It is hard to ask for help, but it shows wisdom to ask when you need it. Asking in the way my father does makes it feel like a privilege to be helpful. I hope I can be as gracious when I need help—tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.By Carrie Classon

I honestly don’t mind not having a tattoo. I figure they are like every other kind of fashion and will come and go. If I manage to live long enough, not having tattoos will probably be cool, allowing me to be a very cool nonagenarian. I have that to look forward to.By Carrie Classon

Peter and our cat, Felix, have been playing their nightly game of chase and tag. Peter always loses. This might be because Felix makes the rules—and is the referee.By Carrie Classon

I remember that feeling of being convinced there was this world of secrets I did not know, and I’ve been reminding myself there is a very good chance that there is no secret. And then reminding myself, if I don't know something, I can always just ask.By Carrie Classon

I saw Ruthie, and she had not made pickles. Maybe the cucumbers had not cooperated. Maybe she was working on other things. Maybe she just lost interest in supplying every relative in her large family with pickles. A person does not need a reason not to make pickles, and yet I felt Aunt Ruthie owed me an explanation.…

I didn’t even know how long red squirrels lived. Three years, I later learned, is average, although some have lived up to 10 years in captivity. But even with a steady supply of seeds, I don’t think Stubby was living under optimum conditions. Somebody had already gotten the end of his tail, after all.…

Felix enjoyed his room at the Sheraton very much. In addition to the French fries, there were a lot of places to explore, and he discovered he could hide under the dust ruffle of the bed and attack our feet. When we went to bed, he climbed up between us. “What a good cat!” I said.By Carrie Classon

Estefan is an older gentleman with a broad smile, and he was sitting at a sewing machine improbably parked in a tiny spot behind the beverage cooler. Estefan said he would be delighted to sew a sofa cover for us. He came to look at the sofa. He borrowed a tape measure from Peter, and he wrote a lot of numbers down on a pad of paper. Then he left wi…

It always starts in the same way. I get a sore throat. First, I ignore it. I have found this is the best way to deal with imminent disasters. When I used to drive old cars, I would turn up the radio when I heard an ominous noise. Loud music and deliberate ignorance can take you for many miles.By Carrie Classon

There is cheese by the slice and wine and pickles and cookies and toothpicks. The only things they don’t sell at Bonanza are fresh breads, vegetables and meat—because you know you are supposed to go to the proper store to get those.By Carrie Classon

“There is nothing as nice as a crisp cotton sheet” is what my mother would say. She hangs her sheets out on the line to this day, and perhaps that’s what got me thinking about perfection. Perfection has to be imperfect enough to notice it, to enjoy it, to make me pay attention.By Carrie Classon

Living with a cat, you start to eye gravity with suspicion. Small items that appeared to be securely in place must be scrutinized, as if living under the imminent threat of a major earthquake. Living with a cat is like living in a spaceship. Items cannot be expected to remain where they are put. Everything needs to be put inside something else to p…

Maybe my writing will make somebody smile. Maybe someone will feel less alone. Maybe it will be used to line the bottom of a birdcage. But whatever happens, I’m hoping it will be useful in some small way.By Carrie Classon

Rod Stewart has the untidiest hair you’re likely to find on an octogenarian (outside a long-term senior care facility), and I decided he was my new role model.By Carrie Classon

I’ve had several cats but, as far as I can remember, I had never made breakfast for any of them. Peter scrambled up an egg and gave Felix part of it. Felix loved scrambled eggs. Then Peter got reading up on what else cats like.By Carrie Classon

“We have a tradition in Mexico,” Jorge told us, in English. “When you are given a plate with food, you must return it with a gift. This is what we do with our family and our friends.”By Carrie Classon

“What was that?” Peter asked. Peter sleeps with earplugs when we are in Mexico, but the noise outside our bedroom woke him. I went to investigate. It appeared there had been some small-scale vandalism in the night. The garbage can had been mysteriously overturned and bits of crumbled bread were all over the floor.…

I explained to the baker (to the best of my ability) that I had a meeting at 2:00 and I would love to bring “sweets” to the meeting. The meeting, I added, was with Americans. (There will also be several Canadians, but I decided not to complicate things.) I could tell he sensed the problem. This man looked as if he’d been baking things long enough t…

Getting a piece of cake in the middle of the day adds some unexpected sweetness to the day. Peter and I don’t speak enough Spanish to know how to tell these people how grateful we are, how at home we feel, and how much their everyday kindness means to us.By Carrie Classon

We’ll be staying in our little one-bedroom apartment, and I’ll be writing at my little green Formica desk. It’s not the fanciest place. It’s nowhere near as nice as the homes of most of our friends. But every night our landlord, Jorge, will greet us and the colorful suns hanging from the walls around us will smile at us and we will know we have eve…

Right outside the elevator doors, they started singing the Frank Sinatra tune, “Don’t Blame Me.” The setting might not have been the most romantic, but the acoustics were perfect. Those barbershop singers brought tears to my eyes.By Carrie Classon

It turns out that no one cares if I stay up too late eating toffee. There is no editorial committee reviewing my statements from the previous day, informing me of how they might have been more clever or less embarrassing.By Carrie Classon

When I see typewriters, rather than experiencing a pleasant nostalgia, I feel something closer to dread.By Carrie Classon

I wondered how much we could ever know about a little red squirrel. We pretend he thinks just like us and we know, of course, this is not true. But I know he was watching, and I was glad he was there, on this day my mom was not feeling her best. I don’t know what he was pondering as he sat there, his fingers knit together, looking earnestly into th…

