Patricia Wild’s Blog
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Who Tells The Story?
[Full disclosure: Your storyteller grew up pre-Title IX ; she's never played on a team.] What I'd most wanted for ...
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Bend like Insight Bends
Nineteenth-century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker has been quoted by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr ...
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When the Planets Align
Sunday afternoon, on the sidewalk in front of my house, I randomly reunited with a neighbor who'd moved away years ...
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“We understand the assignment!”
This will be brief: A huge fan of Kamala Harris since she'd run for president, I've owned a "Kamala" baseball ...
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T Is For Tia—and Also For Terrific!
Saturday, an exquisite, sunny day in greater Boston, I was seated on a crowded T car when a multi-generational, Spanish-speaking ...
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Hammock Reading?
For whatever reason, Friends Journal re-issued an article I wrote in 2018. Not light reading! But timely, I think. So ...
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What Part of Community (Path) Do You Not Understand?
Another guerrilla gardener has struck! Another delightful installation along Somerville's newly-created community path, built strictly for bikers and walkers, this ...
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Guest Author, Irene F. Ficarra (1912-1993): “What I Remember About the Molasses Tank Explosion”
[While delving into my "Women's Writing" file* recently, found this horrifying, first-hand account written by Irene F. Ficarra, one of ...
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“Sensible and Human Things”
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atom bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing ...
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“Who Are You Wearing?”
"I think she looks almost what you call a Quaker" [Middlemarch.] At first glance, I must seem a very bad ...
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“(Mill)Dam!”
[Faulkner Mill, North Billerica, MA] Where there is a mill there is a river. And a dam. Currently (no pun ...
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“Beyond A Reasonable Doubt?”
When I was growing up, my family ate dinner at precisely 6:00. My father, who liked to remind us that ...
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Looming
Oscar season, this week I saw "Boy and The Heron," a Best Animated Feature nominee. Instantly, this rich, episodic, allegorical ...
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Your Cup of Tea?
English novelist Barbara Pym is not everyone's cup of tea. Slyly hilarious, her emphasis on cosy (British spelling) and the ...
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Lumi means “snow” in Finnish; it also means Light.
I'm not a dog person. Which means quizzical-verging-on-contemptuous looks from the numerous dog owners in my neighborhood as I briskly ...
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The Colors of White
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What Am I Called To Do (with asterisks)?:
To listen another's soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service one human ...
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“That’s What Art Does, Right?”
While still dark, the Garbage to Garden driver arrives in front of our house; the truck's rattling wakes me up ...
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Moving Day
Years ago my Mets fan son-in-law, he and my daughter toying with the idea of leaving The Big Apple to ...
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“Wait! What?”
Tom Jones, who wrote "The Fantasticks" book and lyrics, died this week. This news means something to me: In 1966 ...
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Just There!
One morning years ago, wearily trudging down the basement stairs carrying yet another overflowing basket of dirty clothes, I distinctly ...
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“Hot Enough For Ya?”
Due to some fortuitous timing this week, a writing assignment arrived as if a prayed-for thunderstorm on a torrid summer ...
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“This Stinks!”
Years ago I taught a women's writing class which met in the cafeteria of a nearby elementary school. Working-class mothers ...