• Darkness - Hope - Light - This really happened.

    Blue Grace

    December 17, 2021 - By 

    Episode 23. Blue Grace. It was Grace. It was pure, unadulterated grace. Like the old-fashioned kind. The Gift of the Magi kind of grace…when the young bride cuts her hair to sell — to buy a chain for her new husband’s pocket watch. But he has just sold his watch – to buy sterling combs for her long beautiful hair. It’s the kind of grace in that story — the gift of the magi — but not quite. It is a story of our times. Whatever your ideological leanings I hope you will take a moment to take in this…

  • Light

    O Pandemic Wedding, O Happy Day

    October 22, 2021 - By 

    (This piece was debuted at Whiskey & Words, Madison, Wisconsin, October 21, 2021 for The Madison Reading Project) As one could expect in times of change, there was a strong wind. And oh, how it blew. This story is personal. This story may be entitled. But it is mine. It isn’t just that it was a wedding. Or a wedding in blue. And outdoors, at a park. By a pond. With seriously menacing geese. It was an August wedding. A wedding in a pandemic. The storm is coming. This is our life now. He asked me at the beginning, her…

  • Being Human - Blessings - Family - For fun. - Hope - Light - This really happened.

    Wedding Bells & The Blue Shoes

    August 4, 2021 - By 

    I am not the first to write about a wedding and neither will I be the last. My story is personal. The story of life cycle event in pandemic. The story of entitlement, perhaps. The story of change. This is the story of what we do, sometimes, while we process, process, process our life’s transitions while the world is in flux. Our daughter, Bells, told us from the beginning that everything would be blue. That I would be wearing blue, my husband’s suit was to be blue — that flowers would be blue and my shoes would be blue. Everything…

  • Light

    The Hot Sauce Bride: a memorial.

    October 9, 2020 - By 

    I cooked obsessively during the funeral.  If you stop, you know — and look at the screen…then the others can see the tears streaming down your face — and I just didn’t want that.    I didn’t want them to read my face. So I made a pumpkin pie.  And dumpling soup.   And baguettes. Comfort food to comfort the cook. It was a zoom funeral.   That man there is his middle son, I told my mother.  And that one speaking — it is his son.    And so I narrated. And cut vegetables. And toasted pecans. And hid…

  • Blessings - Light - This really happened. - Travelling

    Il blu — and the parrot.

    December 6, 2019 - By 

    Faccio un casino. I am a bit of a mess. Time zones, eh. I am meeting B, of ambulance fame, for lunch. (L’ambulanza italiana) Our epic ride together forged an already burgeoning friendship. She is brave. So very brave. Walking the blocks towards the Crocetta station, boarding the train towards Comasina. I get off at the Duomo. Greeted by its morning glow…and armed soldiers. It whispers to me “benvenuta!” Benvenuta. Welcome. Benvenuto — I whisper to the train as I get back on towards Reppublica. We share an almost three-hour lunch, walking back through the markets near Porta Garibaldi, looking…

  • Light

    The return – il ritorno.

    December 4, 2019 - By 

    Sono tornata. I have returned. It doesn’t seem normal to me to walk down the streets of Milano empty-handed. So in short order I have ducked into PAM for provisions. I walked into the wrong door…alarms blazing. Sono stata io — it was me, I explain to the guard. (Darn jet lag). He nodded his head and told me not to worry. Non preoccuparSi. I grab not one but four scatole di polenta, some chocolate euros for Chanukah, i pistacchi and hand over my cash. Ah, normale. I feel normal now, carting my heavy black bag on my shoulder. I…

  • Family - Light - This really happened. - Travelling

    Sajid.

    May 1, 2019 - By 

    It was the most indulgent of rides. We scheduled a three-stop-transport…from upper Brooklyn down to his neighborhood…and then to the airport. Sure we could have taken the train. But not today. When A was in the car we discussed graduate school, summer plans, ideas for October. When he got out, after the kiss and hug and goodbye and the “don’t slam the door” I said to the driver…good afternoon, how is your day going? “It is chilly, Spring, lovely,” he said. Then he offered, “ah, your big holiday has just ended.” “I know this”, he said, “because all the cab…

  • 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…

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    The Elk & the Eruv

    December 31, 2018 - By 

    A few years ago, when our three kids were teens and older, we decided to take them all on that iconic drive to the Big West….Deadwood, South Dakota, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons….the sort of thing you do with your older kids because you know that soon they won’t travel with you anymore so you try to make it an adventure. Our Oldest, Twenty-One, had become a Chassid. Lubavitcher. Traveling with him presented some challenges: kashrut, Shabbat and tolerance. We decided that part of our adventure would involve camping in Yellowstone. Picture this: it is Friday late afternoon we are just arriving…

  • 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,…