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Life at the moment

On By broadsideblogIn behavior, blogging, domestic life, life31 Comments

By Caitlin Kelly

This is a hasty post.

I have been very frustrated of late at the handful of views this blog now gets — unless I also put it on Facebook and Twitter.

Is it that boring?

WordPress tells me 23,000 people follow it and I am appreciative of the loyal band who does show up to read and comment.

Anyway…life for now:

Torrential rain has hit our area — affecting 23 million people. The subways of New York — an essential service — and even the buses! — have been flooded. Streets are impassable. Even the commuter rail system shut for a while. Any climate deniers remaining are absolute ostriches. I moved here in 1989 and have never seen weather like this.

I have a severely arthritic right hip that, until the past two weeks, has really been destroying my quality of life. There have been days I can barely walk and leave the gym in tears of pain. Now, for no reason I can fathom, I am walking almost normally. It is an enormous relief to not be in pain every day for months!

I tutor a teenager in French, a new venture for us both. One of my blog friends in England shared a great BBC site of lesson plans, so we’re using that, conversing and doing some dictations.

I go to a weekly French conversation group at a local library for an hour, then an hour of Spanish after that. Whew! My brain is very tired at the end, but it’s such an easy way to get out of the apartment, free, and have lively chats. One of the women in the French group told us she’d celebrated her 75th birthday by riding an elephant.

Mahjong is a game of tiles that I associate with ladies wearing cat’s eye glasses and bright caftans. Now I am edging my way into it as well, thanks to some neighbors in the building who ask me to join their group from time to time.

I’m still writing for The New York Times, now on my third personal finance story this year for them. I have a second session scheduled this coming week with a global PR agency who hires me to review pitches to journalists that failed to get traction and discuss how they might have worked better. I’m very glad of the income.

I also still coach other writers at an hourly fee; here’s the link. One of my clients recently sold a story we worked on to the Washington Post, a much-coveted outlet for ambitious writers. Another was delighted to find an outlet for a story he had had difficulty placing — and our session was much enhanced by the presence of his tiny perfect hedgehog!

Two great bits of news — we paid off our mortgage! Now we own our apartment outright.

And we leave soon for four days ‘ vacation at a Quebec resort we love, then five days renting a house in Vermont, a state I love and haven’t been back to in decades. October is the perfect time for both. My husband works so hard at his three freelance jobs and we need time off the computer and away from home, which is also our workspace. Can’t wait!

The hunger for beauty

On By broadsideblogIn art, beauty, behavior, culture, design, domestic life, life, nature, photography, Style17 Comments

By Caitlin Kelly

Cafe stools in Paris

Do you notice beauty every day?

Light? Shadow? Color? Reflections? Texture? A great view?

Beauty isn’t just in galleries and museums — although what richness there awaits! Thanks to the Internet we can now virtually visit and enjoy objects and artifacts worldwide. And libraries, brimming with gorgeous coffee-table books. And photographers’ websites and Insta reels.

I grew up in London, Toronto, Montreal, Cuernavaca and later lived in Paris and small town New Hampshire and now, small town/suburban New York — with views from our wooded, hilly street of the Hudson and even of the towers of downtown Manhattan both visible at once.

In each place, I’ve looked for, and noticed, such beauty — architecture, patina, landscapes, light, streetscapes.

It is always, always there — if you slow down long enough to notice it.

Nothing special — just all the earthbound confetti after Bern’s annual onion festival

Toronto is not, per se, an especially beautiful city — sprawls for miles and miles, easily consuming an hour or more by car or public transit to get from one side to the other. Since I left, decades ago, the waterfront is now a relentless cluster of condo towers, access to the lake and islands ever harder to enjoy. There are some truly lovely, quiet neighborhoods with old trees and large early houses — but now selling in the millions of dollars. The city does have great parks and ravines and a Lake Ontario boardwalk to enjoy at the eastern and western edges.

