Linda Gray Sexton
Today I received an email from a reader who had recently signed up for Linda’s Letters. There she told me that she hadn’t received any: what could she do to rectify the situation? I was ashamed to explain to her that she hadn’t been left off the list—the reason for the omission was simply…
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Where are the words? I wonder. Where are the words? My throat is parched and my tongue lies like a slug in my mouth. My fingers are thick and clumsy on the keyboard. I am only writing replies to sympathy e-mail and notes of gratitude for the many arrangements of flowers that have stood in…
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When my best friend from Annapolis moved to Vermont to be near her sister and start a new life, I understood. Hadn’t I done just the same thing five years before when I transplanted myself from California to Maryland to be closer to Joy? I watched as Lucie packed up her shelves of books, her…
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Connecting with old friends can be a mixed experience. Recently I went to my high school class’s fiftieth reunion, which had been postponed twice already due to COVID. When I received the second invitation last fall I dumped it into the trash can on my computer: why would I want to get together with these…
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Being a Nana these days is tricky. Once, grandparents were asked for their advice on how to raise a child, but now members of the “younger generation” tend to turn to their peers; and it is important to accept that choice—no matter how frustrating it is to repress the urge to offer well-intentioned guidance. On…
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Ah, the pleasures of supper—a communal meal set around the dinner table every night, as reliable as the spoons and forks set at the edges of our placemats. I grew up in a family in which cooking showed everyone just how much you cared about them. Both my sister and I inherited this sort of…
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On the table in my study I’ve propped a photo I recently found of my mother next to one of my younger son. Her hair is dyed black, but is nevertheless tinged with silver around her face, and has been set in the style of the times: with curlers and a teasing comb and shellac…
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Our eldest dog, Breeze, will turn fourteen on February 16th this year. She’s always been our “Valentine,” from the day we picked her up at her breeder’s in North Carolina, and then returned home again to California with her in a carrier underneath under our seat on the plane. Gulliver, our older Dal and the…
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As she moved into her mid-seventies, my Nana began to say: “getting old is hell.” And when my father reached the same point, he was wont to declare: “just take me out in the backyard and shoot me.” Both of them were pivotal people in my life, providing love, wisdom and stability over the course…
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Music. Music. Music. How my mother loved music of all sorts—even though she couldn’t carry a tune and never played an instrument. Can such a love run in families? Perhaps so, as I sang in three high school choirs and participated in “summer stock” musical comedies where singing was de rigueur. I began with the…
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