The Mental Load of Packing Lunches

At first blush, the request from my son’s preschool seemed reasonable. “As spring time approaches we want to encourage families to consider packing ‘waste free’ snacks and lunches, which should help boost your child’s nutritional intake, reduce waste going into landfills, and save money over time.” Sure, we’re drowning in plastic. Let’s produce less waste. It’s […]

Redux: Rare Birds

This post first ran in March 2022. A few days ago, a friend texted me that a red-flanked bluetail had been spotted a couple of miles from where I live. I had to look up what a red-flanked bluetail was. Turns out that the red-flanked bluetail—also known as the orange-flanked bush-robin—is a small songbird with […]

Consider The Rocks, and You Might Feel Better

My preschooler is awed by many things, some of them more generally relatable than others. A spider in the sliding-door track. Mist coming through the woods. Irish butter. And rocks. For a long while now, her favorite miracles have been rocks. She doesn’t anthropomorphize them, turn them into pets, or expect unreasonable things from them. […]

Science Poem: Farewell Transmission

What follows is a poem about the Voyager spacecraft I wrote a long time ago, when the world and I were very different than we are today. For a multisensory experience, you can read along while listening to a splendid set-to-space-noise version here.