I always head to the ocean when I’m going through a rough patch or need to do a bit of soul searching.
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My Writing
humor, humility & honesty: stories from my midlife heart to my childhood soul & everything in between
Join me on Substack as I launch MIDLIFE BYTES - an exploration of the creative process, writing, travel, music, film, books, art, food, storytelling, conversation, community, and connection.
Illustration by Lori Lora for the Times / Original link to the Los Angeles Times
My aunt insisted he was perfect for me. Then she tried his vegan macaroons
This essay was originally published in the Los Angeles Times
She lures me to L.A. with the promise of a suitor — not just one but a multitude of hand-picked middle-aged, maybe divorced, probably Jewish and most certainly bitter bachelors.
“Santa Monica is teeming with good men your age.” Really? I didn’t get that memo.
Her daily spiel is aggressive, peppered with enticing soundbites meant to convince me that migrating south is the key to finding love, as if staying in the Bay Area will surely lead to my single demise.
“You’re almost 50, you’ll end up joining an Ashram if you stay up there.”
As the matriarch of our Southern California tribe, she still believes that the Bay Area is nothing but granola making, tree-hugging hippies who wear white after Labor Day and don’t know a good Jewish rye from a loaf of sourdough if it hit them on their Birkenstocks. Click here to continue reading on my website.
Illustration by Will Dowd for the Boston Globe | Original link to the Boston Globe
Grandma Bertha and the Giant Wall of Pumpernickel
My “Flash Memoir” first appeared in The Boston Globe
“You can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery with a tattoo. End of subject.”
She’s eating gefilte fish out of the jar with the same spoon she used for her diabetic strawberry jam. Yuck. It’s 1986, and I’m a brooding teenager who’s already irritated with the world when she decapitates my plan to deflower my left ankle when I turn 18. My Grandma Bertha. Jewish. Rounded. Diabetic. Typically jolly, but when it comes to our ancestry, she’s no joke. Especially at the mention of anything German, like cars, Bayer aspirin, or pumpernickel. I’m a virginal sixteen-year-old who plans to spend senior year fleshing out tattoo ideas, cutting gym class, and riding shotgun in Kathy Johnson’s white VW Cabriolet. Strictly verboten. I’m not thinking about being buried, let alone being buried way out in South San Francisco, where the sun never shines. WTF? I’d be miserable. She knows I hate fog. I’m so used to sharing everything with my Grandma Bertha and now, bam. We hit a giant wall of pumpernickel. Hard and impenetrable.
End of subject.
My first official travel assignment proved to be so much more than I had expected, and I adored every last minute of the process - from the initial research to meeting all of the wonderful people who make each of the places what they are. This storytelling experience was the perfect fusion of my favorite things - people, food, travel, and sharing.
Read me in Via Magazine: Click to Read