Virginia Buckingham - Marblehead Current

21 Jun

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: My rabbi

Will Dowd0 CommentsOpinion, Uncategorized, Virginia Buckingham

I never met a Jewish person until I attended Boston College in the mid-1980s. Rural Connecticut where I grew up was pretty homogenized, various protestant churches outnumbering our Catholic parish four to one. And all I knew of interfaith differences was that my mom’s family wouldn’t attend her wedding to an Episcopalian. I know it’s ironic that this then-young Catholic met her first Jewish friend in a dormitory at a Jesuit university. Certainly, I didn’t foresee, when I was daydreaming about my big wedding at…

14 Jun

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Seeing green

Leigh Blander0 CommentsOpinion, Viewpoints, Virginia Buckingham

Last week, I had one of those days that was so hectic I couldn’t stop to go to the bathroom. My eyes had been glued to a computer screen for hours, and I was getting frazzled. I needed a break. I’ve worked out of a home office since March of 2020, first driven by COVID, now driven by choice. Thus my “break” was not to an office water cooler but taking a few steps out to my back deck and yard. Almost instantly, I felt…

07 Jun

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY: We’re gonna make it after all

Leigh Blander0 CommentsOpinion, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

Last week we bade farewell to an iconic television character and series, “Ted Lasso.” It felt sadder to me than such endings usually do. Trying to figure out why, a Google search turned up this: “Ted Lasso: the top 11 characters ranked by their amount of heart,” noting the show had “tapped into the human condition.” Its characters, flawed in their own unique ways, had heart to boot. I wish the show wasn’t going away at a time when its central offerings — kindness and…

31 May

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Renewing a childhood hobby

Will Dowd0 CommentsOpinion, Top Stories, Virginia Buckingham

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…

26 May

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

Leigh Blander0 CommentsLocal News, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

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…

25 May

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

Leigh Blander0 CommentsOpinion, Virginia Buckingham

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…

17 May

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: Too soon to make meaning

Kris Olson0 CommentsOpinion, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

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…

10 May

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: One perfect mom moment

Kris Olson0 CommentsOpinion, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

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…

03 May

EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY: A book lover’s pledge

Kris Olson0 CommentsOpinion, Viewpoints, Views & Reviews, Virginia Buckingham

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…

26 Apr

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

Will Dowd0 CommentsOpinion, Virginia Buckingham

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…