Guestwords

What holds a nest (a nation?) together? Strands of material chosen with intelligence and heart. Our species has practiced — for centuries — with the tools to build “a community of care.”

The members of our Sag Harbor Women’s Golf League were happy to be out playing again but at the same time aware that unseen microbes could be emanating from flagpoles, cups, balls, and other people.

George W. Bush and Barack Obama both made use of a White House office to prepare for public health disasters. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the office was no longer functional, and valuable time was unnecessarily lost.

To some, spring means cleaning, courtship, or crocuses. To the baseball addict, though, spring is the end of that dark, languid void of silent suffering between October and April. Not this year.

When the pope suggested that the coronavirus might be the Earth’s response to the man-made climate crisis, was it magical thinking? Or was it a sound, even useful, metaphor.

Popular culture has appropriated the traditional philosophical term “existential,” and the new, fashionable usage clouds philosophers’ contributions.

As Americans, we don’t consider “holidays” a given, but if there is any one idea that unites us, it is our shared experience of summer’s pull. We anticipate summer with the hunger that precedes a much-needed meal.

After a few days of the new regimen, you may begin to start wondering what’s going to kill you first, the coronavirus or being in such close proximity for so long.

The similarities between Covid-19 and climate change are striking. In both cases, it isn’t too late to make it less bad than if we do nothing, and “less bad” is as good as it gets.

I am not one to induce panic when it could be argued that panic is appropriate, but many of my friends and college classmates are as concerned as I am that this virus has the potential to do a lot more economic damage to the country than we realize.

The guaranteed way to get through the Covid-19 era is distraction. Here an accomplished physicist diverts you from thinking about the coronavirus with puzzles, problems, wisdom, and humor.

Suddenly, every parent is a homeschooler, and everyone is an artist. We’re playing music, performing, dancing, writing stories, and making art. Creative expression is at an all-time high. Who could spare the time for this two weeks ago?

Many of us have suffered already from the warlike shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will all suffer in some way. If we learn from the record, however, we can take steps to minimize the impact.

I tend to bristle when addressed as “ma’am.” Ma’am is so, well, elderly. Uh, except in Brazil?

To help Dell Cullum and his Wildlife Rescue of East Hampton nonprofit, a comedy night fund-raiser was in order. This is what I do.

I am among that elite group of people who can afford not to work, or, as in my case, were tossed out of it, and who easily lose track of days — all days, in fact, are rather the same.

A new vigil for social change takes shape at the windmill in Sag Harbor. It meets every Friday.

On the East End, fusing commercial endeavors with deep-rooted values and social good has been an ideal for years. There are many examples flourishing in our midst.

“It was 50 years ago today,” I thought as I entered the theater this past August to catch the 1969 period film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” looking for a reminder of a divine encounter one summer day in Los Angeles.

Why, in an era when there are so many things to be grateful for and happy about, are a plurality of Americans riddled with anxiety, anger, fear, and depression?

I first picked up Caroline Pratt’s 1948 memoir-cum-history of the City and Country School, “I Learn From Children,” in the late 1960s, and its progressive commitment to growing activist citizens instantly resonated. It’s out in a new edition, and not a moment too soon.

Norman Jaffe’s landmark design for Harold Becker’s house in a Wainscott pasture taught me that rule-bending buildings can change your mental space, your emotional compass, your perception of the relationship between nature and human nature.

My life as a full-time patient.

Long Island real estate is suffering as sales decrease and homes lose value, and one reason is chronic flooding fueled by climate change.

Writing a memoir was not something that came naturally. It was more like building my first treehouse and my second marriage. I had to struggle to learn how to “measure twice, cut once.”

Breaking news, Verizon. There’s a new kid in town, a challenger for your WCW crown — Worst Company in the World.

“Jojo Rabbit” is told from the point of view of a boy during the war. I was a boy at the same time. And I had trouble laughing.

Remembering William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the E.P.A., a principled government official whose life was dedicated to environmental leadership.

There is no greater pain than the feeling of shame. I know. As a victim of clerical sexual abuse, my tears waited nearly half a century to stream from my eyes.

I don’t know if any one of us ever really got through John F. Kennedy’s assassination.