Suprise Me

Hair has power.  My father knew that, which is why he shaved us skull-tight once a week, leaving him with the controlling interest.  Yet he was bald, which didn’t make sense. Regardless, by third grade, the year I started hitting on women, he let us grow our hair out.  The power it gave me was … I… Read More

I was 11 years old the first time I went away to camp.   Until then I’d spent wonderful summers with my family at my grandmother’s small Catskill hotel.  (See My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel,  My Game Mother,  The Troubadour, and Playing with Fire) But my grandmother had just sold the hotel,  and in fact by… Read More

When I was little — practically from birth — I had a best friend named Bette. Her parents were good friends with my parents, and she had two older sisters whose ages roughly corresponded to the ages of my older sisters. Our two families rented houses next door to each other at Lake Hopatcong every summer.… Read More

I was working as a high school librarian,   with an easy 20 minute highway commute,  when I discovered  I was pregnant.   I happily applied for a maternity leave and told my principal I’d be leaving a week or two before my mid-March due date.   And by that time – with my big… Read More

Ever lose somebody without saying goodbye? A friend goes off to war, he wasn’t drafted, he enlisted, it’s been awhile, you’ve gone in opposite directions. No rancor, just divergence, then gone. A girlfriend slides into her father’s car to drive home too late. You lean down, kiss her through the window. She’s so pretty, her… Read More

Charlevoix. For five glorious summers my family stayed at the Scutt Guest House in the resort town on Lake Michigan for a few weeks in August, beginning in 1959. I believe it became quite a well-heeled resort, but at the time it felt cozy and lots of our friends and family from Detroit also made… Read More

I will admit to cheating at cards when I was young, but it was solitaire, so I wasn't cheating anyone else. Read More

The cockatiel had known all along, what the parrot had been searching for so intently wasn’t on the outside amongst the brightly colored feathers at all…. It was on the inside all along. Read More

You do know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow. Read More

Preparing to go to sleep for most of my life was as easy as rolling into bed ... now it almost warrants a checklist. Read More