Color, sun, shadow, texture, symmetry. Newport, RI

But beauty? Not so much.

Montreal has much more of it, between elegant townhouses, funky 40s apartments and its distinctive circular outdoor metal staircases (potentially lethal in winter!) Mt. Royal looms over the city, with great views and ice skating in the winter.

A roadside shrine in rural Quebec

I only lived in Cuernavaca (a city an hour south of Mexico City) for months, but fondly remember a small waterfall a few blocks from our apartment, the empty field next door, the bakery down the street selling warm, fresh bolillos. Mexico bursts with visual beauty — brilliant fuchsia bouganivillea tumbling over walls, brightly colored textiles, markets full of produce, gorgeous ruins, stunning countryside. We haven’t been back since three weeks in 2005 but I long to return.

A found sculpture on the beach, Big Sur, Calfornia

It’s embarrassing to notice that every image I’ve chosen here was taken — on vacation, far from the familiar sights of home. But I also know this isn’t unusual. On vacation, we’ve chosen to be in a place we know will be lovely. We slow down. We want to soak it all in, not just rush through it on the way to buy groceries or do laundry or get to work.

Our eyes are hungrier.

As readers here know, I’m obsessive about creating and nurturing a beautiful home: art, photos, fresh flowers, candles (votives, tapers, lanterns), adding color and pattern and texture. I’m happy every time I open the front door, as is Jose, a highly visual person as a career photographer and photo editor. I remember the lovely details of his Brooklyn apartment when we met 25 years ago — a Klimt poster, a beautiful wooden bed, a well-designed living room. I knew, on that level, we were well suited.

There is so much ugliness in the world now — politically and economically — I feel like we all need to inhale huge breaths of beauty in every possible form all the time.

Where are you finding yours?

True style means layering

On By broadsideblogIn antiques, art, beauty, culture, design, domestic life, Fashion, Style6 Comments

The 1920s portrait of my great-grandmother as it arrived back to me from B.C.

Caitlin Kelly

It’s a word much overused — like (uggggh) elevated — but it makes sense.

Whether you’re slowly building a stylish home or wardrobe, a mix of vintage, antique, new, a dash of super-cheap and a smidge of huge splurge, (for us, original art /photos and very good custom framing) sale scores and auction/flea market finds — thoughtfully arranged — can add up to a look you love that’s distinctively great looking, comfortable and stylish.

I recently pulled out a decade-old long black Aritizia dress (ankle length, ribbed, stretchy) and threw a vintage black wool Banana Republic vest over it, added a scarf, boots — totally different look. I can toss on a cardigan in cream or black, or a great new black and white crewneck with leopards on it, keep switching up scarves (have wayyyyyy too many), change out boots/shoes. I recently scored a fantastic 1940s black felt hat with a wide metallic embroidered ribbon ($110.) It’s just eccentric enough to be interesting but not too kooky.

Having lived in Paris at 25 and visiting many times since (and online daily ogling Paris apartments for sale) it’s clear why Parisian women are so careful about what they consume — no closets! Our apartment has four and they’re not nearly enough! (We have three armoires in the living room.)

I get much of my best inspiration from British design magazines — especially Homes & Gardens and World of Interiors — as the homes they choose, in that great Britishism, are always characterful. Not sure if the UK wealthy, some with centuries of great stuff awaiting inheritance, rely as heavily on professional decorators and designers as North Americans do; as Lady Mary of Downton Abbey drawled, disdainfully, to Sir Richard Carlisle, her new-money newspaper suitor: “My lot inherits. Your lot buys things.”

I do read AD, and enjoy it, and sometimes American and Canadian shelter books, but I just can’t relate to their aspirational enormous kitchens, massive sofas, multiple bedroooms…All that white! All those rooms!

