First things first: Gin has medicinal properties. Ask any British officer posted to Dehli in the 1890s. Or the gent from the East India Tea Company likewise. I’m convinced it was not quinine in the tonic water alone that beat back malaria, but the astringent, near-medicinal properties of juniper and …
I wish I could remember just where, quite recently, I heard about the Dutch concept of uitwaaien, which loosely translated means taking a wind-bath. The idea, as best I recall, is that going out for a walk or run or bike-ride in windy weather improves one’s outlook by sweeping healing …
Much as I would have liked for me and Tim to be one of those couples that ambled along hand-in-hand, that wasn’t really an option. He needed both hands to push his wheelchair along. My hands were often full of camera gear or picnic baskets or day-to-day shopping. Whenever we …
One of the first LPs I purchased without thought or care about who else in my musical circle liked it was The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” in 1973 or thereabouts. I was a “theatre person,” a dancer, a poet, and not by any stretch a …
Maybe it’s because I’ve been immersed in the sweetly sentimental world of the latest Ken Burns (my hero!) film, on Country Music, these last few days. Maybe it’s the earlier sunsets, the surest sign we in the Northern Hemisphere have of the approaching winter. Mostly, it is because of what …
