Bespoke

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ― Anton Chekhov

@ourtinycottage

Latest Posts

  • This Quilted Shore

    It is summer in Ocean City. Biplanes pull banners advertising seafood buffets while below dolphins arc through the surf. The lettuce and peas are out of the ground and the tiny gardens fronting the summer houses are blooming hydrangeas, daylilies… Continue reading

    This Quilted Shore

  • The Road to Damascus

    … a bomb nearly took me out. It happened on the road to Damascus. Not the Damascus where Saul was blinded by a light from heaven. Damascus, Arkansas. Continue reading

    The Road to Damascus

  • Tending What Grows: Life and Death in a Greenhouse

    Karen and I were once DINKs… Double Income, No Kids. We were young and relatively unencumbered. Karen taught high school math in Maple Shade, New Jersey. I practiced as a CPA — which meant I spent my days talking about… Continue reading

  • Beneath the Skin

    “Mr. Lem. Taylor, an old citizen of this county, last week, cut a minnie ball out of the upper part of his thigh he had been carrying in his body for twenty-five years.”   That was the first line of a… Continue reading

  • Writing, Baking, and Making Toys

    I’m writing a book. My daughter is baking and selling bread. My brother runs a wood shop, making wooden blocks for children. Continue reading

  • What Progress Can’t Measure: A Ripe Life

    My brother visited over Thanksgiving. He drove, sorry, he sat in a self-driving Tesla and never touched the steering wheel from Utica, New York, to Bartlesville. He brought apples from a local orchard. They were perfectly ripe—crisp, sweet, juicy. It… Continue reading

    What Progress Can’t Measure: A Ripe Life

  • Jair and the Drum

    A boy sat on a low stone wall on the edge of Bethlehem as the fading sunlight sifted through the narrow streets like a handful of warm grain. He stood up and walked into the market between the stalls and… Continue reading

  • Driving Through East Texas and the Garden of Gilgamesh

    “Why are we here?” Karen asked this nonchalantly, as if she were wondering why roosters have combs on their heads. I was hoping she was talking to herself—or that the question was rhetorical. But since we were driving to Houston,… Continue reading

  • The Ryder Cup: Between Delirium & Decorum

    “What are you doing, dear?” My wife asked me this while I sat watching the Ryder Cup yesterday. “Ahh, just sitting here crying with Cam, Justin, Scottie, and all the lads,” I told her. Then I rewound and made her… Continue reading

  • Downton Abbey: a reflection

    Karen and I went to the movie theater to see Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. The concession guy apparently decanted my Pepsi into a small cup with a straw—not unlike Carson the Butler filtering wine through cheesecloth—before telling me with… Continue reading

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