Posts Tagged ‘work life balance’
Killing A Novel Stone Dead
I am often asked what the book on which I am currently working is about. I usually simply say that it is a novel this time–instead of a memoir–but people are persistent. They are determined to know what the book is about. Is it a mystery, a thriller, a romance? I am sure it isn’t…
Read MoreTransform Your Aspirations Into Achievements
So you want to take the risk of shaking up your life, or even just pursuing “the old stuff” with a unique and fresh perspective. You know the New Year is the perfect time to try. But maybe you don’t have even the remotest idea of a way to begin. How do you transform your…
Read MoreDodging Curveballs
Sometimes life sends us curveballs. Just when we are least expecting it, a new situation arises, be it good or bad, and we are left scrambling. Not so long ago, I was talking with a friend whose older sister had died suddenly quite some time ago, and who was having difficulty coming to terms with…
Read MoreONE WORD AT A TIME
Last week, as some of you will remember from the invitation I sent out, I was lucky enough to be “in conversation with” author Erica Jong, just as the last newsletter was going out. It was an evening event with a best-selling novelist who also just happens to be one of the friends I most…
Read MoreHERE COMES THE SUN
I have been away from home for two weeks, making a personal pilgrimage abroad, to Israel, for the wedding of my younger son. Our entire trip was exceptional, though I was more than glad to come home, put my feet up and pull my dogs onto my lap in a blanket of black and white.…
Read MoreAT MY MOTHER’S KNEE
I was born into a home filled with shelves stuffed full of books. When I was a child, my mother, the poet Anne Sexton, frequently read aloud to me, and the first book I would remember well was a dog-eared blue volume of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, full of all its macabre horrors. As I reached…
Read MoreMARGARITAS, FIRE ALARMS, SHIPS, AND SHOWS!
A road trip! A road trip! Who doesn’t love a road trip! While mine down to Southern California thirteen days ago wasn’t exactly filled with Jack Kerouac moments, it was nevertheless an exhilarating break from the pressures of daily life about which I wrote in my previous newsletter. The Thursday before last, I went south,…
Read MoreA MOTHER’S PILGRIMAGE
In August of this year, my younger son is getting married. For this momentous event, the entire family will travel to Israel, a destination known by many as “The Holy Land.” This appellation is appropriate for every one of us, even though we come from different backgrounds and religions, because the union between my son…
Read MoreTHE RISK IT TAKES TO BLOSSOM
At some point in our lives, all of us feel insecure—whether because we are rejected by someone we love, or because we make a hash of a good career opportunity, or because we choose poorly and discover ourselves in a situation in which we do not want to be, or simply because we allow ourselves…
Read MoreFROM RATTING TO WRITING
February has arrived, with its daffodils pushing up from the earth here in Northern California, and its heavy drifts of snow where some of my friends live in New England. Regardless of location, all of us remind ourselves that the new season is just around the corner, whether we do so with the despair of…
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