Writing from the Heart with Brian
Think, Laugh, & Cry Each Day
A simple request from my wife to borrow a flannel shirt sent me down a hallway of memory. Flannel was my father's uniform through every high and low of his life. Looking at his old shirt hanging in my closet reminds me that people are complicated, messy, and full of grace if we choose to see it.
We talk a lot about billionaires and the 1%, but a memory from an old college classroom makes me wonder: Are the world's greatest luxuries already within our grasp?
From the quiet awe of takeoff to the absurdity of the terminal, air travel is a mix of miracles and madness. A look at the brief magic of flight—and the universal quirks of the people we fly with.
From moody introverted seagulls and missing personalized keychains to the undisputed supremacy of beach ice cream, here are a few simple observations and lessons learned from a recent trip to Bethany Beach.
Seeking refuge from the chaotic terminal gate, I bumped into a fellow traveler with a familiar look of exhaustion—and a full set of feathers. A short story about finding common ground in unexpected places.
(A version of this story first appeared on June 21, 2023 on The Heart of The Matter.) My sons were both excited, my daughter a bit less, but she was being a good sport. They wanted to see the waterfalls. Our kids were all relatively young and we had billed up the falls and our... Continue Reading →
When I worked as a newspaper reporter, we used to keep a running list of 'rackets' that bugged us. I left the newsroom, but I'm still keeping score. From the guilt-trip of an iPad tip screen to the power of AI, here are the everyday institutions that drive me up a wall.
A heart-stopping moment on a crowded beach taught me about panic, but it took becoming a father twenty-five years later to truly understand the ghosts that haunt our parents—and how quickly routine can turn to chaos.
A quick mission to buy a bucket of kettle corn on the Bethany Beach boardwalk turned into an exercise in optical illusions and $35 worth of decision-making regret. Here is how Goldilocks in flip-flops accidentally bought a 10-gallon drum of popcorn—and how nine people finished it in 24 hours.
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