With U.K. style stories, there’s always some history: a chipped plate, a ragged sofa, a dog or three — but acres of style, a fantastic mix of old and new, weathered, patinated and polished — usually a marbled paper or striped fabric lampshade, a gleaming wooden side table, some silver, a deep sofa with a pile of artfully mismatched throw pillows. I admit my favorite is the country house look, (albeit on our smaller budget in a 1960s apartment), with a mix of velvets and cottons, jute rugs and lusterware, polished silver-plate cutlery in vintage French jam jars and transferware plates on display.

Our living and sitting rooms include this mix of high and low, costly and much less so:

Two olive green velvet square stools (Arhaus, on sale); ours have shiny brass bases (prettier!)

A repro Pembroke table (consignment shop); an 18th c style popular until 1840, really light and versatile with a drawer and two leaves

This soft area rug (Ikea); crazy good quality for $200

This patterned sisal rug (Ballard Designs)

Two 16th c framed tapestries (inherited)

A framed Sempe poster

A framed 1980 poster of a Lyon exhibit of Fortuny fabrics

A teal stained armoire, possibly 18th c. (William Smith auctions, NH, bought sight unseen from a tiny online image)

A glass front cabinet, whose front I lined with deep teal linen (Crate and Barrel)

A rug on sale (Dash and Albert)

A large pillow cover (Oka, sadly now out of business in the U.S.)

Four 18-inch throw pillows, covers custom-made from fabric ordered from London, each piped with a contrasting color (The Cloth Shop)

Two 18-inch throw pillow covers (West Elm)

Eclectic, yes.

Chaotic, no!

We pay careful attention to color, scale and proportion.

We couldn’t care less about what’s trendy.

Patience, I think, is the real key to creating and curating great style — and a sharp eye!

More simple pleasures, winter edition

On By broadsideblogIn art, beauty, behavior, design, domestic life, life9 Comments

Sometimes just a martini at your local bistro

By Caitlin Kelly‘

Have you heard the word “glimmers”? I love it — the tiny gorgeous moments that show up every day we so often overlook as we stare into screens or rush about or doomscroll on social media.

Like:

  • The delicious scent of fresh pine and fir in-home , with a tree or branches
  • Mailing out dozens of paper holiday cards to friends in the U.S., Canada, Europe
  • Having friends over for a meal or a coffee, an unhurried chance to be hospitable
  • Baking something yummy, like this fabulous cranberry bundt cake (we skip the icing)
  • Lighting candles every evening at dinner, with lanterns glowing on a nearby shelf
  • A scented candle at bedside, with which to wake up/fall asleep slowly and gently
  • Reading gorgeous coffee table books
  • Diving into a new novel or memoir
  • Pulling out paints/pencils/paper and making art
  • A fresh baguette with unsalted butter
  • Dipping strawberries in creme fraiche or sour cream
  • A long catch-up call with a friend
  • Knitting, crocheting, embroidering
  • The bright reflective beauty of freshly fallen snow
  • Ice skating!
  • Fresh flowers, always
  • A late afternoon snooze as the sky hazes over
  • A brisk walk in crisp air
  • Cosy cashmere!
  • A new throw or duvet cover; loving this set from Quince (we have it in olive)
  • Long lazy days at home
  • Trying new recipes
  • Playing board games or doing jigsaw puzzles
  • A ferocious game of gin rummy
  • Very good coffee or tea, drunk from a pretty cup and saucer or handmade mug
  • A Bourne movie binge — three in a row while drinking single malt and eating pistachios

Yours?

Christmas 2025

On By broadsideblogIn behavior, domestic life, family, life, love10 Comments

After the onion festival (!) last year in Bern, Switzerland

By Caitlin Kelly

We weren’t sure, for many long anxious months, if this would be our last one together. While Jose’s cancer has shrunk and has not spread (thank God) he still faces surgery at the end of January to remove what remains. We are not out of the woods, but cautiously optimistic.

