Mathematics “Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.” —Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) Sometimes when I’m doing math with my kids on weekday mornings I forget what’s going in… Read more

All technology is a social dilemma Instagram, which I deleted last month, was my last remaining social media account. I deleted Facebook about 3 1/2 years ago and Twitter a year after that. I won’t… Read more

Louise Erdrich’s “The Night Watchman” and history’s undeniable complexity “If you should ever doubt that a series of dry words in a government document can shatter spirits and demolish lives, let this book erase that… Read more

Shelter for the fairy folk “O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew — Hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender . . .”—from “Binsey Poplars,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins… Read more

What comes after the revolution? Can you spot the owl? It looks like a small gray lump carved into the wood. It only turned around to look at me when I put down my camera.… Read more

“I don’t trust that there is some unilateral, final way to plant our feet in the earth without displacing something. It means that we should be humble.” —poet and clinical psychologist Dr. Bayo Akomolafe Commodity… Read more

Rights of women “I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.” —Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1792 Read more

Remembering Kay Luding, outdoorswoman and enabler of gluttony One of the very last posts I saw before deleting my Instagram account was this photo from fellow Montana writer Eric Heidle (whose work I discovered when… Read more

Whenever I talk with writer friends about abandoning social media, the issue of “platform” nearly always comes up. Writers need, we’re told, a solid social media following so that their stories can be seen, noticed,… Read more

Community and plum jam A friend invited us over to glean from their plum trees last weekend. I picked enough to make fruit leather and jam for the winter, and the trees still looked like… Read more