I have been silent about politics for quite some time. Not out of privilege or apathy or laziness, as some would accuse. I stopped speaking out because in the same way trauma renders people without power or words, I had none. After years of advocating for external political change, the famous feminist Gloria Steinem wrote […]
I’ve wanted to write a book from the time my mother first put one in my hands. What I didn’t realize is that just when you think you’ve written something brilliant, you discover it’s awful or needs serious revisions. So as with knitting, you rip out stitches and try again. And again and again. Well, […]
The first time I was in Venice I was sixteen years old. While traveling, I had a major crush on the high school water polo who couldn’t give me the time of day. In the end, it was the British tour guide who got my heart despite a ten year age difference between us. His […]
I’m going to be in Venice for New Years. Not Venice, California. Venice, Italy. When a friend-of-a-friend invited me to stay at her Venice apartment this winter, I was reminded to not turn away the gift horse. As Sheryl Sandburg wrote in her book, Lean In, “When you’re offered a space on a rocket ship, […]
I’m convinced that the most exciting times in our lives are those in which we don’t know where the hell we are or where we are headed. They are also the most scary because the unknown can make us feel so lost. Dante wrote, “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to […]
This morning, I tried hard NOT to flail my arms out in African dance class as I had surgery last month and don’t care to rip stitches out prematurely. But how can one not feel joy when you hear a drum beat? Drums are akin to our hearts. They are the pulse of life itself […]
I had surgery on Halloween. Nothing like being told that the risks of surgery include that 1) you could never wake up and 2) you could sustain nerve damage. Talk about fright. My surgery was preventative and minor. Thankfully, I am extremely healthy and well and for that I am most grateful. But to put […]
My absentee voter ballot sits on my kitchen table. I need to read up on some of the propositions. I’ve known my presidential choice all along. Unlike my Twitter feed, I have not posted much about the election on my FB page. The hostility I see embedded in various threads on FB makes my stomach […]
Certain places imprint. When I was sixteen I swam under an inky sky off the coast of Sicily at midnight. The water was warm, the moon was full, and as I floated on my back looking up at the stars, I was filled with a sense of endless possibility that comes with youth and the […]
Something happens to me when I’m in the sea. I am both the child I was splashing and laughing in the waves while my mom sunbathed on shore and the adult that I am now, yet free from everything. There is only the sun on my face and the undulations of each wave. The sea […]