I live my life- as I imagine most of us do- working, loving, enjoying, commiserating, and rejoicing with my friends, family, and colleagues around me. When I do think of those who are no longer in my daily circle, because of geographical distance, different paths, or changed attitudes, I think of them somewhere in the world, going about their own lives, carrying on as always. Hopefully having a good life wherever and whatever they are doing.
AND YET
(with acknowledgement to Alan Jay Lerner’s “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”
Every person I speak to lately seriously sounds like they’re struggling with some sort of PTSD, anxiety, stress disorder, or depression. I know I feel that way. I describe it like inches of grey ash, the kind you see after a volcanic explosion, weighing me down. On my head, shoulders, eyelashes…Can’t be brushed or even washed off. Always here. Not difficult to figure out why. Onslaught … Read the rest
We all go about our day, juggling personal and professional obligations; popping on and off Zoom calls, all the while doing laundry EVERY SINGLE WEEK😱 (ever notice that before you even turn around, the hamper is full???!!—has it been a week already?) shopping for food; answering emails; cutting cats’ toenails; buying birthday cards; killing the mealy bugs on plants with Q-tips soaked in rubbing alcohol; vacuuming hair balls… you get my drift. And unless we have a tooth problem, a … Read the rest
When I was a little girl, my mother had this dress, a bubble dress. I think it was in a soft blue, green color. More than the dress however, I remember the spike heels. My mother was five feet (with great legs) and I’m sure the spike heels helped a lot with my Dad who was 6’3”.
I remember that when my sisters got to a certain age, they started with the spike heels, and I would try walking in … Read the rest
It’s the little things. It’s always the little things that make life so wonderful, so astonishing, so worth it all.
For the last week or so, in anticipation of a film shoot we have out in Illinois, I’ve been trying to find the Lysol/Clorox disinfectant wipes to take on our road trip. No luck. Costco, Walmart, Shoprite, Amazon, — online or in person, strike out. So I posted on my neighborhood list serve if anyone knew where I could pick … Read the rest
I was way more connected to my father than my mother and I take after him in a great many respects. My mother – not so much.
From my father, I got my fascination with the stock market; my humor; my insane book-a-day reading ability; my thunder thighs, and certainly my competitiveness.
And yet.
There are these moments I feel like I am channeling my mother.
For my entire life growing up, and really until a couple of years before … Read the rest
I was doing my yearly reflection and writing when I was caught off guard by the din of the news channels pointing out that it was not only the end of the year, but the end of the decade. This was followed by naysayers arguing that the new decade would start in January 1, 2021. Whichever is correct, it caused me to reassess my assessment.
I don’t know how it almost slipped by me. Perhaps because the arbitrary delineation of … Read the rest
I’ve been practicing gratitude for a long time. I mean a reallllllly long time. As in before cell phones. I had 2:30 pm on my running watch and that’s how I was reminded to stop and take a moment.
And it’s a practice. A lot of the time, I don’t get it “right.” Meaning I don’t feel very grateful. And that’s especially true since Drumpf was elected.
I wonder why I had to live at this time. I wonder how … Read the rest
I am grateful to Sirius which has a Broadway channel.
And I am grateful to my mother who shared with me her love of Broadway musicals.
I didn’t have the relationship I would’ve liked with my mother. She was a difficult woman, who, in all fairness, had had a difficult, if not unfathomable first twenty years. And I was probably not a child she felt a particular affinity for. Independent, argumentative, strong-willed, emphatic, dramatic, uninterested in all the predictable girl … Read the rest
When I was a little tyke in the Bluebirds/Campfire girls, one of the many earworms they infected us with was, “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, but the other’s gold.” Recently that’s been playing on my mind nonstop because this past week I’ve spent time with two of my very, very long-term friends.
My friend Cory goes all the way back to high school—we were, among other things, cheerleaders together! She was kind enough to tutor … Read the rest
I was not happy in high school. But I don’t know many people were. People may not have talked about it, but the angst was as palpable as the raging hormones.
So it doesn’t make me happy to see that in Netflix’ 13 Reasons Why, high school life is just as tortured as it was way back when. Cliques, in-crowds, mean girls, divisions like jocks and nerds, uggh. I have doubtless some good memories and one incredible friend who … Read the rest
If your mother is still alive, I envy you. If your mother is still alive and the two of you enjoy hanging out together, I envy you. If your mother has passed on, but you used to enjoy hanging out with her, I envy you. If you wax poetic about your Mom- how she’s always been your best friend, or how she’s been your role model, or how she taught you how to survive in a world that just barely … Read the rest
Years ago, I imagined what death was like. Not that I was looking for it—I just imagined that I knew.
My conception was based on an Our Town/Carousel like idea of death, where everyone’s really there in spirit, checking everything out, seeing what you’re doing, but you can’t see them and they can’t speak to you.
I think I conjured this up when I first went to Israel, and was all alone in a skeevy hotel, waiting to be transported … Read the rest
The last time I blogged, I imagined that if Drumpf actually won, I would need to be grateful that I’ve had the life I have had for all these years, without it being torn up side down.
I’m still grateful for that—but I would be lying if I said that was enough.
I find it more difficult than ever to look around and feel gratitude.
