Captain Reverend Mother

  • Where Did Everybody Go?

    Where Did Everybody Go?

    Every August, Italy hangs a sign in the window and stops. On Ferragosto, fallow fields, screen sabbath, and a cypress forest full of families doing nothing in a highly organized fashion.

  • The Watch

    The Watch

    A week aboard a 1930 research vessel with my fifteen-year-old son, two old salts, seven species of dolphin and whale, and a rite of passage nobody announced. I was there to witness the quiet work of growing up.

  • Many Happy Returns

    Many Happy Returns

    A birthday is an anniversary, and an anniversary marks the staying. Reflections on marriage, calling, and country from a fault line in Sicily.

  • Walk On The Wild Side

    Walk On The Wild Side

    A burial plot in old New England forest, a long-overdue morning at Walden Pond, and the wilderness I did not realize I had been missing until I was surrounded by it again.

  • Shake Awake

    Shake Awake

    A 4.4 earthquake, eight weeks of summer break, and the daily work of standing ground when the earth refuses to stay still.

  • Not On My Bingo Card

    Not On My Bingo Card

    A family trip to Amsterdam, four homemade bingo cards, and grace found outside the itinerary.

  • Kin In Spirit

    Kin In Spirit

    A papal visit in Naples, a phone-free teenager, a crowd full of joy, and a bus stop blessing I did not see coming.

  • The Blue Box

    The Blue Box

    Our teenager says we are damaging his aura. We call it the Blue Box, the brief stretch of years when all four of us still live under one roof.

  • I Ate My Neighbor’s Cat

    I Ate My Neighbor’s Cat

    I ate the cat. Or so I said. Comic disasters in Italian open into something larger about late learning, humility, and finally picking up an oar.

  • We Were Here

    We Were Here

    A week in England with family, football dreams, royal rooms, old buildings, and the British Museum opens into a reflection on history past and present, the close of Lent, and what it means to say we were here.