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When I was a baby they called me Happy. Happy to sit in my playpen with a soft ripe banana. Happy to be kissed by the sun. Happy happy to have everyone around me smile when I smiled. Mommy, Daddy, everyone so happy to see Happy smile. And now here at the end and the … Continue reading no more fixing

When I saw the small ad for a hospice social worker I was zapped, the current straight from the hand of the merciful goddess into my broken heart. It was the year after my mother’s death, and my intuition was screaming that only the dying could bring me out of the land of shadow and … Continue reading return of the light

Before cell phones and social media, back in the day when there was nothing but endless good day sunshine, I traveled with a boyfriend in an old white Ford van 10,000 feet up into the Oaxaca mountains in southern Mexico in search of los ongos, the magic psilocybin mushrooms, and the small band of indigenous … Continue reading imagine

November 1st Day of the Dead. My ancestors are at the gate, dressed in heavy winter coats with a dusting of snow on the collar. The air smells of ancient Russian pine forests and clean running streams. I coax them in with salted peanuts and vodka, small offerings on my altar. November 1st. The clock … Continue reading day of the dead

It’s no secret that my mother and I had a difficult relationship. It had been years since we lived closer than three thousand miles. We had seen each other at best twice a year, so when she called me years ago on Yom Kippur, I let the answering machine pick up the call. “It’s your … Continue reading Atonement