All The Home Forum
- The curse of cursive: Why Dave and I need forensics for our cookware
Our moms were masters of the Palmer Method, sending the same graceful cursive gazelles loping across the page. Now, how do we tell the difference?
- I discover my own, new way to play
Returning to piano as an adult, I struggled with pieces I’d mastered in my youth. Then I set a new goal.
- A wordless welcome to rural Italy
Neither of us spoke the other’s language. But we had one communication tool in common: neighborliness.
- Now I’m delivering novel turns of phrase
I tend to forget the correct words for things. Instead of asking my husband if I put the lid on the oatmeal pot, I say, “Did I hat the sauce?”
- My driver’s ed teacher's life lesson in confidence
My friend in the passenger seat was watching with me. “It’s an impossible (parking) space,” he said. “Too small.” I accepted the challenge.
- The universal scent of summer hay
Amid the fields and pastures of Switzerland, our columnist is transported back to south-central Indiana.
- I needed a fence builder. He turned out to be a rock star.
Carpenter Grant is compelled to do excellent work. Even boulders erode, eventually. But integrity endures.
- Seeking the right size for the next moment
Attics, garages, and staying put encourage accumulation – it sneaks up like a silent invader. A big move spurs a purge.
- Fly-fishing, silence, and common ground: A stepfather’s gift
The noise from the river precluded any conversation, and he made it clear that we weren’t here to talk anyway.
- Driven to become an auto mechanic
I drove my precious car – the one with one off-center headlight, no brake lights, no blinkers, no sideview mirrors, and no horn – everywhere.
- I’m up a tree, and I like it
Some adults look at a climbable tree and say, “Why?” When our essayist sees one, he says, “Why not?”
- To fish is to live just a moment in the future
Your pole tip could bend in the next second – or in a second that won’t happen till tomorrow, essayist Murr Brewster writes.
- In New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, our garden grows a sense of place
When our essayist transformed a vacant lot next to his new home into a garden, he soon realized he would reap much more than produce.
- Language lesson: A professor learns the power of praise
When a professor signed up to take an introductory Arabic class, he learned a bonus lesson: how to become a better teacher.
- The air fills with similar songs, in different dialects
An American transplant to Switzerland longs for familiar birds and bird songs – and embraces new ones.
- Reflecting on the witness of a looking glass
Images on a cellphone camera are one thing. But what if I could access the moments my mirror has seen?
- I have two adopted sons: One Russian, one Ukrainian
A father of two adopted boys, one Ukrainian and one Russian, is thankful his sons didn’t grow up to face each other on the battlefield.
- The lives my clothes have led
Shopping in a thrift store merely to save a buck is like traveling to Florida simply because it’s warm. There is so much more to the experience.
- Letter from the diaspora: Why Ukraine will endure
Ukraine – and its culture, its history – lives in the hearts and minds of people like my grandparents, my parents. And now it lives in me.
- There is no ping without a pong
It takes two willing partners to play table tennis, after all, and two people with an equal stake in each other’s happiness to make a marriage.