So Jose, fearing the worst, went completely mad with his gifts to me — diamond earrings (!) and a copy of a photo I’d admired for many years by Finnish legend Pentti Sammallahti. It’s extremely quirky, but I love it — and burst into happy tears when I opened it. My gifts to him were not quite as lavish, but he loved a cosy new multi-color fleece jacket, some Floris cologne, a new Mick Herron book and a few other things.

We spent the day quietly at home and our evening meal came from a very good nearby restaurant — boeuf bourguignon. We’re due — happily — for a massive snowstorm later today, perfect for a new pair of Boden snow boots he also gave me.

Jose in Bosnia, Christmas 1995, six weeks of anxiety and freezing cold, shooting for the NYT

We skipped church, which I somewhat regret, but I have been fighting some low-grade virus and just didn’t feel up to it. Jose had made its once midnight service (now 9 pm) memorable after we emerged to snowfall and he suggested we go to the lych gate (a classically rural English church structure, sort of a covered area originally designed for corpses!) — where he proposed. It was perfect because that evening had long been the worst of my life at 14 when my mother had a manic breakdown in Mexico, stranding me and two friends in a ditch at midnight. It marked the end of my time in her care (my choice.)

But yesterday, as it inevitably did for many others, also brought sorrow and grief — as it did to one of my dearest friends in England whose mother died at home that afternoon. She had been very ill and went downhill very fast, but this will now be a sadly memorable one for his father, who is also very ill.

I hope you enjoyed a lovely day — and some quiet time — and that 2026 will bring us some respite and relief.

It has been, at least politically and economically, a very difficult year for far too many.

Thanking you, as always, for the gift of your time and attention and comments!

The best gift — Jose’s health

On By broadsideblogIn aging, behavior, cities, life, love, travel, urban life16 Comments

Christmas 1995 — on assignment for 6 weeks in Bosnia at war’s end. COLD!

By Caitlin Kelly

While we still have surgery to get through in January, we finally got very encouraging news a few weeks ago from a tissue biopsy (after 4 round of chemo and immunotherapy) — no cancer. I am still as stunned by this good news as we both were with his diagnosis in July of stage two lung cancer, a non-smoker with no known carcinogenic exposure. We both had COVID, a mild case, in November 2022.

So it is the best possible gift we could have right now, a relief and a respite from 24/7 anxiety ever since. If you’ve been through it personally, and/or as a caregiver, you know the exhaustion this brings.

Jose very generously paid for a solo week of my stay at at a very good Toronto hotel we’ve stayed at a few times, the Royal York. It’s massive — 1,434 rooms! But mine was a perfect little hideaway, down two hallways at the very end of the 6th floor hallway with windows facing east and south so lots of light and, incredibly, given the forest of lakefront condo towers — a clear view of the lake and the Toronto islands, where we married in Sept. 2011.

I had a perfect week of self-indulgence: saw Hamnet at the TIFF Lightbox, an amazing theater, saw the Nutcracker, visited with 11 of my oldest friends, ate well, saw a great show at the Art Gallery of Ontario and lunch with a pal there afterwards, had room service breakfast every day, went shopping…all the things that make me happy. I sat at the bar twice and had two lovely chats — one with an engineer visiting from Boston and one with a local 33-year-old woman.

I really miss casual social conversations!

Of course my very first stop was the enormous St. Lawrence Market. So great!

I like going back to Toronto as so much of it remains familiar and comforting, still — the diners and restaurants, some beloved shops, the parks and ravines, the U of T campus. Every corner has a memory!

Jose has been his calm, stoic and upbeat self through this nightmare, and we were very lucky to catch this terrible disease early and for him to have had so very few side effects of chemo — only the 4th one knocked him flat with exhaustion and a diet of oatmeal and soup. He lost 20 pounds but is now back to almost full strength, breathing normally, eating with gusto once more.

It is happy but very disorienting to watch someone so debilitated — and come back strong again.

But also a great thing.

Wishing you all a calm and lovely holiday!

