I do remember those magical days when we played outside, dodge ball, kickball, basketball….Where are our spirits? Especially now with covid, many of us..
THE EMPTY NEST: admidst covid
I always thought I’d be a career woman. There was NO doubt about it. What it would be? That was in flux. A laywer? An actress? An accountant? (my high school guidance counselor told me to becoma an accountant because I was good in math. I was totally confused. I WANTED to be an actress or Read More
AN AMERICAN DREAM & catcher of the fallen angels
“I have dinner with people who have PhDs, with people who come from wealth, one friend is a nuclear physicist….. I’m a poor boy from the Bronx. I didn’t graduate high school …How do you think I do it?”, said my dad during his mid-eighties. BRONX BEGINNINGSIf you can recall from Read More
A CATHOLIC, A JEW and a life changing chat
This blog post is making me nervous. I’m thinking I’ve got to get this one right. I know I can’t. I mean, there’s no magic formula or tangible bulls eye. I just will keep talking. The story will come out. I mentioned a few posts ago that at some point, while in my late 20s, Read More
AN IMMIGRANT’S STORY: After Ellis Island
My family, like so many Jews fleeing persecution and harm, arrived in the U.S. scarred and having survived trauma. This was the early 1900s. I can imagine their enormous relief and gratitude to arrive in the United States and be allowed to stay. Of course my grandparents would likely have been killed in the Shoah if Read More
💖 A NEW DAY: good morning
MORNING RITUALS My dear friend Annie asked me to write down and send her my morning Jewish rituals. Here they are, as of now. Someone somewhere along the line told me this is what a Jew is supposed to do upon awakening. As I did not grow up observant, I have been adding Jewish observances Read More
TOES IN THE WATER: Mitzvahs in the sand
Growing up, I viewed religious observance as irrelevant at best. More so, I saw it as undesirable and sort of silly. Why would people burden themselves with rituals, customs and vague laws from some ancient book? Really, I carried a bit of hostility towards the whole thing. My world, full of few rules, allowed for Read More
THE POSSIBLITY OF G0D: a recap plus a tad more
I sometimes have a hard time decluttering – i.e. eighteen year old scrawled birthday cards from my kids, my parent’s odds and ends dishes that don’t match, old painted wooden “heart” tissue boxes my kids made (and I never really even used – three of them!). So when I found a story I wrote a Read More
MY DAD: A blue eyed tribute
I still look up to my dad. He’s been gone fourteen years. A fascinating man, he had some wonderful rare attributes, a good share of challenges, and as far as the title goes, piercing blue eyes. He loved big and had a hard time showing it. Words, hugs and easy companionship, those weren’t his way. Read More
BASEBALL, G0D & DISCO?
I didn’t always believe in God. If you’ve read my earlier stories, you might surmise I hoped there was no God. From that vantage point, I thought the odds of a good life were better if life were just a crap shoot. At least then we’d all be squared off without a cheating ump or Read More
TRACHT GUT VET ZAYN GUT: think good and it will be good
Rabbi Levi made Judaism fun. He always had a good word to say to you and to me about life, about how we were doing…no matter how small. When I was going through a hard time, he made himself available to meet with me regularly even though he