The path alongside Moraine Lake (Banff National Park) is packed earth, polished by hikers’ feet and interrupted by smooth, exposed roots of lodgepole pine and white spruce. The lake is the turquoise blue of glacial runoff, surreal in its beauty, a mirror of the mountainous backdrop and what remains of the glacier above. No wonder… Read more »

I was Grace’s age when Santa Claus brought me a cherished porcelain tea set. It came packed in a green-striped cardboard box, with a place for each piece. I have kept it in that box for the last 72 years, secure in the cedar chest my grandmother Damery gave me for 8th-grade graduation. I knew… Read more »

This year, I discovered a side of my father I had not known. My sisters, Judy and Shelly, and I were sorting through family items in Judy’s attic, including a box of my father’s letters my mother had saved during Dad’s service in the Second World War. The letters begin after they met on a… Read more »

Mother’s Day Memories, Sweet and Bittersweet A repeat post, I know, but this is one of my favorite blog posts about my mother, Lois Emily Peabody Damery, so I’m reposting it again. Through her, I received the blessing of generations of mothering wisdom, and I am forever grateful. Every year, Mother’s Day brings two big… Read more »

The beloved valley oak in the historic pioneer cemetery, whose generous boughs have graced our lavender field for many years, is not leafing out. We feared her demise. Last year, when a branch died abruptly, an arborist diagnosed Mediterranean Oak Borer (MOB). We cut the infected bough, irrigated the top six inches in the heat… Read more »

Since the beginning of last year, it’s as if our nation has received a strong, constitutional homeopathic remedy for the worst in ourselves. Issues of racism, greed, and narcissism, now so flagrantly in evidence, have been here from the beginning of our country and far before: the belief that some are more equal than others,… Read more »

Judy couldn’t remember where the key was—or wouldn’t. She claimed that the leaking roof made the house unsafe. Our second cousin now owns the family farm, which has belonged to us since the early to mid-1800s. Our great-grandfather, Thomas Pope, built the house in the 1890s after a good corn crop. His wife, Matilda, and… Read more »

“If human life is unsustainable as we have become accustomed to living it, it is likely up to survivors—people who have stared into the abyss of catastrophe—to imagine and enact new ways of living.” ..Robert Jay Lipton, author whose subject has been holocaust, mass violence, and renewal in the 20th and 21st century. How do… Read more »