Suprise Me

The last time I saw Kelly, he’d been dead for over a year. In yet another dream, he was sitting next to me on a bus.  “You have to let me go,” he said. When I met him, in 1966, Kelly was a junior in high school. He was outrageous, audacious, charismatic, and sexy as… Read More

In a few days, I will become my grandmother.  That’s Grandmother January (Annie Naomi Andrews January), who was sixty-four years old from the time I first knew her ‘til the day she died many years later.  Read More

Off of West Tisbury Road, in Katama, the beachy section of Edgartown, just a few minutes away from my home on Martha’s Vineyard, is this glorious farm stand; Morning Glory Farm. They have their own fields and sell their own produce throughout the season, open from just before Memorial Day until the day before Thanksgiving,… Read More

Tradition! As a child I heard Yiddish spoken by my European-born grandparents and my first-generation American parents,  yet I never had the curiosity to learn to speak it myself. But my parents subscribed to New York’s Yiddish theatre company,  the Folksbiene,  and I’d go with them and follow the plays by reading the English supertitles.… Read More

It was dark, dark, dark, for days, and the bad air made walking outside impossible for nearly six weeks. And BAM, I was clobbered by SAD symptoms--in the middle of summer. Read More

“The Perfect Nanny” is a song from the movie Mary Poppins, in which the children describe the characteristics they want in a nanny. You must be kind, you must be witty Very sweet and fairly pretty Take us on outings, give us treats Sing songs, bring sweets We were lucky enough to find our own perfect… Read More

My dad lost his Chrysler dealership, due to bad business deals and the UAW going on strike, leaving him with no inventory, in 1967. My mother’s 1967 Plymouth Valiant was the last car to come from that dealership. I student taught my senior year at Brandeis and needed a car, so I bought it from… Read More

A Cup of Tea in Ireland Twice I travelled to Dublin to study at the James Joyce Summer School.  There we students were housed in a novice nun’s residency while the young women themselves were on summer break,  and yes,  you guessed it,  my husband told everyone he’d sent me to a nunnery!   (See My… Read More

You ever meet someone who brags about not reading? Like, it’s some kind of badge of honor? “Yeah I haven’t touched a book since I finished coloring in those dinosaur pictures at school. Turns out, crayons are all the education you really need!” Reading is not some punishment for getting bad grades, it’s a portal… Read More

After five hours of nothing to see but clouds and water, it always took my breath away. Read More