Sometime last fall I began to think hopefully about a return to “normal.” We went to the theater for the first time in over a year and were jubilant to get out in public (still masked), greet friends, gather in celebration of art. We had people...
Bobo the Punching Bag: Reflections on Anger
When I was about five years old and prone to temper tantrums, my mother, who had majored in child psychology in college, gave me a blowup punching bag called “Bobo.” Bobo was about my height and was weighted so as to spring back up after...
Alone Together
I first heard the term FOMO (fear of missing out) on a hike in the mountains with some former students and my husband. There were five of us present. After gaining some elevation we stopped for lunch at a small gloriously clear blue lake. As we...
More Love, Please
When I was twenty-seven, living in New York City, and working in film, I was stricken one day by severe abdominal pain that eventually led me to pass out. My boyfriend called 911. The cops came to check things out and called an ambulance which...
Is Hope a Dirty Word?
I would like to dismiss 2021 as a terrible, no-good, very bad year, a year to be sept away and forgotten as quickly as possible. After all, it was a year that began with the insurrection and was quickly followed by my ALS diagnosis. Dire on both...
Shake It Up–Laugh More!
A couple of weeks ago Paul, my husband, and I fell into a delicious sinkhole of uncontrollable laughter. The ventilator I sleep with was forcing my mouth open, so I was waking with an oral cavity so dry it felt as if my tongue and cheeks were...
What It Feels Like To Be Dying
I have been going to the same masseuse for a couple of years now. When I began going to her my body was fit and strong, not a bad specimen for a woman of my age. Now, certain muscles throughout my body have begun to shrivel and atrophy; I have...
Why “Car Talk” Makes Me Cry
It has been decades since I have lived back East where I grew up, but I have been longing recently to return for a visit. It’s not that I haven’t visited over the years of my absence—I have made it a practice to get back East to Boston and New...
Would You Rather Be Deaf or Dumb?
s kids we loved to ask each other hypothetical questions. Would you rather burn to death or freeze to death? Would you rather be blind or deaf? And: Would you rather be deaf or dumb? Dumb meaning mute.
I Have a Fatal Illness–Why Am I Not Despairing?
“I still believe that the unexamined life is not worth living: and I know that self-delusion, in the service of no matter what small or lofty cause, is a price no writer can afford. His subject is himself and the world and it requires every ounce...