The biggest change I would like to make in the new year is to stop behaving as if I have all the time in the world. While I don’t know how much time I have, (and I hope it is still considerable), none of us knows. I’d like to be a little gentler on myself in this new year. I’d like to treat myself like a person who is not going to live forever—simp…

There are so many troubles I have never known. There is a world of pain I have never experienced. While I was dwelling on a couple of hastily dressed kids with messy hair quietly doodling in the front pew, there were wells of pain and loss and confusion right in front of me that I could not imagine.By Carrie Classon

Auntie Jo would head downstairs to wrap presents and, at some point, their dog, Twinkie, would make a mad dash out the door. We’d all scour the neighborhood until we found Twinkie. Then Auntie Jo would go to change her clothes and emerge, more resplendent than the Christmas tree.By Carrie Classon

I tried to imagine where I would wear these pants, and nothing came to mind. I could imagine them swishing around my ankles. I would wear platform shoes and enormous hoop earrings. I imagined the person I would be, wearing palazzo pants, and a whole new world opened up before me. A world that, in actual fact, did not exist.…

I wished I had a few more words. I wished I could understand just a bit better. I no longer care if I use the wrong form of a verb, or forget a word, or say something embarrassing. It makes no difference at all. What I care about, more than ever, is being able to understand these people—my new friends.…

My mother's family was a Swedish farming family and we asked for strength to keep on working. Feasting in Paradise might have been fine for some, but that was a little more than any of us could imagine. Asking for strength so we could keep on doing what we had been doing seemed like a pretty safe bet and, perhaps, not too much to ask.…

This cup holds more than my coffee. This cup holds the memories I am making, day by day, sip by sip, as I sit at my desk in Mexico. It holds the bright markets and the feel of the round cobblestone streets beneath my feet and the smiles of the countless friendly people I meet every day.By Carrie Classon

I tried to tell him that I don’t make dietary choices for anyone but myself. But then I realized this was not quite true.By Carrie Classon

There is no need to save these gloves for a special day. Because this day—this going to church together and having coffee and sharing pastries and plans day—was as special as any day could be.By Carrie Classon

I love the idea of a day—or the better part of a week—set aside to tell stories like that and to keep the memory of my grandma, and so many others we have loved so much, alive.By Carrie Classon

I know young people hate to call. They text and instantly respond, and that seems to work well. When older people text, they tend to forget to check their messages, and balls get dropped. I’m guessing I’m not alone in this.By Carrie Classon

I’m sure I’m not the only one who talks to dogs on my daily walk. I’d be surprised, however, if anyone was more enthusiastic about it. I am also (if I say so myself), very good at it. This is because I have a secret method for talking to dogs.By Carrie Classon

I wrote a story about a man who believed as my friend did. I tried to imagine what might happen to that man that could cause him to change his mind.By Carrie Classon

I walk around in my shiny new boots, and I wonder if I shouldn’t be doing something different—even if it’s less ambitious than learning to fly or stockpiling enough food to live on for six months.By Carrie Classon

We are all making up stories for one another without knowing what the real story is. The story I make up for myself when I am anxious is that I am failing—somehow, somewhere—and no one has told me how or why.By Carrie Classon

I think I’ve known for most of my life I would never be as consistent or disciplined or sensible as my parents. They were this way when I grew up, and they remain every bit as remarkable now that I am getting old.By Carrie Classon

A friend objected to my recent column. It wasn’t realistic, he wrote. Bad things happen, and people like me should acknowledge them. He talked about tornados and shootings. He said people like me would go looking for a pony in a pile of horse poop.By Carrie Classon

We all agreed that it should be more entertaining than it was—at least for us. We suspected other people (younger people) might have more fun reading this than we were.By Carrie Classon

The cat prints and the poetry and the leaf print in the cement will not last 200 million years. But they will last longer than the poet who wrote the words or the cat who left the prints or the tree that dropped the leaf. And I think that is, somehow, wonderful.By Carrie Classon

It doesn’t seem like my dad’s way of looking at the world, it just seems like the way the world should be looked at—if I take the time to be thoughtful and don’t rush out and do something stupid.By Carrie Classon

I know for certain that strangers have helped me when I needed help, and kind words have changed my day from terrible to something better—something more hopeful.By Carrie Classon

I don’t think my mother ever expected to have a red squirrel as a pet. I know she resisted for a long time. But Stubby has changed her mind about at least one red squirrel, and I think that is kind of remarkable.By Carrie Classon

Songs tided me over. They gave voice to feelings that were either too powerful or too painful to experience in silence. Songs grounded me when I felt I might fly away or explode. Songs made sense of things, even if I couldn’t explain in words what I learned from them.By Carrie Classon

My cousin Dane is the kind of guy who sits back in a room and listens to everyone trying to solve a problem and, after they’ve exhausted themselves trying to figure something out, he’ll say, “You know, what you might try is…” And whatever he suggests, it will be exactly the right thing to do.By Carrie Classon

It turns out that I love flowers far more than I knew. I love the shapes and the colors and the varieties and the seasons. I love how some will take over for a while, commanding attention, and then they fade and something new comes to the fore.By Carrie Classon

My mother reluctantly adopted Stubby after the tragic loss of half his tail last year. He went from her archenemy to her best friend, and now my mother feeds him every day. He has become quite tame and is clearly devoted to my mother and so, naturally, every time I chat with my mom, I ask how Stubby is doing. Apparently, Stubby got into some troubl…