6 Mar, 2014

What Makes Winter Bearable

2020-08-12T13:02:29-05:00March 6th, 2014|Tags: |

Starting a fire at 10:00 a.m. Ordering a hyacinth garden for a friend recovering from surgery Stocking up on sandalwood lotion and Dead Sea bath salts Hot chocolate for morning break Red [...]

18 Feb, 2014

Word of the Year

2021-01-03T17:28:41-06:00February 18th, 2014|Tags: , |

  I'm rather late sharing my word for the year 2014. Why so late? Back in November I already knew that "joy" would be the word for the coming year, [...]

13 Feb, 2014

Winter White Lake

2021-01-03T17:28:41-06:00February 13th, 2014|Tags: , , |

  On Monday I treated myself to a walk on the lakefront. "Treated," because going for a walk is a major operation these days, involving long underwear, serious snow boots [...]

24 Dec, 2013

My Quandary with Christmas Music

2021-01-03T17:28:51-06:00December 24th, 2013|Tags: |

First of all: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! Secondly, my essay about my very own quandary with Christmas music, "Can a Jew Love Christmas Music?" appeared today in Tablet [...]

17 Dec, 2013

12/12/13 – A Busy Day

2021-01-03T17:28:51-06:00December 17th, 2013|Tags: , |

My weekdays begin with coffee and Morning Pages; in the background are the iced-over windows of winter. I decided to make another time capsule of December 12, based on last [...]

26 Nov, 2013

Osage Oranges

2021-01-03T17:28:52-06:00November 26th, 2013|Tags: , |

Osage oranges are one autumn's delights for me. I never knew about them until my first residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts a few autumns ago. There, [...]

13 Sep, 2013

My Ode to Kol Nidre

2021-01-03T17:29:01-06:00September 13th, 2013|Tags: , |

Chicago Loop Synagogue Window Detail ...was published yesterday in Tablet Magazine: Kol Nidre Showed Me... Meanwhile I am looking forward Yom Kippur and am basking, just a little bit, in [...]

11 Sep, 2013

My 9/11 Tribute

2021-01-03T17:29:02-06:00September 11th, 2013|Tags: |

Thanks to doing my Morning Pages, as soon as I wrote out the date this morning, it hit me what day it was: 9/11, and thanks to my ritual of [...]

16 Jul, 2013

On Attending Memorial Services

2021-01-03T17:29:04-06:00July 16th, 2013|Tags: |

  Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, where one of the memorial services was held. Within the last two weeks, I attended the memorial services for two men in their late [...]

28 Jun, 2013

Henrietta

2021-01-03T17:29:05-06:00June 28th, 2013|Tags: , |

Of all the gravestones I photographed on my visit to the Kenyon College Campus Cemetery, the one of Henrietta stuck in my mind. Particularly because, once I was viewing the [...]

12 Mar, 2013

On Belonging to a Group

2021-08-01T00:11:17-05:00March 12th, 2013|Tags: |

How could you not feel elegant under this chandelier? Ballroom of the Woman's Athletic Club of Chicago, where the concert was held. Lately I've been thinking a lot about [...]

21 Sep, 2012

A Plant as a Companion

2021-09-22T16:37:50-05:00September 21st, 2012|Tags: , |

Our asparagus fern Prickly rules the sunporch. The other day I was reading E.B. White's One Man's Meat again. In the particular essay I happened upon, he was talking [...]

11 Sep, 2012

A 9/11 Tribute

2021-09-22T17:21:04-05:00September 11th, 2012|Tags: |

I wrote about my 9/11 ritual last year, but I will write about it again this year, and probably in years to come as well, because that is what [...]

27 Jul, 2012

In Memory of Munich

2021-09-22T18:36:40-05:00July 27th, 2012|Tags: , |

As the Olympic Games open in London, I dedicate my blog post today to the 40th anniversary of the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympic [...]

6 Jul, 2012

Tornado Trees

2021-09-22T19:18:55-05:00July 6th, 2012|Tags: , , |

Our property out in the country of northwestern Indiana got hit by a tornado last weekend. Thankfully, none of the buildings were damaged. As we walked assessing the damage, [...]

28 Jun, 2012

Biked the Drive

2021-09-23T18:32:21-05:00June 28th, 2012|Tags: , |

Cruising onto Lake Shore Drive at 57th Street at 5:45 a.m. My kids and I biked Lake Shore Drive back in May. It's taken me this long to report [...]

20 Jun, 2012

My Summer Non-List

2021-09-23T18:51:06-05:00June 20th, 2012|Tags: , |

The first day of summer has me thinking about my summer list. Faithful readers of this blog know that I like to put together a list for each season to [...]

24 Nov, 2011

A Dotted Lantern for Thanksgiving

2021-09-29T13:44:05-05:00November 24th, 2011|Tags: |

Thanksgiving is not Pumpkin Day, but I still had this pumpkin from our trip to the pumpkin farm. And I hadn't gotten around to carving it into the polka-dot [...]

11 Sep, 2011

9/11 Tribute: Portraits of Grief

2021-09-29T18:59:33-05:00September 11th, 2011|Tags: |

Remember the "Portraits of Grief" the New York Times published in the months after 9/11? The little stories about the individuals who perished that day that the NYT staffers put [...]

18 Aug, 2011

Writing Postcards

2021-10-11T17:42:12-05:00August 18th, 2011|Tags: |

This summer has revived the art of writing letters and postcards for me. While my daughter was at camp, the only way to communicate with her was to write [...]

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