The Journey

The news from the White House last week rolled in like the fog, a bone-chilling dampness that slowly swallowed the horizon. By week’s end, I was struggling to see even a pinhole of light . . .The much-anticipated plan by the Army Corps of Engineers to stop the Asian...

Through the seeming chaos and dysfunction swirling about our nation’s capitol, the wheels of democracy are rolling slowly, almost silently, forward.Last week, under the bipartisan leadership of Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Sean Duffy (R-WI), and Louise...

Driving through dense fog Saturday morning, I asked myself why? Why, after decades of avoiding political marches and rallies, was I joining the Women’s March? As I drove, I found myself humming the tunes from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s broadway performance of...

On this day after the Winter Solstice, there is more light than darkness. Every day at noon, the alarm on my wristwatch beeps a reminder to pause and pray for peace. It is not the glorious sound of church bells ringing across the countryside, but it works. The...

Every once in a while I hear a story that inspires, that reminds me that when we choose to work arm-in-arm to protect that which we hold dear, we can accomplish what feels like the impossible.This is such a story. For over twelve years, a group of citizens has...

Until now, I have had little good to say about the press over the last year. But on October 31st, an MLive reporter named Garret Ellison published a story, notifying people in the region of a plan by Nestlé to significantly increase the amount of water pumped from one...

When I began jogging almost forty years ago, it was a dreaded exercise motivated by fear. I remember running laps around our apartment building in Milwaukee every day at the edge of dawn. My stomach hurt. My knees ached. My mind rattled off reasons I should be...

When I first began writing this blog in August of 2012, I wrote about “my reader.” A sculpture of rusted steel, she sits in our front yard balancing a book in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. I wrote, “What would I tell her, my reader, if she were my daughter?”...

If I close my eyes for an hourand listen to the waterlapping against the stern of our boat,am I wasting time? Or if I straddle my legson a lime-colored noodleand float until fingerswrinkle like prunes,am I a slacker? And if I do nothingbut watch the...

I did not used to check product labels. Carbohydrates and sodium changed things. So did microbeads. Ingredients, I discovered, could influence my health. And with each passing day, decisions that affect my health matter. So I don’t understand why labels on soaps...

In my November blog, “The Search for Balance on the Indiana Shore,” I shared with you my admiration for a coalition of federal, state, and local organizations, business and union leaders, scientists, environmental groups, and private residents who are working...

“I didn’t think you’d be back from jogging this soon,” Rubin says, stepping from the dock to the boat. “I would have cleaned it.” I have heard this line many times before. But his ashen-colored hair is wavy and wild, and his blue eyes are sparkling. A good-natured...