Category Archives: Life Lessons
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
When I was a child, my parents would choose one night to drive me around the neighborhood and look at Christmas lights. The lights at our house were not that elaborate; my father put up a single strand of lights
UNWRAPPED HOLIDAY GIFTS
A friend of mine lost his mother to cancer the other day. We’d had a long phone conversation the night before – mostly about getting older and falling prey to diseases that turn out to be cunning hunters. We talked
GRATITUDE
There was a recent New York Times piece about gratitude in which it was pointed out that some people are genetically predisposed to be grateful (I would include joyful in that since they seem to be connected.) Apparently a 2014
IN MEMORY OF MELISSA
I didn’t know her well. I saw her several times a week, whenever I worked out at the Santa Monica stairs. A trainer, she was a dependable presence there. We always said hello, and occasionally we had brief, casual conversations.
LEARNING FROM ALZHEIMER’S
I had a powerful teacher in my adult life — one who was uncompromising and harsh, one who reached into the depths of my being, my soul, and rearranged landscapes. One who taught me that what I saw with my
BIRTHDAY REFLECTIONS
Yesterday was my birthday. I have always, since childhood, had a complicated relationship with birthdays. Growing up in the shadow of a famous father (even before politics) I brooded about my place on this earth and whether or not I
THE DAY MY FATHER DIED
June 5, 2004 was damp and thick with fog. I drove to my parents’ house at 5:30 in the morning after a restless night — waking up often thinking the phone would ring at any moment with news that my
MY CHILDHOOD HOME
Months ago, I wrote a piece called Ghosts and Tractor Blades, about the demolition of my childhood home. Since I wrote that, I’ve visited my old neighborhood often, walking past what was once our house, then walking up the hill
GHOSTS AND TRACTOR BLADES
“There is no hiding from the childhood you have. It scrawls itself on your body, your spirit. We end up scrimshawed and there’s nothing we can do about it.” From Till Human Voices Wake Us, by Patti Davis (available on