Missing Granny

On By broadsideblogIn aging, behavior, domestic life, family, life, love, seniors, Style7 Comments

By Caitlin Kelly

She died decades ago, the year I was 18 — her birthday December 10.

She was, in many ways, larger than life — a brash heiress from Chicago who settled in quiet, polite mid-1960s Toronto to be closer to her daughter and to me, her only living grandchild (a grandson died in a motorcycle accident.) She had inherited, from her father, a successful stockbroker and developer, a stunning amount of money and spent it like it was radioactive. She had six husbands, one a lifeguard, one she married twice (a child from each of those brief marriages), the final one to a military man, long gone before I knew her.

She’d get bored and divorce them, although I later learned she had been abused by one of them, a man she married twice.

Aline was never a white-haired, cookie-baking, apron-clad grandmother.

Her style was custom-made raw silk muumuus with matching raw silk turbans, topped with a jewel. Her rings were massive. She had gold-topped canes and tiny dogs, poodles and Yorkies. She traveled only by limousine, her driver the implacable Raymond, always invited to her Christmas party, as were her jewelers, a gorgeous gay couple long before this was commonly accepted in stuffy Toronto. Dinner was a massive and delicious goose.

The words “grande dame” were most fitting.

She gave lavish gifts, somehow always with the price tag left on — or she would tell you anyway. She wasn’t a big hugger, but I knew she loved me a lot, especially when I came over for dinner, fleeing the rigidity and rules of boarding school. It was, often, a TV dinner allowing me to watch TV (not allowed at school) and to fall asleep in a wing chair. I loved all of it.

Privacy! Silence! A meal eaten without girls and teachers at the same table three meals every day!

My father hated her, which probably only deepened my loyalty and affection for her. She was not a great mother to my mother, I knew, so I felt lucky to have this.


She could afford the city’s top decorator, so her homes, once a small house for a while, then a sunny apartment, were always very beautiful and showed me what living with a lovely home could be — even on a much smaller budget.

She died in her 60s, far too young, and left behind a profligate mess for her only daughter to clean up, having not paid taxes to Canada or the U.S., let alone death duties, on her large estate. Responsibility was not her strong suit.

My mother, fittingly, buried her ashes in a Russian silver tea caddy in a public park down the street from her last apartment.

When the subway rolls past it, I wave.

Role models

On By broadsideblogIn aging, behavior, domestic life, Health, life, love, seniors, women7 Comments

Who knows what fortune has in store for us?

By Caitlin Kelly

We live in such a weird time, especially as a woman — so much hatred and misogyny on X! It’s so ugly and so discouraging.

As we age, I think role models are even more important than they are when we’re young and idealistic and haven’t seen the downside of things in much detail. The cliche is that women simply disappear from public view, and appreciation, as we age, usually starting at 50 or so. Well, not celebrities and politicians — Nancy Pelosi or Mother Theresa or Jane Fonda; if you’re still thin and wealthy and Botoxed to the hilt, maybe.

Most of us are not and, apart from money, some of us care less about being thin and wrinkle-free than emotionally connected to a number of people who admire and love us, still. For those of us with no real family, it matters a lot: no nieces or nephews or kids or grandkids. Friends matter tremendously.

That woman in blue — so stylish! Paris, of course

Two men, especially, are elder people in my life I admire deeply — and both are 87. One is a former ironworker who still plays softball with our coed team since 2000 and hits to the fences. Sometimes his two sons come along too. He’s funny and charming and lean as a whippet. The other is my spin teacher (!) who also teaches other fitness classes and (!!) teaches sky-diving. Of course he does…

As I wrote recently, I so badly miss my maternal grandmother, decades after she died. She was funny, raucous, always up for an argument. My mother and I were estranged for the last decade of her life, so I really didn’t know her at all then…in her earlier healthier years, she set a great example in some ways — able to travel the world alone for years, to live in Bath and New Mexico and Massachusetts, and Toronto and Victoria, B.C. She was super smart, self-taught, curious. My father, now 96 in a nursing home in Ontario now suffers dementia…a brutal ending for a man so talented artistically he worked in oils, etching, engraving, lithos, silver — and film, his profession; two of his small oils of my mother hang in our living room.

