Long Playing

Long Playing

I grew up with two fathers: one, my biological father and the other, Joannes Brahms, the composer whose music Daddy and I most loved. At times the two blend together in my mind, for whenever I hear the music of Brahms, I’m folded into a wordless embrace of intimacy...
A Taste for Aunts

A Taste for Aunts

In the spirit of Dylan Thomas’ line, “There are always Uncles at Christmas,” this Thanksgiving season, I’m speaking up for Aunts. Specifically, my two Aunt Betty’s and my Aunt Ellen Braithwaite, who have been on my mind as I’ve lived the days leading to this...
Wreathed in Christmas

Wreathed in Christmas

Stopping for a last-minute ingredient the day before Thanksgiving, on my way into the supermarket, I came on a stack of evergreen Christmas wreaths; I could have just picked one up and tossed it into my cart. Cross that item off the list! Or a couple of days later, I...
Chutney With Vera

Chutney With Vera

When I first came to California in 1968, newly married, I started right in to continue the Thanksgiving traditions I knew from childhood, though one of my first such dinners included turkey cooked at too high a heat and thoroughly dried out; somehow I cobbled together...
First Christmas Tree

First Christmas Tree

“Let’s go out in the woods and cut our own Christmas tree!” December 1957, Eastham, Massachusetts. I was eleven. After years of two-week vacations on Cape Cod, which I’d always considered a magic summer kingdom, my parents and I had moved—to Cape Cod! We were just...

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