Yesterday I met a man who collects pens. I do too, but not with such panache. This man has a platinum Lamy and an ornate silver pen so heavy I could not write more than my name with it, and then not easily. He has pens embossed with gold and pens so high-priced that I…

A January article from Mental Floss, “Four Benefits of Writing by Hand,” explains that to write longhand increases understanding when class notes are recopied longhand, slows us down and let’s us think in more complete sentences, provides better focus than using a computer, and engages motor skills and memory that help keep our aging brains…

Recently I told a friend the story of my mother’s diamond earrings and realized that this story says a lot about what we are willing to recycle. Mom loved jewelry and my stepfather, Robert, loved her, so he bought her beautiful rings and earrings. The earrings that I still have are gold buttons with small…

Poetry is not my only interest. If you have visited my other blog, Help Heal the World, you know that I fret about the way we use and abuse resources. I’ve written a book of poems about our shaky relationship with what we eat, The Great Hunger. I compiled a reading list of books about…

Lately I have been working on a series of poems to memorialize a long-lost loved one. Given the rich store of memories I have of this person, the poems start easily. Sometimes they develop and end easily. That’s not good. Poems that please me are not easily written. Most often I get a good start…