Virginia Buckingham - Marblehead Current

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Renewing a childhood hobby

31May

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Top Stories, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Renewing a childhood hobby

Did you have a hobby when you were younger that you gave up? Maybe you didn’t stop because you stopped enjoying it. You just got busy with other things. Or there wasn’t an opportunity to keep at it because you went off to college or moved to a place that made continuing the hobby more difficult. I know a lot of people took up hobbies, old and new, during the pandemic. I completed dozens of puzzles in the last three years but as the world opened up, the boxes of puzzles I’d bought, thinking I’d keep up the habit, have remained closed. And I’ve talked to some friends who dropped their pandemic-borne hobbies because they were a reminder of that hard, stressful period. I was the serious-minded young kid in my neighborhood who walked around carrying a field guide to birds. In fact, with ...

26May

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Local News, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Fill up summer to slow it down

I’m thinking what you’re thinking. This is the best time of the year to live in Marblehead and New England. This season is our revenge. Those who moved to Florida or Arizona and posted palm tree pictures in my Facebook feed all winter? I’ll see your post with mine of a perfect sunset over the harbor, and raise you an overflowing lobster roll. Every year at about this time, my husband and I start talking about all the plans we want to make for the summer. Who do we want to invite over for a barbeque? How many cooking fires can we fit in at Goldthwait Reservation? What shows might we try to see? We have to get to Woodman’s. And spend a day at Wingaersheek Beach. A few years ago, we walked to Little Harbor Lobster Company and sat on a bench and ate cold shrimp and lobster. Let’s...

25May

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Fill up summer to slow it down

I’m thinking what you’re thinking. This is the best time of the year to live in Marblehead and New England. This season is our revenge. Those who moved to Florida or Arizona and posted palm tree pictures in my Facebook feed all winter? I’ll see your post with mine of a perfect sunset over the harbor, and raise you an overflowing lobster roll. Every year at about this time, my husband and I start talking about all the plans we want to make for the summer. Who do we want to invite over for a barbeque? How many cooking fires can we fit in at Goldthwait Reservation? What shows might we try to see? We have to get to Woodman’s. And spend a day at Wingaersheek Beach. A few years ago, we walked to Little Harbor Lobster Company and sat on a bench and ate cold shrimp and lobster. Let’s...

17May

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Too soon to make meaning

Last week, the World Health Organization declared that the COVID public health emergency was over. Similarly, Massachusetts lifted its last restrictions, which mainly affected mask-wearing in health care settings. The moments were noted by the media, but most of us, for some time, have been living as if the pandemic had passed. Those we knew still contracting COVID seemed to be outliers, a sense backed up by the dwindling disease statistics. Nor did we, unlike the end of World War II, the capture of Bin Laden and other major historic moments, have a collective celebration at the official pronouncements. No doctors were dipping nurses in Times Square, which is an outdated image anyway, so it’s just as well. (Though I personally would smile at a female doctor dipping a male nurse.) ...

10May

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: One perfect mom moment

The Broadway musical “Dear Evan Hansen” opens with the perfect song for describing motherhood — “Anybody Have a Map?” — and these lyrics: “Anybody maybe happen to know how the hell to do this? I don't know if you can tell, but this is me just pretending to know. So where's the map? I need a clue. 'Cause the scary truth is, I'm flyin' blind.” Aren’t all moms? From the terrifying moment we leave the hospital with a tiny human being, to the even more terrifying moment one of our babies gets behind the wheel, to the most terrifying moment when we leave them in their dorm rooms to fend for themselves. And all the terrifying moments in between and after. We’d need a map that would dwarf the Rand McNally Atlas to navigate all those. And a matching jumbo journal to chronicle all the mistake...

3May

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Viewpoints, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: A book lover’s pledge

How many books are in your “To Be Read” (TBR) pile? I decided to count mine the other day, after the piles — yes, piles — I’ve made have crowded me out at my desk, on my nightstand and on my overflowing bookshelves. Why am I drawn to the books I’m drawn to? Why don’t I read all the ones I buy? And why don’t I read each new one before the next one is purchased? After all, I don’t buy a second cup of coffee (another obsession) before finishing my first. I do read a lot. But I don’t keep up with my purchases. Before I confess to my actual TBR number, I decided to seek out Laura Cooper, the owner of the soon-to-be-open Saltwater Bookstore. (Let’s pause here and shout a collective “hooray”!) If anyone has insight into book buying, it’s the person who has to fill the she...

26Apr

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: A more nuanced ‘Boston Strong’

I‘ve devoted a lot of my life to finding the right words — to explain, to explore, to sometimes inspire. The phrase “Boston Strong” didn’t sit right with me 10 years ago after the Marathon bombings. No, that’s an understatement. It made me ache and seethe. I’ll explain why in a minute. But I’ve come to understand the solace those words provided and still do. For a lot of people, the call to be “Boston Strong” was necessary to get through those terrifying days and an aftermath filled with so much loss. The words helped summon something, some measure of determination to bear the unbearable. It was and is a collective call to community. Still, “Boston Strong” didn’t apply to many people’s emotional experiences. One-size-fits-all definitions rarely do. It can be isolating to not fit ...

19Apr

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Uncategorized, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Unplug the outrage machine

Why are people so angry all the time? And how can we help calm things down? My questions are prompted by two completely unrelated incidents, one in western Massachusetts and one in the western part of the country. First, let’s turn to “Ladies-Gate” in Easthampton. There, outrage has been directed at the chair of the school committee for overreacting to an email where she and the board’s executive assistant were addressed as “ladies” by a prospective job candidate. That’s how I see it. She overreacted. It was silly. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being addressed as “ladies.” Also, as with most things, there’s likely much more going on behind the clickbait headlines. For instance, after reading a little more, I learned that the job candidate in question served as t...

12Apr

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Driving Miss Ginny

I got my first car when I graduated from college — a basic Chevy model with a stick shift, but I remember driving it home to Boston from the Connecticut dealership like I was behind the wheel of a Ferrari. Where I come from, owning a car in high school or college was a luxury, unless it was a total junker. For my parents, a purchase of a new car was akin to the excitement of bringing a new baby home, and they had eight of them — babies, not cars. I remember watching my mother pull the curtain back from the living-room window just to gaze in appreciation at their purchase. Having a decent car meant something — not status, but freedom. To drive yourself to work. To the grocery store. To the local lake on a hot day. To the once-a-year vacation. My second car, a four-door Mazda...

5Apr

By Virginia BuckinghamNo Comments

Opinion, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Home state advantage

May we dwell for a minute on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk politics in this column. I’m not promising not to ever, just not today It’s not DeSantis’ politics or policies per se that have my attention, but his promise to make every state just like his. If you missed DeSantis’s book tour kickoff — in that literary capital also known as Des Moines, Iowa — the backdrop was a big sign that said, “The Florida Blueprint.” OK, it actually said “The Freedom Blueprint,” but his point in his speeches there and in the title of his new book, “The Courage to be Free — Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” was basically, “Elect me, and I will make the rest of America just like Florida.” Given I was writing this column poolside in 85-degree weather,...