The people I hope to emulate — should I be lucky enough to have a few more healthy solvent decades! — are lively, involved, fit, interesting and still very interested in the world, not just its cosy and familiar contours. They haven’t retreated to hidebound ideologies. They volunteer. They travel, if desired. They mentor.

My mother, in later years — maybe 70s?

Like me, if fortunate, they also enjoy and nurture inter-generational friendships — I have friends in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Sadly, not many my age, as so many (at least in our affluent area) are endlessly traveling for fun or family and new friendship just doesn’t seem a priority. We have so little in common but age…I have loved my less-conventional, fairly adventurous life, but few women my age (the ones I meet anyway) show any interest in it and I know few women whose elder lives seem really appealing. Maybe it’s just me…

Do you have a role model — or several — in your life?

What qualities do they have that you admire and find inspiring?

The holiday gift list 2025 — 30 great ideas for you!

On By broadsideblogIn culture, design, domestic life, family, life, love, Style4 Comments

Bonus idea — this is a terrific book for any creative!

By Caitlin Kelly

Welcome to this year’s gift list, an annual tradition I love creating and curating! As always, there’s not a dime of income for me through affiliate marketing, just some things I find attractive, useful, charming and durable — and some of which I own and use.

I try every year to include a wide range of options – for kitchen, home, office, fashionistas, bath, beauty. Knowing this is a time of stupidly high costs for so many of us, I’ve done something new this year, dividing the list into $60 or less, For the Guys, and Splurges, $88 to $591. 

This year’s picks come from the UK, Colorado, Montana, France, Ukraine, and many from indie retailers or designers.

Enjoy!

$60 or less

The fresh scent of eucalyptus is great in the shower or bath. I use these Kate Mcleod bath pebbles, which dissolve in the bath and add just enough fragrance and body oil. $42

Also in eucalyptus, how about a bar of Hercules soap with an intaglio? $23.

This triangular scalloped edged scarf, in three colors, reads 18th c. in a good way. Love the chocolate one. $48

A brass shell shaped spoon (add to bath salts or nuts or…a pair as salad servers.) $38

I love these delicate cream embroidered napkins from one of my favorite retailers, Zara Home, that look vintage; 2 for $35

Inoui is one of my favorite French brands. How can you resist this nylon make-up bag — Godzilla in Vegas!? $54

Know any #avgeeks like me — people who love flying and airplanes? This history of aviation looks cool $50

OK, buying fragrance for anyone is tricky — but these three Salt & Stone sprays are light and lovely; I wear this one.$45

Have you discovered Weleda’s skin food? For dry winter skin, this product is the bomb. I love it. Here’s a three-pack to try. $42.72

Can’t beat a cuppa at 4:00 on a cold dark winter’s afternoon! This company has excellent teas and a wide range of choices. I like this set, of four small tins of loose tea and a beautiful silver-plate tea strainer, elegantly packaged. $49.95

SPLURGES: $88 TO $591

The British company Smythson offers a wide range of elegant journals, notebooks, briefcases, stationery and more. I love this Panama notebook; 13 colors, and it can be personalized. $95

This Smythson to-do list notebook is witty and fun, $195.

