Be Light (After Reading Mary Oliver)
For Lo Ten times a day something happens to me like this—some strengthening throb of amazement—some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest, and the wisest thing I know: that…
Month: June 2016
Timing
“I am totally immersed in my work and cannot, cannot be disturbed.” Anton von Webern [Two days before Nazi troops stormed into Vienna]
An Incomplete Gathering of Maxims from M. Y. Golden
Dear Bella Levenshteyn On Monday, I was talking on the phone with Natasha, and we reminisced about her teacher, M. Y. Golden, a therapist she had respectfully nicknamed the “Wizard,” because he was so skilled…
The Daily Miracle of Memory
If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of…
An American Satyagrahi
Brooke Adams sent me this message: Thought of you when I saw this cause you taught me what it meant. Mohandas Gandhi: “A satyagrahi bids good-bye to fear. She is therefore never afraid of trusting…
Remembering/2
Henry invited Tanya and me to join him And his new friend Laura Bronstein For a mid-May commemorative event At the very liberal Reform synagogue Henry and Laura had met At an anti-neo-liberalism conference in…
A Jewish Vocation
This week I finished Marcel Reich-Ranicki‘s autobiography, The Author of Himself. He was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and the foremost literary critic in post-war Germany. As I read him, I thought of my…
Life under Occupation/95
With the passing of every day I feel angrier because I am restricted from walking, from going places in my car, from taking breaks away from the house, from going on with my life, going…
You Don’t Believe Me
You don’t believe me And why should you anyway I’m twice your age— Don’t trust anyone over 55 You don’t believe me When I tell you What you penned outta your core Ended smack in…