Right now, I know, having been where you are, grief is your largest organ. Every centimeter from your scalp to your toes feels scalded, disfigured for life. But I hope you’ll be surprised, as I was, sometime next year (or the one after that), to see grief claim a smaller space, to mimic instead a […]
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And now I seek comfort in the song of a bird, the bloom of a rose, the smell of sidewalk after a hot rain. What in the moment offers relief? I still breathe, however reluctantly, in a world which can’t be trusted. In. Out. In. Out. Seeking comfort in what remains: The song of a […]
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“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince And the Little Prince told the pilot to look at the stars, listen for laughter— to remember without tears. Noble characters in fables always tell us not to weep— to […]
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I have decided to reopen that book— the one I abandoned, early last summer, heeding the advice of Suzy and Barbara, and the New York Times reviewer who crowned it absorbing, enthralling, and a host of other superlatives I didn’t feel when I banged it shut in the middle of page 32. “You’re right,” Suzy […]
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Many facts about the famed Shoshone guide Sacagawea’s life, particularly the dates of her birth and death, are unknown. However, all records portray her as a valued member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which first explored the land beyond Missouri and paved the way for westward expansion. She distinguished herself as brave and resourceful […]
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Rosa Parks is often called the “mother of the civil rights movement.” When she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, activists organized a city-wide bus boycott. It was the beginning of a long struggle which changed segregation laws forever. Rosa Parks and her husband, […]
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In 1935, after earning a Master’s degree in zoology at Johns Hopkins University, Rachel Carson began working at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (known then as the Bureau of Fisheries). Her duties in the publication department — creating informational materials — required both scientific and writing skills. From 1949 to 1952, she was […]
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Susan B. Anthony was arrested for illegally voting in the 1872 presidential election. At her trial, she insisted that it was her constitutional right as a United States citizen to vote. She was found guilty and was fined $100, which she refused to pay. Anthony was a successful teacher who left the profession and became […]
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Clara Barton was born in 1821 in Oxford, Massachusetts. She first showed an aptitude for nursing as a young girl in Massachusetts when she took care of an older brother for two years after a serious accident. At that time in America, women tended ill family members but had no opportunity for professional training as […]
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