Love this wool neck warmer in a bright denim blue, $88

This canvas mini-tote adds whatever initial you like — in beads. A lot of bang for the buck, from Anthropologie. $98

Can’t beat a cosy throw — this one in thick cable knit, seven colors. Just add popcorn and a movie or great book! $179

Love the bold scale of this blue linen check tablecloth; $240

This is one of my favorite French accessory brands, Inoui, (which means unexpected) — a scarf of owls on wool challis in five gorgeous color combinations. $175

Love this puffball clutch bag in gold or silver leather or green, red, black or leopard velvet; $259

And these unusual pearl and gold earrings, studs, $591

I saw this beautiful blouse on an Insta influencer. So lovely in embroidered pale gray linen — made in Ukraine $314

William-Wayne is a beloved 36-year-old New York City shop, and here are 49 (!) gorgeous teapots, maybe to send along with a great selection of tea. Some of them are pricey but sooooo pretty, like this $275 reproduction of an 18th century design. This one is so chic, $195, in black and white, a tribute to the mosaics of Lisbon; a set of two stunning matching tea-cups is $135.

Love this two-sided Indian print cotton quilt. Their website has many less-expensive and charming gifts as well. $360

YUM! Huge breakfast gift basket with bagels, muffins, jam, coffee, poppy seed bundt cake, pancake mix, syrup. $160.

For the guys

Love this dopp kit in dark green or blue, for your favorite golfer. $71

How about those tentacles? A slim silver cuff, maybe for the avid diver? $224

Definitely not your average socks — three pair with images from Alice in Wonderland $117

If he must wear a baseball cap, this one is classic but witty — with Snoopy on one side. $68

Elegant 5-ounce leather wrapped hip flask in five colors. $115

I’ve been wearing this crisp men’s fragrance (created in 1903) for years, Blenheim Bouquet, from UK brand Penhaligon’s $200

Or a set of five of their men’s fragrances, to see which one he likes best! In a handsome holiday box. $70

And finally…

Committing long-term to a charity, or to several, is a really good choice as so many people and organizations need our help; a fantastic place to start is Charity Navigator. I give monthly to the Bowery Mission, to an excellent Toronto journalism website and every year to an annual prize for a graduating senior at my Toronto high school, which I created four years ago.

The art of conversation

On By broadsideblogIn aging, behavior, domestic life, family, life5 Comments

A scene from All The President’s Men — a film that shows how essential is it to investigative journalism to be able to engage wary strangers in deep conversation

By Caitlin Kelly

Hear me out!

Boy, I hate that phrase — everywhere on X/Twitter, as if (probably true) you don’t beg for attention, or command it, no one actually will.

I’ve started to truly despair of having deep, intimate, mutually enjoyable conversations unless it’s with dear old friends. Maybe it’s the inevitable megaphone of social media where we can (like here, I realize) blather on and on and on about anything to a silent, captive, passive audience. The definition of a monologue!

As we head into the holidays — spending Thanksgiving with relatives you may barely know, attending office parties, showing up to social gatherings of all kinds, it’s a good time to be a great listener!

This made me realize that being able to engage strangers is just a basic skill set for every journalist — and maybe not for a lot of other jobs

What makes a great conversationalist?

— They listen very carefully, without interrupting.

— They watch the listener(s) for cues they’re being boring or obtuse or rude, and shut up!

— They ask polite, friendly questions of their interlocutor, not just “What do you do for work?”

— They show compassion and empathy if someone’s telling a difficult story.

— They know it’s not a trauma dump; that’s what therapists and close friends are for.

— Jokingly called an “organ recital”, do not, do not, subject people to details of your medical conditions, surgeries, treatments.

— Skip politics. Just don’t even start.

— Same for religion.

— Finding common ground is key: where you grew up, went to school, sports, cultural interests, travel, cooking…

— Think of it as a friendly (not competitive!) gave of tennis or pickleball. Not squash! It needs a back and forth rhythm to qualify as conversation.

— Be genuinely curious and interested! Being a careful listener is tiring, but attention is a gift.


I now find myself subjected too often to what people consider a conversation — when it’s really just me nodding and smiling and asking questions about them — and no interest in me. I attended a party recently that, in the space of three conversations, made this abundantly clear. I spoke to one woman about our travels and she happily rhapsodized at length about a trip in Europe made decades earlier. My attempts to talk about some of my own…not welcomed.

