“Age-Friendly Carbondale” works to make it possible for people of any age to live here comfortably. This month’s columnist shows that we have a long way to go. -Ron Kokish, Ed. It seems contrarian, moving from west to east. The sun and stars rise in the east and set in the west. I always meant […]
Nicolette Toussaint
Posted inColumns, Opinion, Uncategorized
Cool, clear water
In the absence of anything like a crystal ball, most of us expect some version of the lives we have experienced so far to continue into the future. The town survey I recently filled out is a case-in-point. The survey is intended to inform the town’s trustees as they begin to update Carbondale’s Comprehensive Plan, […]
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My gift to your children's children's children
Friday, while cheering on Roaring Fork High School’s graduation parade, I was surprised to find a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. My emotional state was prompted in equal parts by civic pride, respect and terror. Let me explain those, one-by-one. First, I’m proud of our local schools. It takes a […]
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Seeking Higher Ground: Knocking skeletons out of the family closet
What’s in a name? In my case, irony. In 1987, in a fit of feminist righteousness, I changed my surname to Toussaint. I was filing for my third divorce and tired of name changes. Having chaired a “women’s own name task force” a decade earlier, I knew that barring “intent to defraud,” anyone can change […]
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Seeking Higher Ground: In praise of nurses
I didn’t plan to spend extended periods with nurses in the year of COVID-19. But after three eye surgeries gave me an up-close and personal view, I came away convinced that nursing must be a “calling,” something akin to ministry. These days, cataract surgery is almost routine (or was before COVID). Last May, I was […]
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My Friend, the North American Electric Grid
My roof is equipped with an 8.5 kilowatt solar array, enough to supply household needs and to charge Sparky, our electric car. Our 25 solar panels free us from an electric bill; they don’t make us energy independent. In the summer, Xcel Energy sends us checks to pay for the excess electricity we churn out. […]
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Light and color via Zoom
On Fridays, I teach a color-mixing class to five artists, aged 11 to about 75. They bring a burst of light to my week, piercing the gloom of my current shut-in/shut-down life. At the presidential inauguration, poet Amanda Gorman, resplendent in her sunshine yellow coat, similarly pierced the darkness many of us have been feeling […]
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Having enough is the new ‘having it all’
Recently, my friend Jessi Hempel, a nationally-known journalist, asked Facebook friends how they felt about “having it all” in this time of COVID-19. Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown used that phrase to title her 1982 memoire, and at the height of my career, it seemed something to strive for. But even then, my girlfriends had […]
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Seeking Higher Ground: Moving to the right side of the tracks
“You’d think a white girl like me woulda had a better relationship with money.” I blurted that out during a recent “Money Matters” interview. Across Colorado, financial disparities are widening, particularly across racial and geographic lines. So the Bell Policy Center, with funding from the Colorado Health Foundation, has begun the Money Matters project. It […]
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Seeking Higher Ground: What the warblers are telling us
“Nothing gold can stay.” So wrote Robert Frost in 1923. That phrase haunted me Friday after I saw a small golden bird – a Wilson’s warbler – staggering across my lawn. I kept one eager cat away, so maybe that bird survived. There has been a rash of bird deaths recently, so many that both […]