What we learn from observing babies in motion. My granddaughter recently celebrated her first birthday. She lives in Los Angeles with my daughter and son-in-law and two small dogs she does her best to communicate with gently. She has a smile that melts hearts. I live in New York, and I count … [Read more...] about Awareness through Movement
A Tattered Dress, Three Handfuls of Pecans, and a Braid of Hair
How an embroidered cotton sack filled with three items would become the shortest slave narrative in existence. Picture a woman named Rose, Black and enslaved on a South Carolina plantation, pre-Civil War times. Any day now, she will be separated from her nine-year-old daughter, Ashley, soon to be … [Read more...] about A Tattered Dress, Three Handfuls of Pecans, and a Braid of Hair
Dear Diary No More
What began as a way to escape family noise came to an end when I found my true voice as a writer. Tucked away on the very top shelf of my closet is a lidded box, gray cardboard trimmed with metal, and filled with with diaries. There’s the leather and hand-made paper one (Il Papiro, … [Read more...] about Dear Diary No More
Jane Austen, My iPhone, and Lessons in Perspective
These days find me craving Jane Austen. Reading a Jane Austen novel at any given time is its own kind of joy. In an instant I’m pulled into a world, if not a kind of writing, I discovered as a teenager. But it’s during dark times that I seem to need her most. Back in September … [Read more...] about Jane Austen, My iPhone, and Lessons in Perspective
Come September
A time when nostalgia becomes a season all its own. Late August in the Northeast. Crisp mornings, cooler than usual, the light noticeably shifting in its dance with time. Summer is barely over and school busses are on the road, drivers mapping their routes. It’s that combination … [Read more...] about Come September
The Spirit of Judaism at Its Best, Antisemitism at Its Worst
Why the lynching of Leo Frank a century ago still haunts us. A couple of weeks ago, waiting to board our plane at LAX, my husband is approached by two bearded Orthodox Jewish men, a father and son. “Are you Jewish?” asks the son. In the traditional black coats and hats, full-bearded and smiling, … [Read more...] about The Spirit of Judaism at Its Best, Antisemitism at Its Worst
