for anyone with a workable answer? Those Black people who have attained some degree of education, wealth, influence… Why don’t they organize, reach out to their fellow man…?”
My… read more →
Perhaps you’ve seen COVID-19 homeschooling memes.
My favorite: Homeschooling going well. Two students suspended for fighting. One teacher fired for drinking on the job.
My San Francisco friend Caroline Nassif, who teaches at the college level, says homeschooling is “ridiculously difficult.” One of her… read more →
