Columnists

Parenthood is a pendulum. Whatever direction our parents swung in the habits and policies of our own raising, we swing that pendulum far back over to the other side.

Clarity through fasting.

The real Herrick Park is for sports.

Someone pointed out to me that a mahogany floor in a beach house did not really “go.”

This is the first time I’ve been alone in this house for more than 24 hours, ever. I wander the rooms and check my pockets.

A return to a vastly changed Commonwealth Avenue and Boston University — and its famous racing facility.

A vacation in “Centereach with palm trees.”

What out-dumbs TikTok?

Coffee and tea are the hot beverages of contemplation.

After the blood drive.

A nationwide “protest for euphoria.”

Used to be that there had to be a persistent northeast blow for the water to pile up. Not anymore.

“Our dying world” is what one podcast host says whenever he has to refer to the planet Earth or where we spend our waking hours.

A conservative school up the Island goes all-in on classical education. Attention must be paid.

Remembering the greatest play in National Football League history.

Reflections on the deaths of four young people on their way home from worship in 1716.

This week, I went back to Facebook to be reminded of the humorous things my children said when they were little.

Across Long Island Sound in the Nutmeg State, a legislator has been trying to get ranked-choice voting to stick since 2017.

As one Trump acolyte in Iowa said, “It’s good not to be liked — being strong is better.”

After a few days when the ponds were frozen enough to skate on, we might as well start looking forward to the boating season.

Our family has an overdeveloped muscle for nostalgia, and the kitchen is the epicenter where we exercise it.

The pain of planned obsolescence.

I wrote my own obituary not long ago, and when I showed it to a co-worker, she broke out in uncontrollable laughter.

Grade schoolers here woke up unhappy on Tuesday. There had been a bit of snow, but not enough for a delayed start, let alone a day off.

The funniest scene in the funniest television program was the moment in the old “Andy Griffith Show” when Gomer Pyle makes a citizen’s arrest of Barney Fife on the Main Street of Mayberry. And does the idea ever have staying power.

As if all its billions weren’t enough, the N.F.L. gets into bed with DraftKings.

The New Year’s Day plunges here were communal convocations as reassuring as any you’d find at a church or at any other gathering.

I am continually struck by how few attempts there have been at real-world data collection regarding the beaches here.

Has the zeitgeist ever felt so apocalyptic?

The efficacy, benefits, and weirdness of hypnosis.