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On Being Unable To Breathe

Something was drastically wrong with my lungs: every night, they made sounds like a basketful of squealing kittens. I was always coughing, had pains under the sternum, and could not push a car or even run up a flight of stairs without gasping like an old melodeon full of holes.

Celebrations

An old man and a butterfly, a beloved friend’s housewarming, a hysterectomy

Earned Wisdom

A not so dirty book, the alchemy of experience, Spanish lessons

Breathing Space

Bedtime Reading

Soon after I met the man who is now my husband — it was our second date, I think — Peter explained one of his chief requirements in a woman: “Let’s go to the library. We’ve got to be able to read in the same room together.”

Baby Fat

Amazing Conversations

All my life I’ve heard the expression: a photograph doesn’t lie. But the real truth is that photographs do in fact lie about some things, and not about others. Is this what Diane Arbus meant when she wrote, “A photograph is a secret about a secret?”

Compromise

The old Survival Trap, a first husband, a paradox

Say Ray

The dentist froze. Then turned toward Ray, a soft smile on his face. His eyes dancing, he put his hands together as if in prayer and responded. “I know, I had this vision. Looking at you on the swing I saw Jesus, the face of Jesus crying.”

The Love Story

We swore to do it till death do us part and neither of us crossed our fingers. That, in itself, was rather a miracle. We were hardly speaking at the time. “I will” was a long conversation.