I hadn’t realized how closely Patti and John had listened when I’d described my experience at the Chilmark Writer’s Workshop on Martha’s Vineyard, a wonderful, supportive writing workshop given by Nancy Slonim Aronie, an island legend (and beyond; she teaches at Kripalu, is featured on “All Things Considered”, and just published her third book). I… Read More

Princess Summerfall Winterspring (Not exactly a “four seasons” story,  but I plead poetic license!) I’m sure generations younger than mine find it hard to believe many of us had no TV in our early years.  In fact my family was the last on our Bronx block to get one.  And so every weeknight at 5:30… Read More

Growing up in Michigan, where we have each season, I appreciated each one for its unique character, but autumn was always my favorite, with the glorious colors of the changing leaves, the crispness of the air, the bonfires we had after we helped my dad rake the leaves (no longer permitted, but I did love… Read More

September was my birthday, it was the start of a new school year, the sticky summer was through, the air was crisp and I might even have some new clothes. Of course it was my favorite. Read More

The Duck Pond My parents,  lifelong New Yorkers, would escape the city’s summer heat for vacations in the mountains –  in New York’s Catskills or New England’s Berkshires. Yet as they got older it was the winter cold that drove them out of the city.   And like many east coasters,  Florida became a desired… Read More

In the face of injustice ... resistance. Read More

I’m driving to work at the main post office in downtown Indianapolis.  I should be in college for my senior year, but I have been suspended due to my participation in disruptive protests during Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia in the spring of 1970. Indianapolis is my hometown. I’m back in the house, living with my… Read More

Anti-Authoritarianism My German-born father was rather strict and accustomed to getting his own way.   When I turned 14 and was about to graduate from junior high he wanted to send me to boarding school in Switzerland.  I refused, not wanting to leave my friends and family. “It’s like the army,”  he retorted,  “and I’m… Read More

The Gift of the Marzipan Magi Our friend John’s parents,  like my husband Danny’s,  fled Europe in the late 1930s as the Nazi horror was unfolding.  John’s folks went first to Shanghai,  and then on to the States,  where a few months later John was born. (“I was made in China!”  he’ll tell you.) During… Read More

We were told that we would be changed by our medical training. Our tender idealism would be transformed by long hours and hard work. Read More