Microcosm

I went to see “Cabaret” last week, and I am still worried about Herr Schultz. He’s the Jewish character who thinks the Nazi thing will blow over. The people who put on the Holocaust educators’ seminar I attended last summer were some of the smartest, kindest people I’ve ever met. The studies themselves were a […]

Sanity

Immediate apology: this is not about going crazy. It’s about getting sane. I know that’s less interesting. But: some people like to read about how sanity can return. Especially the currently insane. If you’re not insane, and think you could never be, or that no tough, clever person could ever go crazy, then you can […]

Poetry

I remember phrases from childhood travels, not images or events. Glass-bottomed boat. Lion Country Safari. Circus Circus. The musicality of the words meant more to me than the actual experiences. All I remember about the glass-bottomed boat was my incredulousness. How could a boat have a glass bottom? I pictured a little motorboat with a […]

Brown and Green

Most of us are brown and green. Like the bushes I saw tonight. Parts are brown, crumbly, forgettable. And parts are green, new, juicy, exciting. Living things are also partly dead. I’ve been trying to get my creative writing students to write descriptive detail. So I noticed, on my walk tonight, that forsythia has petals […]