This is the story of Margot, a recently rescued tuxedo cat, and how she curled up in my heart and broke it open.
Posts filed under Personal essay
What if You Are the Plucky Comic Relief?
I’d like to think I’m a relatively bright person. By traditional measures, this is certainly true. I have a wall full of degrees and fond memories of being a professor to prove it. And yet, I continue to surprise myself with the levels of idiocy I am capable of. I’m thinking about this right now as I can’t swallow, having tried to gulp down near boiling, extra spicy kimchi soup that I overheated in the microwave. So far, I’ve been too embarrassed to go to the doctor on this one, but I’m pretty sure I have second degree burns on my upper palate and throat.
Out of My comfort Zone: Finding Light in the Darkness
To jump or not to jump? As I stood in the corner of a six-story parking structure looking down, my thoughts were flooded with pain. Looking up from time to time I would notice the beauty of the colors in the sky as the sun started to set. These were fleeting moments with a heavy darkness and continual thoughts of all the horrors, terror, fear, and pain in the world and my own life.
Guilt, Judgment, & Forgiveness
Earlier this year an obituary in The New York Times caught my eye. It was of Clint Hill, who died in February at the age of 93. Hill was the Secret Service agent who, on November 22, 1963, immediately after President Kennedy was shot, jumped on the back of the presidential limousine and shielded the President and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy with his body as the motorcade sped from Dealey Plaza to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Ch-ch-ch-Changes (with Apologies to David Bowie)
While we are always changing—our cells replacing themselves, our children growing up, passing of beloved pets, places, homes and people—collectively we are entering new terrain. Our Earth, our only known home, the only known biosphere where humanity exists, crossed the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold in February 2024. We live now in the warmest temperatures in pre-industrial recorded human history, in a world of new experiences, new dangers, and new uncertainties.
Coincidence, Compassion, Competence, and Courage
Some years ago, I read about a study which concluded that one of the main factors in instances of heroic action is a feeling of competence. In other words, the man or woman who runs into rough surf to rescue a struggling swimmer or jumps into an icy lake to pull out a child who has fallen through the ice acts partly out of a sense of confidence about their ability to swim. There are, of course, additional factors. There is the essential one, even if merely accidental or coincidental, of being in the right place at the right time. But, even more important, is having a strong capacity for compassion, and for courage, the ability to set aside fear and act, despite danger and risk.
Three Generations of Fathers
Earlier this year, we celebrated our daughter’s 30th birthday with a small ritual that has long been a tradition in our family. On every birthday, and on our wedding anniversary, we make time to review some of the best moments of the previous year. Since this was a significant birthday for our daughter, we upped the ante. This time we reviewed the highlights of the past thirty years! Unachievable in a week, preposterous in an hour. Still, we tried. Over a leisurely, celebratory breakfast, the three of us recalled and reminisced about favorite family vacations and outings, special concerts—ones we played, ones we attended—plays we’d seen, books we’d read, graduations, weddings, and other milestones. And we laughed about misadventures that were not funny at the time but have, with the passage of time, become hilarious.
Born of the Spirit: Storytelling is the Breath of Life
Once upon a time, within the swirling molecules of space, the Creator drew forth a deep breath of every color of energy and blew it into a clear, nearly spherical bowl. S(he)/we swirled the bowl gently, lovingly watching the sparkles of energy coalesce and cascade, mixing every possible setting, every conflict, every character, and every archetype. Then S(he)/we gently rolled the bowl out away from its BEing.
Manual Labor
I still have the scar on my forearm from when I touched it to the edge of the oversized sheet pan after taking it out of the oven. It happened the first week I worked in a busy kitchen, one year ago. I wear it well. At age sixty-three, after a lifetime of jobs that demanded my brains, wit, voice, compassion, and leadership, I jumped into the most physically demanding job of my life.
My Life Has Been Shaped by Antisemitism
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of antisemitism (not surprising for one who comes from a family with a history like mine. More about that later.) What’s been startling to me lately is recognizing that, until a few years ago, I never thought of myself as a possible target of antisemitism. An interaction with my father twenty-five years ago accurately describes how I have felt for most of my life in America.
