In numerous folk traditions, mid-winter is marked by uncanny goings-on, including the legend that animals can talk at midnight on Christmas Eve. What they reveal during this magical time can be benevolent or foreboding, depending on the storyteller.

As a child, my one consuming fear was a tsunami. I don’t know when I first heard of the huge tidal wave that could decimate an entire island, but it still has the same effect on me when I think of it. My chest draws in and my breath gets short. I can see it make a tide pool of the beach, disappearing the waves until an unimaginably huge wave starts rising up from a half-mile out to sea and grows larger, as large as a 10-story building, until it crashes over me and everything.

Happy holidays, dear readers! I am an easygoing guy, generally speaking—but there are a few things that I’ve come to recognize as pet peeves, trivial little occurrences that become opportunities for me to work myself into a state of high dudgeon and righteous indignation.

Columns ‘highlighted the deep nature of her mind’ I don’t recall exactly how Kristin and I met, but by the time her daughter Lily was born, we were fast friends, and celebrated …

Happy New Year! Did you make a New Year’s resolution? Do you have a process for planning your new year? A few years ago, I developed this strategic process to plan for the year ahead and I …