latest by jen
The Things We Keep
When my husband and I were first married, we were part of a group of people in Tucson, Arizona designing a new cohousing community— our very own little American kibbutz! This is actually how the community was described to us by a colleague, and why our ears perked up when we heard about it. We had never heard the word cohousing before then, but we knew what a kibbutz was (or we thought we did) ...
Since I put your picture in a frame
There’s a photo in one of the albums in one of my cardboard boxes that nobody posing would want me to scan and post anywhere. It’s a #TBT that will never happen, and yet I almost wish I was bold enough to post it anyway because there’s a glorious photobomb inside an awkwardly posed reminder of a difficult time. In the photo, I’m looking particularly young and particularly blonde — caught in a rare moment of ...
The poetry inside other people’s cardboard boxes
A new hobby is birthing itself, pushing its way out. Like when I took to exploring New York with my neck cranked back gazing up at building sides looking for signs of shoe polish advertised 100 years ago. A new research topic. A new obsession. The confessional. Sylvia Plath. Anne Sexton. These are writers I never read. Can you believe it? I’m embarrassed to even admit to it. (Though I already did.) I never read those ladies on ...
Egyptian Eye
The weekend arrives and most of us crave comfort food. Doesn’t matter if we’re so old we force ourselves to gulp down steel cut oats with flax seed meal and craisins. What we really want is challah french toast. Or bacon. Or grits. We want our mom, our dad, our Bubbi over there in the corner, back of their head to us, shoulders hunched over, feet inside slippers, flipping something hot on the stove with ...
An Open Letter to Time: I Know the Truth About You Babe
Dear Time: Your linear passage is ruthless. We notice this early, but don’t grasp it til it’s too late. Your strict adherence to forward motion is maddening, and yet reliable. It is a gift, in fact, For we must flow with you, while we foolishly ache to change you (as if we could). We cling to you, but you move at lightning speed. We can’t hold on. We spend you like there is no end ...
The Unlikely Path to Inner Peace
I just finished reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a story of a man who sets out on a journey, both metaphorical and literal, in search of inner peace and acceptance. A friend, after hearing about “the boxed set series” project I’m working on, recommended the novel as a complementary “research tool.” It was a good suggestion. Harold is in his mid-sixties when he receives a letter from a former colleague – a terminally ...
View from above
No matter how blurred or undefined my picture of God is, no matter how my connection to religion swells or retreats; the one God-related belief I hold fairly dear is omniscience. If God were a storyteller, let’s say, he’d be third person with both a bird’s eye and a worm’s eye view of all that ever was and all that ever is and all that ever will be. Which means, I also believe, that God laughs ...
Note to Self
So much of my life lives on paper. In letters, in cards, on glossy, on matte. Inside once locked hardcover journals, there are words scratched in anger, in pain, and occasionally, in radical amazement. Inside carefully categorized photo albums, there are faces I used to recognize, love, envy. Most of it — my life on paper — reflects only what was once the drama of my life. For this is what we photograph. Parties, graduations, ...
Synchronistically delicious
I am often troubled when I hear people use the word “serendipity” when I think they mean “synchronicity.” But I never really investigated the difference between the two words. In my unresearched opinion, I always imagined synchronicity as attached to “meaningful” or extraordinary. Whereas serendipity is more playful, like a cup of frozen hot chocolate. Lucky. Fortuitous. Unexpected. Right place at the right time sorta thing. Whereas synchronicity … when it happens … almost feels ...
Finish this haiku … if you can
I was attempting a haiku this morning when I realized there is no good antonym for alone. Walking alone is often the first step towards These were the first two lines of an idea I was trying to work through by haiku. Except, I couldn’t finish it in a satisfying way. “Together?” Is together really the only antonym for alone? I was going for an emotion, a feeling, a deep sense of being close to ...
Exchange of letters
I was thinking of Sarah this morning when I realized how many similarities there are between the online friendships I’ve cultivated and the pen pals I used to collect as a young girl. Sarah and I are planning to meet in real life for the first time. Despite the fact that we both are former Americans living in Israel, and only live an hour’s drive from each other, we’ve never sat to drink coffee together; ...
It is a dream and a song
In one of my cardboard boxes, I found a folder with some work samples from my time as a book club manager at Scholastic. While rifling through the R.L. Stine Goosebumps newsletters and colorful seasonal book catalogs I used to edit, a typed out note on white paper fluttered through the air and landed on the floor. It took me only seconds to realize what it was: a note from my former co-worker, Nelson, a ...
A case for hoarding
I’m a hoarder. I hoard paper, photos, t-shirts, cozy socks, cookies, memories, books. Especially books. And memories. I’m not so compulsive to be recruited for a reality TV show, but I’m bad enough that closets are always full and there’s never enough storage space. Not in my house, not in my brain. Despite this need to hang on, each time I have moved homes (about 6 or 7 times in adulthood), I’ve let go of ...
