This is my last selfie of 2022. Haven’t gotten around to the first selfie of the year yet – how is it already a week?? I like to ease into the new year like a warm bath. It takes time to get intentional. The how outweighs the when. Start as you mean to go on. The week between the holidays and the new year are too full and noisy to digest the past year and contemplate Read more
Nature is a tonic. I grew up with natural remedies and the kitchen cupboard apothecary, repurposed bottles containing various roots and spices steeped in overproof rum were a regular sight among the bathroom linens and back up stock of tp and toothpaste. But my experiences in nature were very few. The fledgling greenery of a new suburban subdivision was my baseline. There was a weeklong YMCA day camp that culminated in a single overnight stay Read more
I stopped reading on the subway. It wasn’t a conscious choice. I’ve been lugging around a hardcover title for ten days. Normally I would’ve read this book in a week. It’s a good book. I like the author. But I can’t read on the subways anymore. My concentration is off. I keep losing the thread. I’m constantly appraising the rotating cast of car mates. Is anyone in crisis? Who’s seething under pressure and lying in Read more
Confession. I cannot braid cornrows. My mother couldn’t either. With great effort I can do a french braid- my mother could not teach what she didn’t know. My mother was raised with a Eurocentric esthetic. The colonial norms were imprinted like a tattoo, bias buried layers deep in the dermis of the psyche. The aspiration for ‘good hair’ made it a sacrilege to cut it off. Until the heat of a comb or chemical processed Read more
She began reading the sentence again. She was tempted to skim over it but it might have information she’d need. Was this old kitchen wisdom even relevant today? If you want an onion to keep, put it in…. the thought paused as she tried to find the word that wasn’t the brand name. It was her tiny act of resistance, of railing against the constant onslaught of BRANDING and the corporate takeover of quotidian details. Read more
All her Jewish friends were posting their amends for Yom Kippur on their socials. Her yoga teacher had said that any big religious holiday was a great time to meditate regardless of your faith. Something about the concentration of energy. Over 15 million people were taking inventory of their sins and asking forgiveness. That energy had to shift some atoms and create space for something better. She lay down on the grass and looked up Read more
How do you make a memory? Seriously. I want the formula. My memories and what I remember are separate universes. I can memorize pages of dialogue within an afternoon but on Monday morning I can’t remember a joke I heard Saturday night. I often get stumped when asked how my weekend was, my memory wiped clean… what did I do? Last weekend I bore witness to an historic event. I was lucky enough to attend Read more
Public speaking is generally outside most people’s comfort zone. My work involves public speaking in a sense. BUT… usually I’m speaking as someone else. Usually they’re not my words or ideas. Or rarely shared sentiments. But when celebrated acting teacher Margie Haber asks me to be on her podcast it doesn’t compute as speaking in public… We’re just going to have a conversation. What could be more comfortable? Sitting in my air conditioned apartment during Read more