Guestwords

A summertime stop at the Sagaponack General Store triggers a flood of nostalgia.

Recent polls show increasing support for climate action among Republican voters, and several G.O.P. senators have spoken out in favor of it.

It was only after my second cup of coffee that a thought drifted into my consciousness: "It's January and I need to find a bathing suit."

In subways, restaurants, and other public places, I see more and more caregivers totally absorbed in mobile devices while they are with young children.

He was big: 6 feet 4 inches, 260 pounds, and all muscle. His name was Abe Simon, and he was a friend of my father and my uncle Harold. He became a heavyweight boxing contender.

Christmas Day this year will be the 100th anniversary of a huge memorial service on Capitol Hill for Inez Milholland Boissevain, whose death played a crucial role in the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.

Two months ago my life changed from black-and-white photograph to color movie for four hours. The special screening took place during the 40th reunion of the East Hampton High School class of 1976.

We live in a world awash in facts, figures, and screens, and it challenges our tolerance for not knowing, for living with questions rather than so many answers.

Hate hurts most when you’re not ready for it, when your thoughts after a brutal political season are of the comfort of home. That’s how hate sliced through me recently on the Long Island Rail Road — suddenly.

I was certain that a second home would actually be horrible for me: more bills and aggravation. Why not just travel the world and stay in luxury hotels?

I have a suggestion for the students, faculty, and alumni at Yale, where the naming of a residential college in 1931 to honor John C. Calhoun, an 1804 graduate from South Carolina, is being reconsidered — Clay College, to honor Cassius Marcellus Clay.

Seeing my three daughters so happy is what motivates me to keep struggling in this country that isn’t my native country.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been high-profile presences in the Hamptons over the past few decades, but who would've guessed that they would end up competing for the highest position in the nation?

On the night of Oct. 25, 1986, we left Huntington for Shea Stadium for what Mets fans refer to only as Game 6, no further explanation needed.

If I were a local business owner summoned to court for violating our state or local disabilities laws, I might simply ask the judge, “Why should I comply when your court doesn’t?”

It’s been three years since I sold my house in Amagansett, but in 2015 my head was totally turned around by another summer resort town: Provincetown.

I was a short, skinny teenager, and my father was concerned that bigger boys might pick on me, but he knew Lou Stillman, the owner of Stillman’s Gym, and signed me up for 10 lessons.

Since the first thing a teacher experiences at the start of the school year is a faculty meeting, some pointers.

I suspect the Montauk sandbag seawall provided some protection to properties before it was damaged during Hermine, but as a long-term fix for beaches, seawalls of any type are problematic.

What first comes to mind about that absolutely gorgeous late-summer day is the disconcerting quiet inside and even outside the courthouse after the attack was known.

As another social season in the Hamptons comes to an end, one is reminded of the importance of friends. If you don’t have ’em you’re dead in the waters of Shinnecock Bay.

I sat confused, distraught, and angry, staring at TV channels that rarely advertise a restaurant, hotel, nightclub, store, or activity east of Riverhead.

We returned to the tangle of place called home in 1994 — me, my husband, and our young daughters. I was afraid of it, terrified of myself in it, loved it the way you love food you think you’re not supposed to eat and fear will make you sick.

I am nauseatingly self-deprecating by nature. It is a crutch if not a character flaw, but let me take a moment to be serious and brag a little: Despite big setbacks, all three of my self-published books have made money, and continue to.

For nearly two years, starting with the breakup of my marriage, I regularly ventured during the fishing season to a secluded beach along an eastern Long Island bay known for holding good-size striped bass in its shallows.

Just a reminder, since the popular news is dominated by terrorism, murders, and the politics of bathroom rights, that global warming continues apace.

Writing is a grueling job that is never done. I wake up to it and go to sleep with it. One character or another pokes me in the ribs and causes me to toss and turn. The antagonist, with thesaurus in hand, whispers in my ear during REM, “Psst! Wake up! You’ve got to change the wording in chapter seven, third line down.”

Or not really worry, but maybe to think about if you can’t get to sleep some night. That’s how the question came up in the first place. My friend, who apparently often can’t get to sleep, asked me on the beach if I ever considered what would happen if the earth stopped spinning even for just a second. He thought everybody would fly off into space.

It’s been only a month since I returned from Dallas, where I, like thousands of other tourists, had visited many of its well-known attractions, including the Fairmont Dallas Hotel with its famous Venetian Room, centered in the largest arts district in the country, the 560-foot Reunion Tower, and the Sixth Floor Museum.

In the mid-1980s, East Hampton’s summer and year-round weekend population was growing rapidly. The demand for water views in particular was enormous, and the seemingly endless construction of new homes along the shoreline caused wastewater and other pollutants to run off into the bays. The contaminants made their way into clam and scallop beds; at least two lucrative fishing areas were damaged.