When lists of best restaurants in Phoenix are published, Pizzeria Bianco is often at the top. The six wood-fired pizzas offered on the menu are simple and uncluttered; a few toppings carefully combined on top of a hand-shaped and slightly charred crust. This week, I was...
“Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?” –Scott Turow Television was limited for the girls when they were little, and nothing made them happier than watching the animated TV show Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood as a special treat. One evening, after a very big...
Emma and I sat in the waiting room of the orthodontist’s office, the clock ticking slowly, each minute seeming to drag longer than the last. The magazines were old, the movie playing on the TV screen uninteresting, the toys uninspiring. Emma shifted in her chair;...
I remember the way the book looked: dark blue with embossed white text. The cover of the book showed two children walking along a winding path, as if they were inviting you to tag along with them to learn about the stories contained within the...
While taking an evening walk, I noticed a bee resting on a bright red rose. The sky was darkening, and the bee, nestled in the delicate petals, seemed out of place, as if he had missed the call to return to his hive. Bees are the hardest...
There’s a teenage boy leaning against a cork tree. It looks almost like a normal tree, except the outermost layer of bark has been removed from a section of the base, revealing a smooth underlayer. A spray-painted year on the tree indicates when the cork...
Ella spread a layer of butter onto a slice of warm, freshly made bread. Our host in Portugal had baked a loaf for us earlier in the morning, and breakfast was waiting for us when we came down the creaky stairs of the inn. The bread...
The woman seated at the table next to me asks for a to-go box. She is having the complimentary breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant with her two small children, who are scribbling wildly on the paper menus with red and blue crayons. The waitress apologizes, explaining...
When I am traveling for work, I find myself taking screenshots and pictures of things I think the girls would like. I might stumble across a video of a baby giraffe first standing up on wobbly legs, find a cookie recipe we might want to...
When German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven was asked about his method of writing by a fellow composer in 1822, he shared, “I carry my thoughts about me for a long time, sometimes a very long time, before I set them down …” Even when Beethoven...