Actually, we didn’t do so badly between his few phrases of English, occasional bits of German and much hand-waving. The will to communicate is everything and Hungarians have plenty of that.
Do I own the stuff or does the stuff own me? I never meant to be an acquirer. Many things have just dropped in on me. Stuff makes some folks happy. But I feel alternatively insulated and hemmed in. How do you know you don’t need it? Isn’t it reassuring to know it’s there…?
I knew graduation was supposed to be a life event for my daughter—the graduate—but I hadn’t reckoned on it being a life event for me: me—the woman old enough to have a daughter graduating from college; my home—the default place to be; my picture of the world—oh it still might appear on the agenda occasionally [...]
Don’t we Jews love Passover the best? Our Seder celebrates our departure from Egypt, our journey in the desert for forty years before we could enter the promised land of Israel. We mark this event not as some distant anniversary, but as if we were led personally from slavery to become free men, women and [...]
I keep thinking I’m done with harvesting my family. But we’re never done, are we? I keep finding more and more of myself every time I muse on these matters. I comfort as friends struggle with their aging parents, trying to help while respecting the worlds they have created for themselves. I watch these ballets [...]
What is Chanukah all about? Chanukah, my children, Chanukah is the festival of socks. Each year the great Bubbe comes to the foot of each child’s bed and takes a sniff. “Och, gotenyu. What a smell. I can tell you need new socks, you little stinker.” And so, all over the world, at Chanukah, children [...]
After the guinea pigs featured in Special Delivery there were more critters–of course. This is the journey through reptiles and that most unbelievable pet–the rat. Can you imagine inviting rats into your house–ON PURPOSE? I’ve always loved animals but I’m timid with them. I wrote endless reports on animals in second grade. I learned my [...]
Adults have different problems with multiplication. For example, divorce times backstabbing times sick child, times crazy boss, times stopped-up toilet equals chest-pounding tremors. Nobody prepares you for this kind of multiplication. When you lose the numbers you lose all kinds of certainty. For one thing, there’s no way to check your work. And no one wants to see your miserable little on-the-fly-process, except the doubt-mongers and second guessers.
These are four stories I wrote after I ran across a contest for stories of 100 words or fewer. It seemed like a crazy idea at first but I came to like trying to tell a story in this format. So did others. Click here to find the winners and think about the next contest [...]
I’m done with my family. I don’t mean to be cruel, mind you. I just need to be free for a bit. I’ve earned it. They’ve been taking up an extraordinary amount of my bandwidth, what with the usual proving myself good and worthy, writing and performing pieces of them, and feeling haunted by the [...]