While housebound in the Sierra foothills following a three-day snow event last week, I caught up on articles that I’ve been saving for just such a day.

A week ago, the Sierra Foothills had its first dusting of snow.

There is something magical in the air in Nevada City these days. Colorful Christmas lights began going up in yards over the Thanksgiving weekend all around these wooded foothills.

A signed copy of National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry’s 1985 portrait of a 12-year-old Afghan girl hangs in our living room here in the Sierra Foothills.

Seasonally speaking, a spectacular showing of fall colors were on display from October into November here in the Sierra Foothills. Our neighbors proclaimed it to be the best autumn they’ve ever experienced.

In 2014, I flew with my longtime friend Chomsri to Istanbul where we stayed at the elegant Pera Palace Hotel—built in 1892 for passengers arriving from Europe aboard the Orient Express Railway.

Heidi is my daughter. Well, in fact not exactly, but indeed, yes, she is. What matters is that I think of her as so. There is a story, of course, as there always is with families, and this is ours.

In my friend Nina Mukerjee Furstenau’s kitchen near Fayette, MO, there are traces of distant other worlds, and something is always combusting.

October 2021 began in a blaze of autumn leaves transitioning from green to pear yellows, shades of pumpkins, and Indian plum reds.

There is an art to seeing. A person with sight can walk through a city with eyes focused on a cell phone and see nothing that’s going on between their journey’s origin and destination.

Here in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California, there is a wealth of delicious fruit and colorful pumpkins to be found in local markets, orchards, and the backyards of neighbors. Over the past week, we have been given bags of Bartlett pears and delicious plums by friends we have come to know since moving to Nevada City.

On the final page of each issue of The Atlantic magazine, readers are treated to a delightful Ode by staff writer James Parker. An Ode, he explains is “a small celebration of, well, anything.” Squirrels, procrastination, naps, non-morning people.

These cool autumn days, I’m turning my attention to the harvest of new books by writers I love.

Every language has words that describe outings on foot. Along a gravel path, one may stroll, saunter, amble, wander, meander, ramble, dawdle, promenade, walk, go for a walk, take a walk, potter, roam, traipse, stretch one’s legs, get some exercise, get some air, take the air.

Food writer M.F.K. Fisher lived through a period of food deprivation due to global warfare in the 1940s. In her classic book, “The Art of Eating,” she reveals her thoughts on what it is about eating that brings people together.

To our great relief, the skies over Nevada City are once again clear of smoke from Northern California’s Dixie and Caldor fires.

Since packing up and moving west four months ago, California has become home. In the Missouri world Kit and I left behind last spring, rains fell for weeks upon end and rivers rose. Here in the Sierra Nevada Foothills and valleys to the east, not a drop has fallen in months.

Following the recent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, I found myself looking back a century at what that country once was and asking what the future of Afghanistan will be.

Today is your third birthday, and you are receiving your first copy of National Geographic Little Kids magazine. Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved reading National Geographic and hope that you will as well.

When does a lifetime of letter writing begin? For me, it first happened in the mid 1950s when I attended Camp Bonnie Brae in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts—now the oldest continuously operating Girl Scout camp in the United States.