Yes, I’m a woman of sensible, terribly sensible shoes. I still own lots of them. After a ten-pair purge I’m down to just over thirty…pair. I buy shoes prophylactically, restoratively, because they are there and occasionally even because I need them. But No, I never had Go-Go boots. Did you?
Listen to his heart’s tongue. You only know your own jealous blood. You’ve been burned and betrayed before—that shows. So now you would stifle all skin—fine or fiery. But now’s time to trust him and your sleek passion.
I’m no longer young enough to try everything, but I’m old enough to try anything. I’m probably allergic to knitting, mysteries, gardening and organized fun. I’m too old and too young for some things anymore: too old to pretend I like those things I really don’t; too young to stop trying new things, even if they might not work for me.
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…?
Every girl swears it won’t happen to her. Every young mother is shocked to see the tell-tale signs. “I’m becoming my Mother.” I see it in the friends I look up after so many years, at childrens graduations, in the tears and laughter. I catch some of those trite and untimely phrases as they want [...]
To the Trees Geography offered me five choices. I picked canopy. Apples, dust and guano challenged my arrival, but skin leathered and I rose. I passed familiar robins and crows. Shy new neighbors hopped away, surprised to see skin.It’s such a loud neighborhood, especially in the mornings. As dirt caked, broke and caked again, I [...]
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 [...]
If he had lived longer, would I have gotten to know him better? Would I sit still for the repetitive stories, ask the probing questions, complete the pictures I stopped gathering almost 20 years ago? Or would I be annoyed at his slowness and frailty, at the obstinacy and routines of old men. Would I have continued to be too rushed by the crush between generations to note the gifts of either one?