I moved into another room and was soon, happily and gratefully, deep into conversation with a husband and wife, separately, both of whom were low-key, modest, and leading really interesting creative lives. I’m sure there are plenty of people I so rarely meet here in the U.S. who do have this sort of attentive, mutually interested exchange — but boy, out here in the the NYC suburbs? Rare. Very, very rare. Al I hear about is work, mah jongg, canasta, cruises taken and forthcoming and grandchildren.

None of which interest me in the slightest.

Me interviewing GP Dr. Margaret Tromp, President of the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada, in Picton, Ontario, Sept. 2019.

So it was a real oasis to finally, happily, be in a room of fellow writers and journalists and teachers and film-makers and adventurous travelers — my people! I’ve long known there are likely many such people to connect with in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and I chose to stay in a suburban town for its affordable charm. But I’ve found it a sadly conversational wasteland.

And yet — ? — we so more easily and quickly fall into great conversations when we’re in Europe where we often have a civilized, engaged back and forth with people new-to-us.

Conversation really is a true social skill that just feels much more valued there, maybe less an emphasis on HOW IMPORTANT someone has to show they are, and maybe how interesting and interested in others instead.

My conversation with one woman at that party ranged from her gorgeous hand-knitted socks, to her work on films, to her recent experience of cancer — pretty wide-ranging, I’d say. Yet it felt unforced and easy, and for that I was grateful. I was able to share some of my own stories about my work and my travels.

It was good to be listened to.

Seeking comfort

On By broadsideblogIn aging, behavior, domestic life, Health, life8 Comments

Sometimes just a very good martini!

By Caitlin Kelly

What a weird time we live in….this, the front page of Nov. 10. 2025’s New York Times.

With 1/8 Americans relying on government aid to feed themselves regularly, with relentless political self-dealing and division, with the worst income inequality since the Gilded Age (the Platinum Age?), it’s hard to find reliable, affordable and consistent sources of comfort.

I think we need them more than ever!

Add to this, for us, a four month+ wait after Jose’s cancer diagnosis to even discern more effectively if the treatments have even worked….

Some things I find comforting:

The Maltese Falcon!

Rewatching movies so familiar to me I know the dialogue by heart: The Devil Wears Prada, Almost Famous, Spotlight and All The President’s Men (yes, about journalism!), Good Will Hunting (some of it shot on my alma mater campus, U of Toronto). The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Erin Brockovich, all the Bourne movies, all the Ocean’s movies, especially the all-girl Ocean’s 8, Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, Michael Clayton.

Rewatching TV shows equally familiar — just started again from the very first episode (2011!) of Downton Abbey.

Time with my husband.

My weekend rituals — the weekend FT and NYT, in print.

A soft wool throw when it’s already dark by 5:00 p..m.

Nightie days — yes, entire days I spend in my nightgown, some of it tucked up in a warm bed staring out at cold, gray skies.

A really long (2+ hours) call with an old friend.

A front door filled with loving cards to cheer Jose and I on through his illness and treatments.

A big pot of tea in the beautiful ceramic pot we scored at our local thrift shop.

Listening to music — could be Bach, Keith Jarrett’s exquisite Koln concert, Kiki Lounge on Sirius XM or even a live concert.

My spin class, with a teacher who’s always welcoming — he’s 87! And friendly fellow spinners.

Fresh flowers in every room, always.

Candles, lit for dinner and at bedside.

Hopelessly high stacks of unread books and magazines. No boredom allowed!

Food, of course — creamy diner rice pudding, unsweetened apple sauce, a very good bolognese and pasta, a crisp caesar salad, steak frites…should I go on?!

Baby Elephant — given to me when I was very young and we lived in England, after my tonsils were removed

And, with no shame at all — stuffies. Their sweet faces always a comfort.

Where do you find and enjoy comfort?