Finding Thanksgiving
I met the whole Aronie clan for the very first time on Thanksgiving in 1965. From the stories my boyfriend, Joel, had told me, they sounded very normal, Bostonian proper, formal even. I come...
Writing from the Heart: Rich girl, poor girl
When I was dating my husband, I asked him, “Did you grow up rich or poor?” He was taken aback by the question, but after a beat, he answered. He said, “It depends on...
Writing from the Heart
Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. It’s not as if something happened. It’s just that I don’t have little kids anymore, and I don’t dress up and go to parties anymore. We don’t...
Writing from the Heart: Missed the mark
The headache begins about 11. About the time the caffeine can't believe you didn't have your morning coffee. Caffeine is in shock. “What’s going on?” she asks.
It's Yom Kippur, I answer. The fast began...
Writing from the Heart: Maybe I should get on the waiting list
I visited a friend in one of those super-fancy-schmancy assisted-living places. Her apartment (that’s right, she lives in an apartment) has three rooms, a charming kitchen and, get this, a walk-in closet. She has...
WFTH: Education from the couch
My husband is not a digital native. He resisted the whole internet phenomenon for years. We both did. We judged it. We said it was for kids. We made fun. We said, “Dot-org, dot-schmorg....
Writing from the Heart: ‘Are you allowing it?’
In the late Nineties, I heard about the Abraham teachings, a spiritual entity channeled through a woman named Esther Hicks. The work centered around what she called the law of attraction. She said, The...
Writing From the Heart: Live fast, die young
That’s the cute little quote my son Dan wanted to put under his high school yearbook picture. “No, Dan. Please,” I had said. “Come on. How about Ralph Waldo Emerson or Gandhi or Woody...
Writing From the Heart: The long fight about time
One of the only fights my husband and I have, and I think have put to rest, is about time. He likes to be late. And I like to be early.
So you’d think the...
Writing from the Heart: Marry a mensch
This August my husband and I will celebrate our 59th anniversary. When we are asked what our secret is, my immediate and maybe too glib response is: Marry a mensch.
But if they really want...
Writing from the Heart: ‘An Iliad’
Last week, my husband and I went to a one-man show at Circus Arts at the Grange. These days we have become almost hermit-like, but I received five different emails and texts from people,...
Writing from the Heart: Thank your mentors
The other night, my friend Rick and I were talking about how many teachers had influenced our lives. He had five. I had four. My first great one was my mother. She had learned...
Writing from the Heart: ‘You don’t look Jewish’
“Is it time to leave?” I started asking my husband when the white supremacists in Charlottesville chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” He didn't say “Nance, you’re being paranoid,” but I heard it in...
Writing from the Heart: A new religion based solely on love
One of my closest friends died last Wednesday night, and I hadn’t had any time to process or participate in any ritual to grieve her death. Then I remembered, by coincidence (although I don’t...
Writing from the Heart: A letter to my grandchild
Many, many years ago my sister called me on the phone, animated and breathless. She had signed up for a workshop with an organization called “The Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.”
She explained that they...
Writing from the Heart: Universal catchall
The other night I was at a friend's house when she was looking for a corkscrew. A bunch of us were in the kitchen watching the charade, while she was opening cabinets and drawers...
Writing from the Heart: Not cooked yet
You’ve probably heard the expression that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. So now I’m wondering if learning the same lesson over and...
Writing from the Heart: Fandom
There are three levels of fandom: an enthusiastic devotee, an ardent admirer, and a fanatic. Okay, so at first I was No. 1, an enthusiastic devotee. Then I became No. 2, an ardent admirer....
Writing from the Heart: A pretty face will fade
I swim down at the Mansion House almost every day, and in order to get out of the pool, I have to climb up three metal steps on a metal ladder. It’s very hard...
Writing from the Heart: ‘Middlemarch’ redux
Dear everyone who read my last column about the classic book “Middlemarch” –– for those of you who didn’t read it (my column, not “Middlemarch”), thank God. Don’t. It’s one of those “I was...