• Being Human - Difficulty - Light - Loss - This really happened. - Travelling

    Mercoledì

    June 16, 2022 - By 

    The city is hot.  We are on the numero 15 tram…stiamo andando in centro – we are going to the city center.  Per the government order people are masked.  But a few, purtroppo, no. We smell caffè, cigarette smoke. Through the open door we see a musician sitting, playing soprano saxophone.   The air is still.   The sound carries. C’e’ una ristorante di Pizza – a pizza restaurant, another, poi uno dopo un altro…then one after another.  Empty. Tables set. At the ready for i turisti…tourists. And there are plenty of tourists.  As many as I have ever seen, except at Natale. And it’s Wednesday. Fittingly,…

  • Being Human - Childhood - Darkness - Difficulty - Fear - Hope - Loss

    Of fireflies & darkness.

    January 14, 2019 - By 

    There once was a five-year old boy. It was summertime — and of course — there were fireflies. Many, many fireflies. This child, with his mommy and his daddy, spent one summer evening chasing those fireflies…and catching them…and putting them each, one by one, into a tall jar. Now…there is this jar….like a lantern….filled with maybe twenty or so fireflies. This classic childhood adventure was then followed by a bath — and bed — and the lantern of fireflies was put on his dresser. There was then a story, a kiss and the door was closed. It was perhaps thirty…

  • Darkness - Difficulty - Fear - Hope - Light - Loss - This really happened.

    Craving the Shredded Potato

    December 26, 2018 - By 

    Months ago, before my surgery, we had dinner at an Asian restaurant with a Chinese friend, M. She ordered us a dish — a dish, she said, that she makes at home. “I can always tell how good a restaurant is by the quality of this dish”, she said. When the dish arrived it was white and opaque and long and lovely and sour and spicy. It was shredded potato. From that day on I have craved this dish. Two weeks passed and before I was admitted to the hospital I had to have this dish again. I went back,…

  • Difficulty - Family - Light - Loss - This really happened. - Travelling

    Seven months…interrupted.

    June 7, 2018 - By 

    I have given away our extra pantry items, our blender. We are down to the our tiniest bone of soap. Seven months. We had a text in the middle of the night. Someone we loved very much — gone. Reservations made. Ticketed. I am in the school office. Today is my last day, I tell them. But I have brought little cookies, biscottini, to my classmates and my teacher. I explain to them that I have had a death in my family. Oggi e’ il mio ultimo giorno, I say. Today is my last day. Tears are streaming down my…

  • Darkness - Difficulty - For fun. - Light - Loss - This really happened. - Travelling

    Superpowers.

    March 16, 2018 - By 

    Look at me, walking down the street. I have a swagger. My swagger says that I have almost made it through winter. I have the confidence of a woman who can almost completely avoid something disgusting and offensive on the street…with a sixth sense…without even looking down. It is only the bandage on the back of my right heel which betrays my current nearly-successful attempt at finding just the right, practical, sturdy and awesome pair of shoes. The sun is out. There is a soft breeze. I am wearing my black turtleneck. My black jacket. My uniform. My awesome black…

  • Being Human - Fear - Hope - Light - Loss

    “You did nothing to me” (“Non mi avete fatto niente”)

    February 12, 2018 - By 

    The San Remo 2018 Music Festival has chosen its winner!  Italian artists Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro won with their song “Non mi avete fatto niente”…(“you did nothing to me”).   Although R and I also loved Annalisa’s “Il mondo prima di te”, this Meta & Moro piece was stunning, was moving and, as the winner…a well-deserving piece and, in my humble opinion, a great one for the world stage…possibly as an entry in Eurovision 2018…but I am unsure if it automatically gets entered in the larger contest. This song, “Non mi avete fatto niente”, is a song of hope.…

  • Being Human - Blessings - Darkness - Difficulty - Family - Fear - Hope - Light - Loss - Safety - This really happened.

    The Fire and the Roses

    September 14, 2017 - By 

    Eleven years ago we were getting ready to leave the house for the first seder at Jane’s house. Russ was just finishing the mowing of the lawn, our table was set with china and crystal for the next evening at our house. I heard a crackling sound coming from the kitchen. I knew that I wasn’t cooking that evening…so as I entered the kitchen I saw about a foot of smoke undulating at the ceiling above the door to the garage. I went outside and found the wall between the house and the garage aflame. Quick-thinker that I am, I…

  • Being Human - Difficulty - Fear - Loss - This really happened.

    The S Word

    April 13, 2017 - By 

    She gave me permission to write this. We were all sitting on the couch watching the end of the basketball game. She, and the young one, and I. She looked at the vase of flowers and said, as Northwestern was losing the game, “Hey, those need more water”. She started to get off the couch, said she was dizzy, her legs collapsed under her. I caught her. I’ll get more water for the flowers, I said. Something didn’t feel right. I re-watered the flowers, hurried to the cabinet in search of a blood pressure cuff. It was over 180. Way…

  • Darkness - Difficulty - Loss - This really happened. - Travelling

    The birkenau.

    October 16, 2016 - By 

    Last month I had the privilege of going to Berlin.  It was my first time there.  Although I was still walking with my cane (aka The Wooden Leg Named Smith), I took advantage of an opportunity for a (five-hour!) walking tour to learn about Berlin’s history. Here is one story I learned. We were in the cafe courtyard of an art museum — and there we saw two modestly-sized fenced areas.   Planted within those two enclosures were bunches of birch-tree saplings.   Here was an art installation…of birch saplings. During World War II, around 1940, the Nazi leadership realized…

  • Blessings - Childhood - Family - Hope - Light - Loss - Safety

    The Gathering and The Safety of the Burrito

    May 9, 2015 - By 

    I woke to a dream where I was on the street in twilight. With my little child.   A son or a daughter, perhaps. The sky was losing light. The day had been long. It was much too late to be out with such a baby – it was time to be home. But this one had their arms up in the air and was crying, “book, book”. “up, up.” We were outside the library. Its doors closed to the day. “Book, book”. They cried. There was the memory and allure of story time – a part of a perfect morning…

  • Being Human - Fear - Light - Loss

    We Breathe Out Stars

    February 5, 2015 - By 

    The first time I saw Cirque du Soleil was in Los Angeles, 1987. When the first notes of the clarinet began and the lights came up, the performers were wearing masks of lovely ancient people with innocent faces, reddened noses, jowls, double chins and glasses. They had exaggerated bellies and bottoms–and waddled about doing what ordinary people do: riding their broken shaky bicycles, struggling under sacks of potatoes; collecting milk and bread . . .and breath. They were modest, sad, hardworking and beautiful. Awkward, ugly, shattered by life and yet still walking forward. I was so moved by their broken…

  • Childhood - Hope - Light - Loss

    Gleaming gone.

    January 7, 2015 - By 

    When my son was very, very small, there was a book we used to read to him. This book told the story of a mother and her a little boy who walked to a beach, across the dunes to the resting of the waves. They looked for starfish; they had a picnic of sandwiches and pink lemonade. Lying on their blanket, they had a nap. At the end of that afternoon they walked home. And on the way, the book said, they saw the sun low in the sky, gleaming, a huge orange ball. Then it was gone. When we…