Essay in True Stories well Told, March, 2023

It was 1980 and although I’d been in the Ph.D. program for one week, I spotted him on day one. His good looks and muscular physique were total contradictions to that academic “geek” stereotype. Without a doubt, I was smitten.

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Essay in True Stories well Told, July, 2023

In 1955, Polio raged through the densely populated Montreal neighborhood in which I was growing up. The vaccine hadn’t yet become available in our Canadian province even though it was already being administered in the United States. No surprise, then, that this horrible disease was sweeping through every congested city in Canada like floodwaters into sewer-drains.

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Essay in True Stories well Told, May, 2023

I grew up in a community almost entirely devoid of old people — those who might be considered “grandparent” age. My understanding of “grandparent” was so totally confused and distorted that the concept and title resulted in endless disappointments during my young life. Oddly, most stemmed from my best friend Ruthie and Ruthie’s Zaidie (grandfather).

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Essay in True Stories Well Told, April 2023

I’d been married for three years during which time my husband and I had been renovating our house almost constantly. Although a magnificent brick and limestone structure built in1882 complete with copper spires and massive leaded windows, it was unquestionably a fixer-upper. “But it’s got great bones!” Our realtor gushed during our final walk-through before we closed the deal.

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I have over 50 essays published on Medium.com on a large variety of topics.

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Essay published in True Stories Well Told, May, 2022

“She wants a photo of the two of you together.” Richard, our adoption counselor tells us. Concern is spreading across his already serious-looking face. “It’s the one thing of true importance still missing from your file.” My husband Larry and I are sitting in Richard’s office at Family Resource Center reviewing our application folder.

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Published in True Stories Well Told, October 2022

My tenth year, Beggar’s Night fell on Saturday. As luck would have it, that Saturday evening our parents had, uncharacteristically, left us alone longer than usual so they could attend their closest friend’s birthday party. And that night our judgment would undergo its greatest test.

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Published in True Stories Well Told, November, 2022

My family immigrated to the U.S.A. in the 1960s when I was in high school. It was during that first year that my mother established her lucrative custom design and dressmaking business. On the shelf above her sewing machine, flanked by threads in more colors than I could name, sat her four-by-six-inch hinged wooden box

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Published in True Stories Well Told, July, 2022

Ruthie Whitefish and I were best friends from the time we walked and talked. As “besties” we naturally mimicked one another, dressed alike, wore our hair alike, even mirrored each other’s behavior. Unlike me, Ruthie was an Olympic-caliber temper-tantrumer.

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Published in Writing It Real Anthology, 2021

“What gives you pleasure? What makes you happy?” The announcer asks. I’m listening to the podcast entitled, The Daily Stoic. Epictetus, the Greek philosopher, asked those very same questions during the first century A.D., in the book he’d written to be a manual for the best ways in which to gain mental freedom and happiness in all circumstances.

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Published in Writing it Real Anthology: On Mishearing Miseries, Mysteries, and Misbehaviors, 2020

Everyone in my family had some kind of crazy foreign accent, as did just about everyone in our immigrant Montreal neighborhood. Jake, my brother, and I had a saying between us: “If you have an accent and we can’t understand you, you’ve got a serious problem!”

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Published in True Stories Well Told, 2021

My father had grown somewhat soft and lazy during the two years since our family had emigrated to the United States, a laziness that began to blossom the Saturday he pulled into our driveway with the first new car of his life.

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Published in True Stories Well Told, 2021

At home, during dinner, I sit next to my father at the kitchen table. I tell him about my cheater classmates, about the ways in which they write on their arms, how much it disturbs me and how much willpower it takes for me not pick up my books and move to a different seat.

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Published in True Stories Well Told, 2021

“Mom, what happened to your breast?” the girl asked periodically when she was a child. She became ever more persistent as she was maturing and gaining a natural awareness of her own female attributes.

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Published in Story Circle Network's 2021 Anthology, Real Women Write: Beyond Covid

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Published in True Stories Well Told, 2021

Of course it had to be so, my eight-year-old self reasoned. Jake, my twelve year-old brother, and I sat in the kitchen eating breakfast. That particular morning we were enjoying a special treat: the chocolate milk our mother poured for us from a giant-sized glass Borden’s milk bottle.

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