Writing from the Heart: De-rustifying
I thought I would never lose it. I thought once you could sing you would always be able to sing. I know I have (oops had) a good voice. In high school, even though...
Writing from the Heart: Steak out
I have always wanted to be a vegetarian.
Not one of those rigid, announcing at a dinner party “oh no thank you I don't eat meat” kind of vegetarian. But someone who quietly takes a...
Writing from the Heart: Perception and perspective
Before my friend Richard retired from teaching at a fancy college, he was a consultant for a big firm where he worked with the top executives from a few of the Fortune 500 companies.
On...
On My Mind: Finding the unexpected
Fred Waitzkin, part-time Islander and author of “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” told me that for years he had been “oblivious to homeless people. They had become part of the furniture of the New York,...
Woodside Story: Romance among the elderly
Let me get this uncomfortable thought out of the way: Death plays a big part in any so-called “happily married” couple making it over the 65-plus finish line. And let me just add that...
Writing from the Heart: Chances
Yesterday I was invited to a book talk at the Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven. My cousin, the author (whom I only found out is my cousin about six months ago, when she did...
Writing from the Heart: To the heart of writing
I'm reading Carol Gilligan's brilliant book, “In a Human Voice.” It’s been 40 years since her landmark tome, “In a Different Voice,” the book that swept the nation and became the core curriculum for...
Writing from the Heart: MVP
Some years ago, I was one of three judges at the Chilmark library for a children's poetry contest. There were 40 entries, and after the three of us completed our reading and had made...
Writing from the Heart: ‘Who’s Tom?
In 1997 I was the recipient of the Artist in Residence award at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Prior to my interviews with the board and the director there, I had never been to...
Woodside Story: Celestial enlightenment?
Sometimes astrology can give us fresh answers for why everything is running amok. It’s def amok, right? And so we’d like to know what the heck is happening. And here’s the Big Data from...
Writing from the Heart: Out of the mouth of babes
Remember Bush Jr.’s No Child Left Behind?
It was a lofty idea that didn't work then, and with one in five children living below the poverty line today, it's obvious that 15 million children have...
On My Mind: Thankful
It had been a month since I’d cantered through the hills and fields astride Tex — a giant, almost black Percheron. Over many years, he and I have had a special friendship, and have...
Writing from the Heart: Make up now
Here’s why you have to make up with your siblings. Right before my sister died, we had the biggest fight we had ever had. I thought, She’s gonna die, and we’re gonna not be...
Woodside Story: Losing folks
This is that sad, sad aspect of getting old that you frankly thought, in your younger, daydreamy years, would never catch up with you. But all your older relatives couldn’t stop talking about it....
Writing from the Heart: Just the facts, ma’am
I love Mark Twain’s line, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” So here is a story of how I let a good story get in the way of...
Woodside Story: Ya feelin’ it yet?
We’ve all come up with different phrases for it: “the beginning of the end”; “the last chapter.”
Here we all are in our “sunset years.” These adages hardly summon our “golden years.” We are elderly,...
Writing from the Heart: Accepting us
What other people think of me is none of my business, a mantra I repeat now and then just to remind myself to be myself. I only need to hear it when I'm feeling...
Writing from the Heart: Preferences
The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
The first time I read that statement, I was perusing snippets of the third patriarch of Zen, Hsin Hsin Ming.
Before you scratch your...
Woodside Story: No more hating
Yeah, the two sides of our country’s political struggles find each other, truly, revolting. But this is just the nauseating view developed from watching the news, something some of us have tried to avoid....
Writing from the Heart: Grandparents’ love
The difference between parenting and grandparenting is as wide a gap as a farmer is from an ear of corn.
My grandmother reached just above my waist. It's true I am taller than most, but...