(May 11, 2024 / Photo: Jorge Ibanez) Robert Frost famously said that good fences make good neighbors. Which some may think is at the core of good New England Yanki philosophy of life, but with which it seems he did not agree. But, of course, he was picking up much more than boulders in that...Read More

(Yellow Towers, acrylic on canvas by JIbanez) Sometimes I think back on my childhood and I think ‘man, someone has to be making this shit up…’ Back when I was seven (sixty five years ago!), my parents moved us from our little sugar cane town of Canovanas to the capital, part of a huge migration...Read More

This morning I woke up to rolling thunder calling to tasks. The house was dark, not with night sleeping darkness, but with grey dark tea demanding silence. Making my way through the living room, I could hear the first timid uncertain drops of rain falling on the yard and hurried to pick up  the paper...Read More

(Photo: probably taken by my dad eons ago of me and my brother at the beach in Naguabo, Puerto Rico, 1954) Yesterday afternoon I had one of those ‘geez, how things have changed’ moments. Not sure what brought it up, any longer, these things happen the moment I pass 55th street and go into the...Read More

(Photo: Jorge) And just like that, Summer is fixing to deliver us to Fall again. To what passes as Fall in Florida, at least. Approaching the end of the second pandemic year, Spring 2020 now sounds so naïve, extremely far, another reality as we looked into the abyss trying to make sense of what was...Read More

(April 08, 2020/ Photo: Jorge Ibanez) Last evening, late afternoon shortly before dinner, our neighborhood owl was owling away somewhere in the backyard trees thick canopy. I went out to see if I could spot it, but it was not in our backyard owl-tree near my bedroom window where it likes to perch, but rather...Read More

(January 31, 2020/ Photo: Jorge Ibanez) As I come to the end of an amazing year of revelations, discoveries, agonizing indecisions and huge acts of faith and acceptance, I sense a world of new horizons opening ahead of me. For one, I am wrapping a yearlong exploration of breads, bread baking and techniques, my previous...Read More

(August 30, 2019 / by Jorge / Photo: Michael Hoffman)   I recently read a beautiful article in Aleph:Faena , <em>The Art of Getting Lost</em><a href=’https://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/on-the-art-of-getting-lost/#’> (1)</a>. It makes the case for both that, considered practically, getting lost is a decision (or at least an act of acceptance) and that the experience itself can nurture...Read More

(July 22, 2019 / By Jorge / Photo: Jorge Ibanez There is a Goethe quote that has circulated for quite some time in the internet and in self-help circles, that Wanda and I embraced from a long time ago and held on to in moments of challenges and tribulations. It is really a combination of...Read More

(November 01, 2018/ Jorge Ibanez / Photo: Jorge Ibanez)   A couple of weeks ago, I was referred from an online article to an interesting site that I would highly recommend, <a href=”http://www.openculture.com/”>Open Culture</a>. The featured article was at that time a review of an interesting blog, <a href=”https://dailystoic.com/”>The Daily Stoic</a>. This is a beautifully...Read More