From the Front Porch

I am writing from a new place today on this warmer winter day. It was a hard morning for my puppy, Benji. My six-year-old dog, Lucky, went to the vet for a check-up. They are usually side by side where Benji is hopping fast and nibbling at her ears while he does his best to keep up with her longer gait. Some people worry it is annoying to Lucky, but those are the people who did not know Lucky well before and do not see how her hound dog eyes are much less droopy with her new little friend. 

Read More

There are Wizards in Miami

Over winter break in Miami, the kids and I went out to dinner on the anniversary of Jay’s death. The day had been hard, and I can’t even remember exactly what we did that day except I do know it was the chilliest day of our visit. I can guarantee that at many points my kids were arguing and I definitely escaped to the hotel room for a short talk with my therapist and then to the bar for a glass of wine that I drank while I texted with a friend before dinner.

Read More

Mary Katherine

Junebug loved staying home from school with Mary Katherine, their housekeeper who had taken care of Junebug since she was born. When Mary Katherine rang the doorbell in the morning before school, Junebug ran to the door and Mary Katherine smiled with her gold front tooth and hugged her hard and often whispered  "I have something for you." She followed her into the laundry room and Mary Katherine would sneak her a piece of candy. Junebug hugged her again and most mornings she did not want to leave her side. It was easy to convince her mom that her asthma was bad and she needed to stay home. 

Read More

Holiday Spirit

I could feel it in the parking lot at Ross yesterday. The rain was washing away my sandcastle again. I woke up around 6:30 AM feeling like I needed to find a pair of Air Jordans for Simon but time was running out because the first night of Hanukah began in the evening. I told my kids that we would light the menorah at 6:30 PM so the clock was ticking. 

Read More

Doorways

Junebug was swallowed whole when she walked back into her first grade classroom after the night of her loud and sudden loss. The doorway into the her classroom felt so huge and when she walked into the room, it swallowed her in one big gulp. Thankfully Junebug, although tiny, was strong and she kicked and screamed until the room spit her out in bits and pieces.

Junebug tried over and over again to put herself together again but doorways always had this way of making her fall apart. Either they swallowed her whole or she felt like she could barely squeeze through and when she did, she felt like she didn't really fit.

Doorways are still tricky for me.

The song is And She Was by Talking Heads

 

 

It's My Party

I can't imagine turning 46 like I am today and knowing like my dad did that at any moment, he would be gone. My dad was 46 when rheumatic fever which had been chasing him almost his whole life after damaging his heart at a young age. finally caught him. The story goes that the night before he died he said to my mom “Hold me close. Don’t ever let me go.” A few hours after midnight on the night of Junebug’s loud and sudden loss, he had a heart attack.  

Read More

Harmony

Last night I went to hear Harmony Korine speak at the Frist Center for Visual Arts. I was impressed. I haven't always felt this way about Harmony.

It was shortly after we moved into our new house in Hillsboro Village when I first met Harmony. He came by unannounced with his new young looking beautiful girlfriend, Rachel. Jay had spoken often of Harmony, his skate boarding-turned-movie writer and director friend; but the wild stories of Harmony coupled with the fact that I had never actually met the guy made him seem more fictional than real.

Read More

Finding Strong

In what feels like another lifetime, I was the co-owner of a t-shirt company, Bee Attitudes, with two partners, Lizzie & Merissa. We worked often with Thistle Farms, a non-profit that helps women who are recovering from life on the streets. I wrote many blogs for Bee Attitudes and the one most similar to the personal writing I do now was about visiting the Paper Studio where they make handmade paper from items such as grocery bags or shredded office paper. Paper that could be easily discarded but instead is made into gorgeous paper imbued with their symbolic healing thistle, a wildflower that shoots through concrete and survives drought.

Read More

1983-84 University School of Nashville

 

"Do you know a guy named Jay Rosenblum?" a classmate in graduate school in the mid 1990's asked me who was going on a blind date with Jay that evening. Coincidently, Jay would go on a blind date with her and leave early to meet some friends at a bar where he would run into our mutual friend, Scott. When Jay told Scott about the blind date that did not go well, Scott told Jay he had the perfect girl in mind for him.

Read More

This Is Us

A year ago, this is us: We were a family of four and our beautiful daughter was about to have her Bat Mitzvah on Halloween. The family joke was that Zoe's excited Grandma, Jay's mom, booked the caterer for lunch when Zoe was born so the egg salad and lox were ready. Knowing my mom, she was planning ahead too and had baked her dozens of chocolate chip cookies weeks in advance and would take them out of the freezer in time for the weekend. I had driven Zoe back and forth to Hebrew for years and obsessed over the details. Jay had nervously watched our friends' dads give Bat/Bar Mitzvah speeches to their children not knowing if he could do the same when it was his turn.

Read More

Head & Heart

You know when you are driving and you feel a loud base thumping in your body to a beat unfamiliar to you and you wonder what it is? And then you a hit a red light and a stylin’ car pulls up next to you and you now can hear what you were feeling in the loud music coming from the car next to you. You might make eye contact for a moment and then the light turns green and you go.

 

Read More

A Conversation on Yom Kippur

Last fall I started Hebrew classes at my Synagogue and my goal was to have a Bat Mitzvah before my son had his so I could feel more a part of this occasion and Judaism. Growing up with a mother who was raised Methodist and a father who was raised Jewish and then a step-father was who Episcapol, we celebrated a little of this and a little of that. My most vivid memories are being extremely allergic to our pine Christmas tree and always opening my Christmas presents way too fast and doing anything I could do get out of going to Hebrew School.

Read More

Girl Talk

I often gave Jay "the look" when I had friends at the house. Jay loved to talk in general to anyone but give him some good girl talk and he was a magnet. I would become irritated because it was my time with girlfriends and well, I wanted my time. Eventually I would learn to say ahead of time, “I am having friends over this evening. Would you mind if I had some time with my friends on my own?” He then would get the hint when I gave him “the look."

Read More

Off The Hook, Junebug

Junebug loved to play in the neighborhood. It was in the alleyways playing hide and go seek and capture the flag and in the echoes of the dinner bell ringing or my French next door neighbor's mom calling us to come home for dinner, that felt like home to me. I think it was moving in circles together with my next door neighbors imagining we were on great adventures without parents in sight that felt more comfortable to me than standing in a line to walk to the cafeteria in First Grade or having to wear pantyhose to Sunday School.

Read More