How a 4th grade science project taught me to write about the moon. October 1, 2010 | 3:30 pm | Last Quarter Phase My daughter arrives home from school with a slim notebook covered with photos that represent the night — owls, a gibbous moon cut from white paper, a…

On having faith, and giving permission to let go — “How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again.” — Henry Scott Holland Dear Mom, The light is different here. If you saw how this place shines, I think you’d stop worrying about me. The light connects the landscape to every part of itself. It moves…

According to the American Cancer Society, about 600 adolescents, aged 15 to 19, die from cancer each year. In 2017, my daughter, Ana, was one of them. Ana was sick for four and a half years. During most of that time, even as her cancer progressed, I didn’t think that…

It feels like I’m at the start of an epic quest, but I can’t quite get moving. — This morning I thought about how much a person’s life can change in fifteen years, while a yard stays very much the same. Take the snow, for example. I was outside slogging through it to get to the bird feeders. I was the first to disturb it (unless you count…

The internet is forever. What will you leave behind? — The meanest comment I ever got was a response to an essay I published in the Washington Post on the first anniversary of my daughter’s death. The commenter had written, “what was the point of this article?” and went on to berate me for my decision to have children. I…

A belated review of ‘Detroit Become Human’ — The recent ubiquity of AI in the news with all its inherent hopes and fears, reminded me that not all narratives depict AI technology as bad. In fact, sometimes humans are the assholes, manipulating technology within the context of consumerism, exploitation, abuse, and (ultimately) abandonment. …

I didn’t want to get the dog, but my daughter insisted, and she was the one who was dying — Back in 2016, getting a dog seemed impossible. We already had so much on our plate and adding one more thing — a wild card, an element of chaos, another responsibility — was not remotely appealing to me at the time. But my daughter insisted, and she was the one…

At least, not yet — “The greed for destination obliterates the journey” — John O’Donohue Well, my fellow Gen Xers, it’s finally happening —we’re being confronted with two persistent threats that have plagued us since the seventies. The first is that machines are almost smart enough to replace every single one of us without exception…