Jul 24, 2025
I always carry books on a train, in case my attention to the scenery outside the train flags. A book would offer the opportunity to step away into another world. But I never read, because the view rushing by never flags. The panorama rewards, and even requires,...
Jul 3, 2025
I was today years old when I figured out that my grandparents had told me a story that is apparently not true. In my slow summery childhood, I traveled with them on many Fridays out of suburban Chicago, past industrial Gary, Indiana, and up to Michigan. Before the...
Aug 28, 2024
Isn’t there always a day when we can feel the waning of summer and the onrush of the fall? Summer joys become even more sweet as we move inevitably along. What were your summer joys this year? Among mine, while traveling in northern Michigan: Joyous unbridled teens...
Jul 23, 2024
Midsummer in the north is full of deep pleasures and abundance. The flowers seem to be in a hurry, leaping toward perfection. The earth has to hasten into the season before the cooling and quieting of the fall, so everything grows with riotous abandon. In the...
Aug 3, 2022
One of the signature aspects of the pandemic for me has been a profound sense of confinement, which may be why I’ve found such pleasure this summer in modest solo road trips. The Midwest world is beautiful, even though driving solo at 65 mph allows only brief...
