Patricia Wild’s Blog

“Attention Must be Paid”
Saturday, a gorgeous spring day, I was sitting, maskless, on a Cambridge Common park bench chatting with a new friend ...
All Of A Peace?
Back in October a gifted Buddhist teacher, Sharon Salzberg, offered a “Ten-Day LovingKindness Challenge” course online—recommended by my friend, Diana ...
Peek Experience (No, that’s not a typo)
These days, I've noticed that when my dear friend Alex is asked how he's doing, he'll often respond, "Given the ...
Grounded
Urged to do so, I dutifully watched the first two episodes of the Ken Burns' documentary on Ernest Hemingway—and, much ...
What I’m Adding for Lent: Week Six
Week Six: "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" So the Aramaic word, waahboqlan, can mean "forgive" but ...
This is Me, This is Us
Today, here's how I'm remembering a moment at the end of the documentary, "Knock Down the House." It's election night ...
Not In The Wind?
Quakers often quote that passage from 1 Kings when a depressed and confused Elijah, standing on top of Mount Horeb, ...
The Light Returns
I distinctly remember how I'd felt, years ago, probably in a Philosophy 101 class, when I realized that light becomes darkness and ...
An Audience of One
[Snarky Puppy, House of Blues, Boston, May 12, 2019] Every year between Christmas and New Year's, I read my journal ...
Call Me Fred
Hoping to see the once-in-a-lifetime sighting of Jupiter and Saturn last night, I'd traipsed all over my neighborhood trying to spot ...
Inner Landscape
[Edward Tufte's Hogpen Hill Farm's Sculpture Landscape Park, Woodbury, CT; October 12, 2020] Yesterday afternoon, as it has done for ...
You’re Evicted!
I've heard lots of people talk about "the real estate in my head" lately but have had no reason to ...
Slough of Despond
Is it slew? Is it slahw-rhymes with cow? Does it matter? No. What matters, Pilgrim, is that you and I stay in this ...
Who’s In The Frame?
Needing to do some in-person banking yesterday (where, wearing a mask, my glasses so thoroughly fogged up I could barely ...
“Opening like air, like realization”*
This year, Coming Out Day prompted me to recall the first time someone came out to me—almost fifty years ago ...
White Rooms
Because decisions get made that reinforce white hierarchies every day, it would be good if the culture of whiteness were marked and ...
Excerpt 3: Strands
On a propitiously spectacular early-summer Sunday, maybe fifty of us, maybe a hundred, most of us White, most of us ...
That’s a Good One
She’d been badass once. Had you’d ambled through the New Hampshire woods when oak tree leaves were the size of ...
Egret
[This is an excerpt from my new meta novel, Missing Reels, currently looking for a home:] Egret, she starts to write on ...
Excerpt 2: Strands
[Here is an excerpt from a memoir I'm working on—Strands.] Grief does not appear solely through tears; it is also ...
Excerpt 1: Strands
[Since I am both proud of what I am currently working on and, apparently, unable to do more than one ...
Making Do
Six stamps left. Loathe to step inside our tiny, neighborhood post office and wanting to support the currently-endangered USPS, we'd ...
“Feeding off the Vibe”*
Zoom has become a daily feature in my life, much-needed yet disquieting. Yes, I long for connection with others; I ...
How Can I Keep from Singing?
Almost home from our daily walk, just as we were walking past, we saw a neighbor we didn't know come ...