My earliest memories of family outside the nucleus of my mother and father was my mother’s family: her father, three siblings, and my cousins. My eldest uncle and his first wife had three children and we were often sandwiched together during the summer, swimming in Lake George, singing in the back seat of the car, and scouring the […]
I’ve been back to Boston for a couple weeks but there are images from Utah that I’m carrying close through this cold and grey New England spring. Not really images, more like colors: white snow, blue sky, and green trees…. And then there’s the red. We took a couple of days while two of our […]
I had to pull my jaw off the floor reading the recent reports of parents and college admissions consultants gaming the system. Even though the college admissions process has never been ‘fair,’ the hacks these people created stooped to a whole new level. I should qualify this post with the fact that as a fourth […]
The following article was originally published on GrownandFlown.com. It’s not like a gymnastics competition where the judges hold up scores at the end of a floor routine. It’s not like you can “stick the landing” either. It’s not like the announcement comes over the PA system: “A perfect 10! She’s achieved the perfect 10!” No, a […]
My mother’s mittens are soft and worn, of black leather and insulated with red nylon and down fill. I wore these fifty-year-old mittens every day this past March and wondered what she would have thought of my extravagances: an EPIC pass in my pocket and accommodations just a short walk to the mountain. She was […]
The following article was originally published on GrownandFlown.com. I scoffed at the parents, briefcases in hand, dressed smartly, waving furiously and tearing up at the “Goodbye Window.” I donned an ensemble of sweats, maybe even the t-shirt I’d slept in, and a hat and down jacket long enough to cover the entire mess. My eldest son […]
I took a “Writing from Personal Experience” class in Cambridge taught by Mopsy Strange Kennedy. An exercise she often assigned us involved going on “writerly walks.” She encouraged us to travel our usual paths but make the effort to really notice – maybe for the first time – the details along the route: the bicycle […]
In theory, the medieval pilgrimage routes of Europe shouldn’t have held any special allure for me. “It’s such a Christian thing,” several people commented when I told them about our travel plans. I am a 53-year-old Jew, but I am also a lover of the outdoors, of physical challenge, and of meditation. John and I […]
Starting our walk on the Camino each morning, we were smug setting off under a pre-dawn, pale blue and pink sky, the only sound being the chirp of waking birds. But in the northwestern corner of Spain, the sun didn’t rise until 9am. My brain had a hard time reconciling the position of the sun […]
