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Christmas of 1965 was spent in Kfar Orah, Israel. It was an ordinary day, since everyone around me was Jewish. From the hill where I was staying, I could see Bethlehem. There was a star sitting directly above it, and I thought hmm,… Read More

A list of reading pleasures, suitable for the gift-giving/reading time of year. Read More

My women's choir sang once at a women's prison. The choir members were conservative, liberal, and apolitical, Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox, and atheist, old, young, gay and straight, yet they all felt they were contributing something meaningful to the inmates' lives. Read More

Finding a routine that can be sustained indefinitely, or changed every week, was a creative challenge, but we’re old enough to do what we like and not give a damn, right? Read More

friends Kit and Julian were married for 64 years. When Kit died after years of decline from Alzheimer’s, their friends wondered how Julian would manage. At her memorial service I couldn’t stop the tears when I embraced him, a prince of a man. Julian took care of Kit at… Read More

Our friends from Austria visited New York recently and we invited them to Hoboken for dinner. We wanted to serve them something they would not eat in Austria and decided to treat them to a Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, roasted vegetables, gravy, string beans, pumpkin pie,… Read More

When I was sixty, seven of us decided to climb Blue Mountain in the Adirondacks. I’d done it before and wasn’t too enthusiastic—climbing mountains does not bring me joy— but here was a challenge. Could I still do it? What better to do on that particular day? Our group assembled… Read More

My husband Terry takes good care of me. I got my first chance to appreciate how precious that was a year into our marriage when I was on crutches after breaking a bone in my foot. I could I relax. I didn’t have to get back on my feet until… Read More

Six years ago, I moved from a house in suburban Montclair into an 18th floor apartment in urban Hoboken. As a reminder of the garden I was giving up, I brought with me a nondescript chive plant in a cheap orange pot which was reminiscent of clay but was only… Read More