Write On

 April 29, 2020  I’m claiming Julia on HBO Maxx for myself: it was apparently made just for me.   Oh sure, you can watch it if you like, but ask yourself: did you work for WGBH as a freshly scrubbed college grad in the early 80s? Did Avis DeVoto share space in your office (a trailer far away from the main studio even though the Auction raised 11% of the station’s operating budget)? Did you also go to women’s college? And shared a love of cooking from an early age?    Okay, fine. You will love the show as I do even if you haven’t ticked any of those boxes. Why? Because it is magical.   It is important.   It’s entertaining and lovely and thought provoking. It initially sets you wondering: how much of this is true? But after a while, you don’t care – you want to be under it’s/her spell. At first glance you might think, oh boy, another take on Julia Child - just what I need .   But it’s more than that – it’s the story about the early struggles of p...

  I’ve been trying to write about grief and about losing my mother.       The words we choose are so strange.  Losing.  I didn’t LOSE her the way you lose a cardigan when you are too drunk to remember to take it off the back of your chair when you leave the bar.  I was there.  I saw her go.  I know that she is gone.  GONE.  Another one.  Is she GONE?  I don’t know. She could be sitting right next to me, but her physical self is no longer here. I can’t hold her hand.  I can hope for one more quick smile.        When you comfort me… don't say RELIEF… as in IT MUCH BE SUCH A RELIEF.  don't say BETTER PLACE. don't say I MEAN AFTER ALL YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH... It robs me of my loss and of my grief. You are trying to make yourself feel better maybe by trying to imagine that her death doesn't hurt as much as you think it might. Your desire to ...

 In 2010, Gail Caldwell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic, wrote Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship about her relationship with the writer Caroline Knapp. The two met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they both lived, and bonded over dogs, a love of books, and the outdoors, as well as their respective sports: swimming (Caldwell) and rowing (Knapp.) The friends came from very different backgrounds but had deeply connected interests. Knapp grew up in Cambridge, the daughter of a famous psychiatrist, while Caldwell was born in the Texas Panhandle. Despite beginnings set widely apart, many common threads bound them together. Quitting drinking was a big part of their shared history, though each gave up alcohol separately, before they knew one another. Knapp's account of her addiction turned into the memoir Drinking: A Love Story , a 1996 New York Times bestseller. In addition to sobriety, the friends each started out their careers as columnists in Boston. Both...

In the ‘90s, I threw a party where someone floated this question, “What do you know for sure?” Back then, I couldn't articulate anything with unwavering certainty. I don’t even remember my answer. It surely lacked conviction. But the question has followed me ever since and I often ask myself, “is this something I know for sure?” I have always looked at the world through a design lens. Design is a creative problem solving process. But there was still something underneath, something fundamental that I wasn’t capturing -- until COVID turned everything upside down. That’s when my understanding of Design came into crystal clear focus. Place. Design creates place – the physical parameters of it and our emotional tether to it. We live in a physical world and the tools, graphics, and systems that we use are design responses that reinforce our place . COVID changed how we move through the world and shifted our engagement from physical to virtual. Our ability to navigate a Zoom world stil...

As I clomped up Becca’s front stairs, toting my backpack and sleeping bag, I screwed up my face and hoped hard that the room where I saw the black shadow wasn’t hers.  When I dumped my stuff on her floor and looked out the window, even in the dark, I knew it was. I focused all my energy on arranging my features in a normal human expression and scanned the room.  No weirdness.  Just lots of cool touches that seemed unique and very Becca.  For instance, hanging over the bed was a big square piece of fabric with a blue and teal design that reminded me of a peacock tail made of flowers. “Cool tapestry,” Chris said, dropping her things in front of a metal desk that looked like one a teacher might have in the front of a classroom. “It’s a mandala.  Sanskrit for circle.  Mama says they bring peace and balance.  Sounds kooky, but either way it’s good for covering holes.  Moving so much, I never know what my next bedroom will look like, but luckily this on...

  Late in the afternoon of May 30, 2009, I stood poised in front of my childhood home, about to close the door to my family’s home of fifty years for the last time. I propped open the screen door with my right heel and reached into the front hall with my left hand to pull the heavy door closed. I glanced into the living room and took in the bare floors and empty space. That house was many things over the years, but empty was not one of them. To see it stripped down and naked felt inappropriate; I knew it was time to leave. There was nothing left for me there.  My elderly mother had passed weeks earlier, and I had a new husband standing by in Warsaw, Poland. The dog sat in the backseat of the  car, waiting for me to reverse out of the driveway to begin our new life. I sat in the driver's seat. To the left, stood the hedge I had delighted in pruning, first with a pair of clippers, and later, when I was older and braver, with electric trimmers. To the right was my mother’s r...

A horn sounded, and with his hands securing his goggles and cap, Andrew Hewitt leapt off the dock and into the Hudson River, the smack of the brackish water his baptism for the day ahead. The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim had begun, and Hewitt's race number, inked onto his left bicep, gleamed in the early morning light.  Dozens of swimmers were attempting a circumnavigation of Manhattan, and the water grew choppy as they kicked and stroked their way out of the cove. Tracing the island counterclockwise, Hewitt and the others would head down the Hudson, around the Battery, and up the East River. From there they would cross the Harlem River and then swim back down the Hudson. At twenty-eight and a half miles, the swim was longer than either the English or Catalina Channel swims. It was Hewitt's first triple crown event.  A 41-year-old former Navy Seal, Hewitt hailed from San Diego. Like the other racers, he had two support boats accompanying him, a small fishing boat and a kayak...