You will take over 200 million steps in your lifetime. Imagine if your feet could narrate a travelogue, report miles and destinations, when they are at rest, and injuries they may have sustained. What would they say? They dance and run, burrow in sand, hold you in mountain pose. Your feet connect you. Your feet track memories, record the spot [...]
Do you find yourself taking an unexpected pause during your daily travels? For unexplained reasons you stop to consider a feeling or emotion, even a memory that has suddenly hit you? Consider three scenarios. The first, you take a walk, a hike maybe, along a dirt path through a forest preserve where there is an abundance of trees and other [...]
I'm usually not a rule breaker. But, full disclosure: my memoir, Under the Birch Tree, reflects a rule, a memoir is not an autobiography, that I broke. Though Under the Birch Tree is now memoir, it maintains characteristics of autobiography. How I handled this telltale suggestion tipped the category from autobiography to memoir. The leap from a chronological autobiography to a memoir [...]
The asphalt path just north of Oak Street was abuzz with bikers, runners, inline skaters and walkers. Warmth radiated from a sunny sky to cool the early afternoon spring air. I jumped on the path to join the others in a pace too fast for me then but would later be a rhythm I could fold into. Following a pulse [...]
Memories of growing up in a north suburb of Chicago remain vivid with me today. In my memoir, Under the Birch Tree, due out in June, I recall my little-girl self’s life in my small town of Deerfield, growing up in the neighborhood of Colony Point, and on Carlisle Avenue where my home, a “red brick colonial was the unspoiled [...]
One August afternoon in 1967, Mom dressed me in a navy dress, patterned in tiny white polka dots, with an appliqué of paintbrushes and an artist’s palette in primary colors at the hem, and a white Peter Pan collar around my neck. White anklet socked feet, fitting snuggly into blood-red Mary Janes, anchored my chubby legs. While standing at attention [...]
“I have a confession to make . . .” my substitute yoga teacher said last week at the beginning of class. Her tight face admitted guilt, matching her sheepish eyes. “My kids have been home on break and . . . I haven’t practiced yoga all week. Until this morning, when I came to my mat to prepare for this [...]
The holidays are a time for connecting. Whether Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah or Passover, we mark these holidays as a time to join with family and friends and celebrate traditions. And there couldn't be a more important time to find home than during the holidays. In my memoir, Under the Birch Tree, I discover the many connections that bring me to [...]
In my forthcoming memoir, Under the Birch Tree, I explore the discovery of connections and their meanings in my life. Growing up on Carlisle Avenue, I deem a birch tree, not only my buddy, but also synonymous with home. I would carry this first connection, a catalyst for many others, through the decades. Home, by definition, takes on several meanings. [...]
What is “home?” Most people would say it’s where they live, citing their address, as if to establish their unique footprint. For others, home is where they grew up, where they started. Some may even have more than one home. In my forthcoming memoir, Under the Birch Tree, my story begins with my girlhood home, the place where I grew [...]