January in Riverdale. The world of our street feels crisp, white, new. It's hard work getting the baby outside, snowsuit and stroller and all, but most days we do it anyway, aiming to enjoy the natural world in all seasons, in all its crevices. There's color out there against the snow: winter berries, sumac drupes, …
Author: Hilary Vidalakis
Venice Belongs To The Water
The lake looks angry, my Dad said as he parked the car, then hopped in the back seat to wait with the baby. My husband and I crossed the parking lot and headed lakeward, under the hill whose big white house had hosted our wedding reception. We hopscotched between water-slick stone and mud paths, trying …
Channeling Muir in The Bronx
When you hike a trail you honor the life, the legend, the man, the beard: John Muir himself. "This great Scottish-American conservationist can be considered the father of our National Parks, and founder of the modern environmental movement. More than anything, though, he loved a walk in the woods." So speaks the trail sign on my …
Goodbye, Fort Tryon
A writer discovers: it's in your last moments in a place that you come to love it the most.
A Boot-ist Meditation
Alone at the table I sit, pen-in-hand, remembering. I'm writing a eulogy. For my boots. They were my best, most rugged pair of fire boots: Danners, with thick rubber soles and knowing, thorned-in scratches. Victims of a brutal crime: an unannounced cleaning spree at my parents' house. It is a eulogy, also, to the migratory …
Writing the Wild 