The Magnolia Blooms Spoke
I had three big dreams for my adult life: to be married, to have one more child planned within a marriage, and to live at a location that was within walking distance to most necessities. In the winter of 2020, I had a deep soulful conversation with my reflection
Dying to Wake Up
Though Boo wasn’t my “real” grandfather I could not miss the realness of his final days. Despite the sticky doorknob, the smell of last week’s lunch, dead flowers, and the junk pile obstacle course, I made my way to his bedside. The clutter used to spark an uncomfortable itch throughout my body, but I’d accepted it. His 98-year-old body was tired, but his spirit was very much alive as he pondered the end.
A Lament for Winter
On a recent morning, the sun rose just above the horizon, shooting spires of light through the trees and tinting the snow-covered ground orange. My exhalations froze in plumes as I walked our dog—or he walked me—amid the trees that cover most of our backyard.
Prophecy, Legacy, and Trees
I have dreams that come true. Not all of them, of course, but enough that I now accept this strange unbidden gift as a natural part of who I am. For example, I once dreamed that a dear friend’s daughter was pinned underneath a huge tree that had fallen on her. In the dream, she was alive, but she was unable to move the tree, and she was hurt. The next day I found out this same 16-year-old girl, had been driving too fast on a gravel road, went airborne over a bridge, and hit a telephone pole in her dad’s Dodge Ram. The pole fell, totaling the truck, and trapping her inside. She was banged up, shook up, but alive and safe. Before she had fully recovered, her dad received a bill from the city to replace the telephone pole.
The Role of Our Autobiography in Our Present and Future Life
Our past deeply impacts our present. Our childhood experiences have a huge impact on how we view the world today. We are deeply influenced, for better or worse, by the dynamics in our family, our religious upbringing, our cultural experiences, any bullying or trauma we endured, and the list goes on. All of these experiences are part of our autobiography and influence how we behave, think, and feel. In addition, how we experience life today, will impact how we experience life tomorrow.
The Power of Ancestry and Personal Discovery
My sister Lisa and I often joke about our rabbit hole research inquiries. The thrill of the potential finds keeps us searching. What started as separate hobbies eventually merged to combine into writing local history as well as GENMEMS (genealogical memoirs and house histories) for clients. Lisa summed up her genealogy enthusiasm by saying, “It’s like a puzzle, or mystery, to see how everything connects or impacts each other.” That connectivity is what we all need to take a closer look at to understand our inherited (yet transformable) tendencies, how we can gather strength from our ancestors’ stories, and finally, how to keep descendants and future communities in our conscious decision-making.
Out of My Comfort Zone: Answering the Call to Rest
At the beginning of this year, I did what many of us do when preparing for another trip around the sun. I set about visioning, but also taking real stock and looking at the reality of the health of my enterprises, my finances, and my body. My approach to the known challenges, I decided, was to bring in freshness of perspective, make some pivots, and then put my head down and work it. My retail business and its educational programming are currently at a critical juncture, and they really needed my undivided attention and energy. Therefore, plans for personal development (i.e, retreats, trainings, coaching), travel, or casual socializing were put on hold. I felt good about this plan. I love my work. I want my business to thrive, and I needed a big turnaround in terms of finances. So, I grabbed my oar. However, a naughty word kept creeping into my thoughts…Sabbatical.*
Out of My Comfort Zone: Sometimes I Fall: The Discomfort of Asking
In response to your kind inquiry, ‘Would you be interested in writing?,’ right off the bat, I’ve been transported a few miles, to the outskirts of the town of Discomfort. I stare at its welcome sign. Founded: at the beginning of human time. Population: countless.
Picture of My Past
In November of 1997, my brother and I were visiting our parents to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. We’ve known since we were sixteen, when our mother let slip one day that she was our father’s second wife, that our father had lost his first wife and three young children in Auschwitz. And long before that revelation, we’d heard about our father’s other relatives who were also killed in Auschwitz. Our father occasionally told us stories of those people. The stories often ended with, “They were taken to Auschwitz.”
Out of My Comfort Zone: Stretching Out of My Comfort Zone
Generally speaking, my comfort zone is not small. I have lived in foreign countries, trekked in the Himalayas, paraglided off a 5,000 foot cliff, flown in teeny tiny planes over the Amazon rain forest, stood on my head on various mountain tops, and held a giant anaconda around my neck (that one was mostly for the photo op). But when asked to write an article about stepping out of my comfort zone, I immediately knew what I’d share. And it turns out I am not alone in this fear. In fact, it comes in at number two on the list of people’s biggest fears. It is of course, the fear of public speaking (in case you’re interested, fear of death is number one on the list).
