Guestwords

What childhood traits and experiences promote an adulthood commitment to the natural world? A sense of wonder.

I’ve roamed 23 South Fork graveyards, from Southampton to Sag Harbor. I dig surprises, and what has more surprises per square foot than a cemetery?

We have a new president. The virus cases are receding, hospitalizations and deaths, too. What is keeping me from yodeling in the streets? Could it be Post-Traumatic Virus Reprogramming Syndrome?

Though alone since my husband passed away this year, I don’t feel lonely inside this lovely snow globe.

My introduction to the art of Prudence Punderson came in 1976 in Connecticut, when I took up embroidery and checked out a book on the subject that contained an example of her work. But an East Hampton connection? That came as a surprise.

A two-mile stretch of road between two ponds in East Hampton has provided Treasury secretaries for F.D.R. and four Republican presidents in the 20th century, and now a secretary of state for Joe Biden.

It is easy enough to absent myself for apartment showings. Would that I could take the furniture with me. Since it must remain in all its dated glory, a stager will come in to “freshen it up.” But there are consequences.

The newest strain of MAGA, the one that was evidenced at the Capitol, seems not only more contagious, but also immune to the vaccine of coalition that President Biden is attempting to inject into the body politic.

A market-based strategy to mitigate climate change is embodied in a bill now before Congress called the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. The expiring Congress did not pass it, but it will be reintroduced in the new one, where it may have better prospects.

While poring over The Star, just as I was breathing a sigh of relief that the year was finally ending, I spied a piece of news that felt like the final slap in the face after a year of low blows: Scoop du Jour on Newtown Lane was closing for good.

The lily of the valley I planted after my husband died took me back to a time and place when my mother and her brood were happiest, and in particular back to a Christmastime shopping trip to the city.

When East Hampton resident Philip Whitley Churchill-Down, age 63, died last month in a freak clam-shucking accident, America lost its foremost oenological bibliophile and I lost a dear friend.

One of the ways that a human being can be traumatized is to have their reality doubted, and now more than 81 million people who voted for Joe Biden are being told at least once a day that what they’ve seen and done is a fiction.

Offer me coffee and I feel special. A chance to shine, to be heard. Inevitably, all eyes turn to me when I announce, “No thanks, never had a cup in my life.”

Tired. So tired . . . I want to lay my head down. So heavy. 

It’s 1947, a hot, late-summer afternoon in Bethesda, Md., where I’m in first grade at Bradley Elementary (named for Omar, the World War II general). I’ve walked my bike home on the path through the woods, past the spot where we kids hunt and eat wild strawberries at recess. Too weak to pedal. I’ve made it home by holding on to the handlebars and lying across the seat. A few steps. A few more. Another.

Every year about this time, I would go through the same litany of worries. That gosh-darned turkey gave me no end of heartburn. But this year is something else entirely.

My father was pretty good-looking, with sharp blue eyes and a wash of curly hair that held high on his head throughout his life. What my father wasn’t was a sharp dresser.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first big job was filling his cabinet, and this year’s large Democratic field of candidates offers Joe Biden a chance to emulate him.

Every week I hike a Pennsylvania nature trail named for my late friend Jere Knight. It’s my thank-you to her for trusting me to write the first biography of her late husband Eric Knight, the English-American author of the novel “Lassie Come-Home.”

I had received an upgrade to ride the Hampton Jitney’s Ambassador coach, and was looking forward to a snack and some relaxation to the old-school music of my iTunes playlist. No such luck.

The New York governor’s persona intrigues me, and I draw on my love for Italian cinema to explore my fascination with him.

This year I finally planted my victory garden. My coronavirus home farm, inspired by the victory gardens of World War II.

With my hat, sunglasses, and N95 mask, I’m even more invisible than a middle-aged, gray-haired woman usually is in America. Not that I mind all that much.

President Trump’s three main economic initiatives — tax cuts, tariffs, and deregulation — have turned Washington, D.C., and the country upside down. How has this worked out? Here are some outcomes.

A memorable excursion into independence at Loon Lake in the Adirondacks.

On Sept. 20, 1970, the Free Life took off from Springs on a trans-Atlantic attempt, and something about its story has captured our attention ever since.

A chance meeting in the summer of 1975 changes the trajectory of a young man’s life.

After months of struggling to do it, I asked my brother to come get my sailboat — not because I do not love the beauty of it and the worlds it promised me, but because at some point I have to face reality and not just my dreams.

When it comes to statues, I would like to advance the idea that the Confederates are in a class by themselves.

A few recent painting experiences have brought me around to a new way of seeing what contemporary art is telling us about the disappearance of the open landscape.