October, 24, 2023
Let me tell you about this book, because it came close to never being published. I met Joan Didion, one of the most admired writers of our time, when I was 27 and she was 35. I was an ambitious reporter in New York, and she was an essayist and novelist in Malibu, whose unique voice had not yet become widely known. The sound of her sentences, the rhythm, the voice, made me take in a breath. And her observations! They were original, they rang true, and made me want to know her.
Read MoreSeptember, 10, 2023
On July 10, 2023, Sally Kempton, who was a shrewd journalist and feminist friend of mine when we were young writers in New York, and who later became a beloved spiritual teacher, died at her home in Carmel Valley, CA. Her life path was unusual: a brilliant, biting young journalist, “one of the best minds of our generation,” we all said; then a swami ordained by the Hindu guru, Muktananda; then a storied teacher in her own right. I hadn’t seen her in years, but suddenly this week I was thinking strongly about […]
Read MoreMarch, 17, 2023
It was years in the planning. And it was over in 7 days, when I stumbled and fell onto concrete and had to be medivacked to a hospital in Arusha, Tanzania. But what a week! I had signed up for a two-week safari in 2020 with Michael Ellils, a naturalist in Northern California who leads “Footloose Forays,” wildlife trips to Africa and South America. The safari was canceled because of Covid, but resumed in 2023. photo by David Shoup It’s expensive and was to have been a birthday present to myself, but when […]
Read MoreFebruary, 26, 2022
Nothing makes me feel more anxious and helpless these days than having a tech crisis. When one of my Apple devices stops functioning, I can feel the adrenaline, the panic rising in my chest. I was calmer when a doctor told me he saw a tumor that could be “a problem” in a scan of my brain. It proved to be benign, but I was calmer then, more accepting, than I was when my iPhone stopped working in Kansas City. I was visiting my daughter, the night before flying home, when I plugged […]
Read MoreNovember, 30, 2021
William Ury is a grand master at resolving conflicts. Impossible conflicts. Ancient conflicts where the parties have been fighting for so long they believe it’s in their blood and can never be resolved. “And I’ve seen, with my own eyes,” Ury says, “how these kinds of conflicts can shift and transform. I know from experience, from being present, that it is possible.” That’s why, when people ask if he’s an optimist or a pessimist, he says, “I’m a possible-ist. I look for possibilities.”
Read MoreJuly, 27, 2021
I was reluctant, at first, when asked to be a guest on the podcast, Our Mothers Ourselves. Other guests had raved about their mothers’ inspiring qualities and unconditional love. My mother, Alice Davidson, however, was the quintessential Jewish mother—critical, dominant—who never seemed satisfied with what I did or who I was. She was complex: funny, high-spirited, and creative, and she was quick to become angry and hold a grudge. It was not until the end of her life that I was able to appreciate what I’d inherited from her: a love of story-telling, […]
Read MoreMarch, 13, 2021
I love Amazon. But it’s becoming a guilty love, an addiction. It began as a crush in 1995 when Amazon started selling books online. Then came the Kindle in 2007, and I found that I enjoyed reading books on it, although some of my peers refused to do so. I appreciated that you could order a free sample, read the beginning and then decide if you wanted to buy it. Ninety per cent of the time I did not.
Read MoreJanuary, 15, 2021
Years ago, when I was interviewed by a university professor for an oral history project on the Sixties, he asked, “Who had the greatest influence on your life when you were young—a teacher, book, family member?” Before you read further, please think: when you were in your teens or early twenties, who inspired you? A teacher, friend, musician or poet? Remember what comes up, and please enter it as a response after reading this blog. When I was asked that question, nobody came to mind. No one at all. Until the professor added, […]
Read MoreDecember, 2, 2020
He was 18, fit, trained, and pumped up to fight, when he landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Vietnam in 1967. First thing he saw was a pile of 40 dead bodies in bags, stacked beside a chopper like a cord of wood. Moments later, he and the other recruits were fired on. “I’d never been shot at in my life,” the man recalled. “That’s when it hit home—it’s goddam war.” Fifty years later, gray, wrinkled, and overweight, he was returning to Vietnam on an Old Glory Honor Flight. The countryside […]
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