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In my family, dinner ended with the children being excused to go play while the parents and grandparents stayed at the table to drink coffee and talk. At…
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In my mid-twenties, I moved to Chicago to live with some college friends. Our apartment was on Dearborn Street, an interesting old neighborhood a few…
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A big silver maple lives a couple blocks from me, taller than any house on the street. Staring up, I notice how crooked the tree is, how unbalanced where…
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I get up earlier than usual on a school morning and my father is already shaving in the bathroom. “Well, well,” he says, “Looks like my date is…
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I grew up with a father who had some kind of proverb or platitude for every occasion. One of his favorites was, “Anticipation is always greater than…
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I stood in the doorway of Art’s office, asking for help. Art Maha was my boss—a corporate sales star who’d been promoted to advertising manager for the…
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It’s early winter and spiders are making nests in the corners of my ceilings. They hide themselves so well, they’re hard to spot—but when I do, I’m not…
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I pull out a file folder called “Recipes” and paw through the wrinkled, stained papers to find Sharon’s “White Bean & Barley Soup.” She has translated the…
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Rain changing to snow in the forecast. Two doors down, a young man hauls a roll of carpet out of the house. Virginia’s house, I think, but not anymore.…
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We climbed steadily for four days and set up camp at 10,000 feet to rest before our descent. Deep valleys fell away into shadow while the white peaks of…