Well, since this is a prompt about shoes, I figured that a pair of stories would be fitting. The first one is an excerpt from my book. The Red Shoes They were fire-engine red. Cherries in the snow red, million-dollar red; movie star pouty lips, just like on Mad Men red—an I-mean-business red. They had… Read More

” I want  lots of roses,” my sister said. This was the first time she directly spoke about the inevitability of her death, acknowledging that some kind of farewell or celebration would be held for her. And she had a few ideas. I grabbed a note pad and we started planning what would become a… Read More

What does plowing a field have to do with knitting, one may ask. The answer: As knitters know, when knitting an intarsia pattern one reads the pattern from right to left, and in the following row from left to right. This type of writing/notation is known as boustrophedon. The word originates from the Greek: as… Read More

The Pink Dress None of this was supposed to happen: not finding the dress, not losing the dress, and certainly not finding it again. But that’s what did happen.   In the days before you could make online reservations, my husband used the services of a trusted travel agent for his business trips and some… Read More

“What in the world will we do with all this stuff?” Soon after our mother passed away, my sister and I were faced with the daunting task that so many of our generation are dealing with these days: sorting through a lifetime’s accumulation of clothes, jewelry, tchotchkes, and mementos. Drawer after drawer revealed scarves, purses,… Read More

 I wrote a series of letters to my mother around Mother’s Day, ten years after her death: my attempt to get to a place of forgiveness.  Dear Mom, I guess we were a mismatch from the beginning. You wanted a boy; you got me: a scabby-kneed tree-climber, a girl who played with mud and tar… Read More

This piece originally appeared in 2018 for the Student Activism prompt. Now in 2020, once again young activists are taking a leading role in the Black Lives Matter movement, taking it to the streets and the seats of government as a beleaguered nation is forced to face its history of systemic racism while a devastating… Read More

At dinner time, dads cup their hands around their mouths and call their kids home. Read More

"It was bashert," she used to say, using the Yiddish word for destiny Read More

The photographs in LIFE captured powerful moments, whether the subjects were soldiers, politicians, athletes, poets and writers, Hollywood stars, or everyday people. Read More