I know I’m not alone—and I suppose I’m grateful for that—but … Read the rest
I’ve been trying to figure out why this election has literally moved me to tears. Why I wake up in the middle of the night, can’t sleep, and find myself dry heaving in the bathroom. Why the possibility of a Drumpf presidency forces me to spend hours investigating a move to and appkly for visiting professorships in Canada.
In 2004, after the election of Bush for a second time, I was diagnosed with costochondritis. That’s an acute, often temporary inflammation … Read the rest
There are a lot of things in life that don’t manage to live up to one’s dream of it.
For example, I can remember a bar mitzvah of a boyfriend that I was so excited about—and not only did it not live up to my fantasy, he actually wound up inviting another girl three days before the big day!
Vacations have often been like that as well. I think about them for months, about how I’m going to relax, read … Read the rest
Watching HBO’s Confirmation, I am drawn back in time.
I remember sitting in front of my television literally glued during Anita Hill’s testimony.
I didn’t know all the inside stuff this film shows (obviously) but I knew when someone was telling the truth and when someone was not.
And I understood completely how a woman could continue her professional relationship with someone who may have harassed her, made her uncomfortable with unwarranted sexual discussion and innuendo or even worse. … Read the rest
I came home from filming in Uganda and Rwanda, stood in the middle of my kitchen, and was filled with gratitude for my floor.
Not my granite counter tops, refrigerator with ice cube maker or microwave.
My floor.
There have been many of life’s simple pleasures that I have been grateful for — malted milk balls (always at the top of my list), Cooper loving his big brother Barnes so much, a Coke after a run, walking out of the … Read the rest
Growing up, Thanksgiving in my house was a big affair. I remember my mother ז״ל waking up at 5:30 to continue the preparations she started the night before, shoving a supernaturally large turkey in the oven, and cooking all the way through till 3:00 pm when the 20 plus family and friends arrived.
Thanksgiving would start with drinks—whiskey sours with more sour than whiskey, and whatever the current fad hors d’oeuvres. One year it was cheeses, another shrimp, (which one … Read the rest
Mem’ries, Light the corners of my mind Misty water-colored memories Of the way we were.
There is always a lot to be grateful for—from the mundane (until it’s not!) food, health, job, husband, cats, etc.—but then there’s the things you don’t think about much—until like everything else, they’re gone. Like memories.
When I was younger I was a voracious reader. I would take out ten books at a time, and schlep them the seven blocks home. As I had quickly … Read the rest
At the risk of stating the obvious, no one likes admitting they were wrong. But no was has ever died of it either.
And what seems to be happening is, rather that just saying “I’m so sorry, I misspoke,” or “I’m sorry I hadn’t seen that memo, therefore the whole premise I’ve been arguing for is no longer valid,” or “I’m sorry I advised you that way, I clearly didn’t insert my brain in my skull that morning,” people dig … Read the rest
The lovely Marsha Keene-Hutchason, Executive Director of the Susanna Wesley Family Center in Missouri said to me in an interview, “Things are not as they appear.”
It may not sound overly profound, but I must hear her voice saying those words at least once a day.
Because we all live with these preconceived ideas of how things are- which is often diametrically opposed to how things really are. Like everyone thinks that documentary filmmaking is so “exciting” – but then … Read the rest
I don’t use the word skeevy very often. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I used it. But it was the first word that came to my mind when I came home to find a host of ants in my kitchen feeding off some cat spit up.
Perhaps it is a stereotypical girl thing that I don’t like bugs, or snakes for that matter, but I don’t often come across snakes in New York City. But bugs, well … Read the rest
Most of the time I think about tangible things that I am grateful for—concrete things, like David, chocolate, a day without snow, a day without cat vomit, an aroma diffuser, a deep, deep DEEP tissue massage, a really good book…
But today I felt grateful for possibility.
The possibility that an idea may develop into something, the prospect that the IBC could actually insure all the programs “in bulk” and thus lower the cost for all the producers; the hope … Read the rest
When I first began this website and the videos on it, the voiceover in the very first video included the line: “Be grateful you have a job. And that you work with at least some people you like.” Well, I think I’ve written many true lines, but this has got to be in the top one!
Most of us work in a job that if we’re lucky we enjoy what we do—but the people we work for—whether that be bosses … Read the rest
It’s impossible, literally impossible not to be grateful for SOMETHING.
Here’s what I mean.
We all know that we’re grateful for big things. This week alone, a colleague of mine learned that his 29-year-old niece had died after a long battle with cancer.
Then Dennis, the husband of my neighbor Janet, ( known to my friends as the Cat Lady), had a heart attack on Friday walking up his stairs.
So with a grateful collective sigh, we are all thankful … Read the rest
I don’t know about anyone else, but since I’m lucky enough not to have had anyone close to me impacted by breast cancer, I don’t think very much about it all year long. The “girls” seem happy, pretty bras are bought for them, David is attentive, so not much to think about.
Then I go for my yearly mammogram.
Today was THE day. 11:15 am THE time.
From the moment I wake up, all I can think about is what … Read the rest
It used to be that a blizzard was something I actually enjoyed.
I would hunker down with a good book and cook up a big batch of chicken soup, or bake a cake and enjoy the sound of the howling winds outside while I sat, warm and cozy, seemingly invincible to the vagaries of Mother Nature.
Then came the big storm in October 2011, sometimes known as the Halloween Nor’easter and even, I later learned, Storm Alfred! And we were … Read the rest
