Carrie Classon

I am delighted to report that my mother has come around. I have been lobbying my mother for months to take pity on a little red squirrel who had acquired a great fondness for her, demonstrating his devotion by digging up all her flowerpots and gazing at her for minutes at a time through the…

My husband, Peter, says they are rushing the season. I’m not sure who “they” are. The Christmas Cartel, perhaps. The vast conspiracy of premature holiday merrymakers. Whoever they are, Peter does not approve. And he does have a point. There are still life-size skeletons scaling the walls of a huge brick house I walk by…

A few weeks before Halloween and many years ago, when I was still married to my former husband, he and I and a couple we knew all decided we would celebrate Halloween dressed as the Midwest. At the time, it seemed like a clever idea. I was from Minnesota, my former husband was from Wisconsin,…

I love Little Free Libraries. If you don’t have these in your neighborhood, they are little boxes that look like tiny houses—not much larger than a big birdhouse—with a glass door on the front and books inside. People leave books they have read and pick up books they want to read and, somehow, the whole…

This past week we attended the memorial for my husband Peter’s oldest sister, Shelley. Shelley went through a long battle with cancer, and Peter lost his second sister in two years. The pandemic had just started, her husband had just died, and Shelley moved 900 miles across the country to live near her kids. Then,…

My husband, Peter, and I are spending time “up north” with my parents at their cabin by the lake. Fall is late this year. I mentioned this to Peter on the drive north. “Aren’t the leaves supposed to change color at the same time every year?” I asked. “I thought they changed when the days…

It’s not always easy living with me. But my husband, Peter, has to. I know it is not easy, because I live with myself every day, and I feel the bits of anxiety and nervousness and occasional emotional overload escape out of me and flood the house that Peter has to live in. Sometimes, I…

I met Betty sitting outside on the sidewalk. Betty spends a lot of time there. She lives in the adjacent building. It is a place for older folks who need a lot of help and don’t have a lot of money. Betty lost both legs, below the knee, at some point. She wears a curly…

“I don’t remember you at all!” the portly man informed my husband, Peter. Peter smiled, introduced himself, and reminded the gentleman where they might have met half a century ago. The man shook his head. “Nope!” This was the first high school class reunion I had ever attended, and it was filled with moments like…

Here’s the thing: I’m not superstitious. It all started when I was still in Mexico, visiting a gallery, and I saw a painting across the room. The composition was striking. The bottom third was black and the top two-thirds were filled with a deep blue sky and great white clouds rising from the horizon. There…