Dance as a writing prompt?
My new friend Miriam is a long-time professional dancer and choreographer. I met her in a writing workshop at Bar Ilan University and have enjoyed hearing her tales of dance, particularly those she found herself in while living in far-flung areas of the world foreign to me. But yesterday, Miriam surprised me even more when she led our group in a movement exercise designed to be used as a writing prompt. Movement as a writing ...
Love is as close as the refrigerator door
When I was a girl, our refrigerator was stocked. Not just with food, but with memories. My mother liked to collect magnets from places she had visited — and while it’s difficult to remember exactly from where and from when, I do distinctly recall a trail of experiences splattered like paint across the front of a series of refrigerator doors of my childhood. It’s a tradition I’ve, without much serious intention, carried forward. It started ...
Spyware (A Telepathic Blogger’s Haiku)
I know you’re reading. I feel you each time you do. But more when you don’t.
Disclaimer: I am not the me you think I am
In the days since the Justine Sacco twitter incident (which has officially been labeled a mob by the New York Times), I’ve spent a little time on a project that I’ve been meaning to focus on for a while: Cleaning up my internet bread crumbs You see: I’ve been at this a while. This thing I call “sharing of myself with strangers.” I’ve been writing and posting opinion pieces, and uploading and approving photos of ...
The day I didn’t break up with the Internet
My recent post about my disappointment in the behavior of the Internet (specifically as it related to a Twitter lynch mob against PR professional Justine Sacco) garnered a lot of traffic. I asked myself, “why?” Sure, the post was opinionated and related to a trending topic. But I think the primary reason is because misery loves company and a lot of people are miserable. We’re stuck in really bad relationships… With the Internet. Admit it. ...
- Mindfulness |
- Parenting |
How to be a happy fool
The Buddha never said this, but it’s the noise of parenthood that propels me to appreciate the quiet. This is probably the greatest lesson I’ve learned so far in the 11 and a half years I’ve been mothering. This is also why I wouldn’t use time travel to go back…
- Community |
- Letting Go |
- Love |
- Mindfulness |
Totally awesome redefined
I’m a girl who grew up in the totally awesome eighties, so it’s taken time for me to integrate the word awesome into my system with an emphasis on awe. But as I am awakening more to the magic in my life and in the world around me, I’m finding it…
- Love |
- Relationships |
A date with Haifa
Yesterday I took my husband to the ER for symptoms he has been suffering for over a week. Fortunately he was released at the end of a very long day and evening with a diagnosis of pneumonia. Serious, but not as serious as we thought, and treatable with antibiotics. And…
- Friendship |
- Letting Go |
- Love |
- Memory |
- Relationships |
The New 40
“40 is the new 30,” said a friend of mine the other day. That would totally and completely suck, I just realized. Yes, my hair was blonder. Yes, my breasts were firmer. Yes, I had ten years ahead of me still ‘ til 40. But … wow. 30. 2004. Mom…
- Books |
- Climate Changes |
- Community |
- Environment |
- Food |
What I imagine when I imagine the end of the world
Short Fiction When I imagine the end of the world, I am alone at the edge of a cliff. It’s evening and God Only Knows by the Beach Boys is playing on a box radio I looted from my neighbor’s basement. If it were a movie, I’d be gazing out…
- Family |
- Love |
- Memory |
Let the summer of 40 begin
When I was a younger girl, I never imagined I’d marry a guy my own age. It’s not that I was into older guys. Mamash, LO, as we say in Hebrew. Definitely NOT. Older guys scared me. I typically dated guys who were maximum two years older. This was my…
- Kibbutz |
- Writing |
The obligatory notice
Almost as often as I change the furniture around in my house, I like to play with the look and feel of the blog. Please note the new design only enough to be aware that it’s still me. Fine. I admit it. I was really looking for an excuse to post…
- Love |
- Memory |
- Music |
- Relationships |
- Writing |
Take heed
What if the woman who’s leaving Bob Dylan in Boots of Spanish Leather returns one day? Maybe instead of boots she just brings her older, softer, leathery self to a cafe where it’s said Dylan sometimes drinks black coffee. I imagined that woman and with her in mind, played a little with blackout poetry.…
- Books |
- Dreams |
- Family |
- Letting Go |
- Memory |
Throw my suitcase out there, too
The best coworker I ever had was the one who every morning sat with me for a half hour while drinking our morning coffee and did dream analysis with me. She was good. So was I. Coffee + dream analysis = best way to start the morning. I’m pretty decent…
- Family |
- Nonfiction |
- Writing |
Photographic memory
I love photography even though I’ve never been as good at the art as I might have liked; might have been. I’m grateful — seriously, grateful — to Instagram, for allowing me an outlet for the scenes I capture in my mind’s eye and feel compelled to share, but hardly ever…