torn

I DREAMED it was a sunny afternoon and there was a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. I was torn. I wanted to go skiing with Luke, but I also wanted to stay exactly where I was, fast asleep on the sofa.

turning 42

TEN THOUGHTS on the last day of my forty-second year on Earth: 

     1) Scolding or shouting at a person never helps your cause and rarely changes anyone’s mind. In fact, it often accomplishes the opposite. If you want to express your opinion and have it truly be heard, add humor, humility or kindness to your message, and it will be well received. Better yet, embody the virtues you wish to see in the world, and let that be your message instead.

the tie the day before

EVERY NIGHT I put out what I’ll be wearing the following day, including underwear, socks and shoes — and a belt if I’m wearing a belt. I started this daily ritual the night before I took my seventh grade school picture and I’ve kept it up ever since.

what the sign says

NOW THAT WE LIVE in a different neighborhood, I have a new commute into the city. It’s a cool ride. I bike from our apartment near Memorial Park, all along Buffalo Bayou, into downtown Houston — and I never have to stop at a stop sign or a traffic light. The bike trails go over and under the surface streets.

a family like a fricassee

HE DOESN’T SEEM to talk much, but then he doesn’t have to. When you’ve fathered almost an entire town, words are unnecessary. “Pop” Joe Courville celebrates his 87th birthday today on the banks of Catahoula Lake. According to his oldest daughter, Mrs. J. B. (Yola) Laviolette, almost everyone in the town will attend. 

goose

picture catahoula

I HAD NO IDEA how it would end when it began. All I knew is that I’d discovered a trove of great material, and that I wanted to create a book befitting that material, as elegant and as surprising as the photographs I’d unearthed. When I began, I was just groping in the dark. But if I shuffled the images around enough, I suspected, grouping and regrouping them, eventually a story might come into view.