A mama story. This shirt always reminds me of my mother. It isn’t because she was a tie-dyed crunchy granola tree hugging hippie like her daughter. When she was in the hospital back in 2010, I was visiting her in South Florida where she and my dad had lived since 1989, having retired and…

Lately, the world has been too much with me. As an empath, my compassion for those who are suffering goes deeper than it might otherwise. I can’t turn my head or my heart away and pretend that it doesn’t exist. With the daily assault against decency that takes the form of the words and actions…

A sunny, breezy time at the Jersey shore town of Belmar beckoned beguilingly. My friends Ondreah and Lisa and I piled into Lisa’s SUV and headed North for a day-cation. The car was packed with coolers, towels, sunscreen, and snacks. As we approached the beach, I could feel my stress melting away like a drippy ice…

  I love to ponder the thread that connects people and events. Roll back the clock to 1972. Sitting on a wooden slatted bench, painted blue if memory serves, two chlorinated, sun-burned latex bathing-suited 14-year-olds struck up a conversation. Swimming on “two different teams together,” according to one of them, that chat (I don’t even recall…

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