Red Tent -- and more

2011-12-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

IN WITH THE OLD

The yellow pages are lying on the stoop. What am I supposed to do with it?

I look up addresses and phone numbers online. I check out services and goods through social media and bulletin boards. I consult yelp.

Actually, I'm not even talking about the yellow pages. What landed at my front door is the yellow book and it's about 1/4 the size of what the yellow pages used to be. It's hardly big enough to press flowers.

I ought to deposit the yellow book directly into the recycling bin, but for some no-good reason at all, I feel sorry for this vestigial, pointless pile of paper.

I suppose I'll shelve it near the atlases, where it will sit, untouched, for the next twelve months. Until the next one appears, unwanted, next year.

2011-12-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

My favorite blog: The Mikveh Lady has Left the Building

In case you didn't know, I am the founder and board president of a 21st century incarnation of mikveh -- the ancient Jewish practice of immersion.

The Mayyim Hayyim blog is one my pleasures and I occasionally contribute to it. This is what I just posted there. I hope you don't mind the pitch; it's that time of year, too.

I love this blog.

I love the diversity of topics and the diversity of voices.

I love the title. “The Mikveh Lady has Left the Building," which means that Jewish lie is changing. And where there is change there is life.

A blog is just a blog, but this blog is proof positive that Jewish life in America is vital, creative, and inspiring. And the fact that we’ve had 16,622 views confirms the fact that you think so, too.

Since you are reading these words, I have to assume that you want to make sure that Mayyim Hayyim can keep on blogging and, by the way, opening the door wide to Jewish ritual, meaning, and community for all Jews, for people becoming Jewish, and for their families and friends. All this for folks in the Boston area and way, way beyond — including Raleigh, NC and Jerusalem, to name just a few places we're helping change happen.

All this costs money.

So do something. Make a donation. Right now. Click here.

$18, $180, $1800. Whatever.

2011 is coming to an end, so go out on a mitzvah.

The gates are closing.

And by the way, I love you, too.

Posted on December 28, 2011by mayyimhayyim

2011-12-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

Spiritual Teachings of the Canine Masters

It’s not the destination,it’s the journey. Walking around the block, around the block, around theblock.

Be here now. Walkingaround the block, there is a choice: keep my head down and miss the whole thingor notice the birdsong, the airagainst my cheek, the red tricycle on the neighbor’s lawn.

I am not the center ofthe universe. Who picks up the poop?

I am worthy of love.The ecstatic greeting at the door, whether it’s been six minutes or six hours sinceI left.

Give thanks. Who’sa good doggie? Buddy is. Yes he is.

Pumptop TV

2011-12-07T14:09:00.001-08:00

I was filling up the tank, self-serve, $3.35 a gallon. (A “good”price at that moment.)

I barely noticed 10 inch screen at the top of the pump. Out of the corner of my eye, I registered a message aboutthe lethal dangers of texting behind the wheel. Then there was an “Entertainment Tonight” -typeteaser about a movie I don’t want to see, Mario Lopez thanked me for watching, and a screensaver appeared with information about the station's hours and services.

Eek. I had watched four minutes of PumpTV without even realizing it.

There are screens flickering in cabs and elevators, inairports and at supermarket checkout counters. Entertainment is not the point; sales and pacification are the name of thegame.

If you’re watching a screen, maybe you’ll be less angryabout the four-hour flight delay. If there‘s cheery music, soothing commentary,and pretty pictures, maybe you’ll give in and buy the chocolate bar from the rackby the register. (You want it -- you know you do.)

Last time I was called for jury duty, I brought a book with me, hopingto turn the wait into an opportunity for uninterrupted reading. But there was aTV screen bolted to the wall in the holding pen and after the recorded civicslesson was over, I had no way to escape the laugh track, as we were being “treated”to an honest-to-goodness sit-com.

I'm sorry. This is getting to be an Andy Rooney rant, so I won’tspeculate on the impact of flickering screens perpetually aimed at childrensitting in the back ofthe minivan. I’ll stop now.

Have a nice day.

E-books -- up close and personal

2011-10-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

My husband, the information technology guy in my life, sent me a link to a new service called Kindlegraph -- a platform that allows readers to get electronic books “autographed” by the author.

The whole e-book thing makes writers and editors and agents and booksellers very antsy. And the whole business of publishing is in scary flux.

So … do I give comfort to the enemy by adding my titles to Kindlegraph? Or am I, as Evan Jacobs, the creator of this service suggests, “building a relationship” with readers who’ve gone digital?

There are some writers who refuse to permit their books to be digitized, but I can’t get myself worked into a righteous lather about e-reading. This is latest chapter in the history of reading technology. Lest we forget, the book followed the folio that followed the scroll (that wiggled and tickled and jiggled inside her). Like the book, which made reading available to people who did not live in monasteries, electronic readers are a force for democratization. Just think: if all the great libraries of the world go on-line and if access to the net continues to accelerate and reaches every corner of the globe, the opportunities for inspiration and education explode. Which is all to the good.

I’m a fan of the electronic universe that has enabled a more immediate connection between readers and writers. Email from readers arrives from all corners of the Globe and, except for the nasty ones, I answer them all. It doesn’t feel like a lesser relationship than one forged on paper; in fact, the ease and speed of electronic communication makes it seem less formal and more personal.

At most of my book signings, at least one person will come up and apologetically tell me she (mostly she) read the book on an electronic device and has nothing for me to sign. I try to absolve such readers and thank them for buying the book. Now, I’ll tell them I can e-sign.

You need a Twitter account to send me a request. I will send a note that will then be zapped directly to your Kindle, if you have one; if you use another machine, you get an email about how to download it. On Kindles, the autograph will appear in a separate file, creating a virtual autograph book, which I think is kind of adorable. It’s free - unless you’re doing this on Kindle’s 3-G connection, which will set you back 15 cents.

I wonder if it’ll catch on.

www.kindlegraph.com

Architecture

2011-07-08T05:40:00.000-07:00

I'm in love with buildings -- that is to say, beautiful buildings. Buildings that sing or shout to the sky or make me smile or sigh, or fill me with awe.

I was in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, and was driven around the city by a friend who pointed out the old and the new. The new cathedral (huge but hushed in color), the Disney concert hall (a wild aluminum ride) the design center (three glass forms in saturated primary shades of red, green, and blue -- my favorite) and lots of stunning "old" Deco buildings -- some being repurposed as musuem, library, whatever. I liked the Bauhausy stuff too, lots of it hung with neon red bouganvillia.

Most architecture is voiceless, soulless commercial schlock. Boxes, McMansions, tall towers that do not yearn for the sky, ticky-tacky. Plenty of that in L.A., too. Like everywhere. And yet, the kvetch that nobody makes nothing no good no more is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Last night, I had the honor of sitting in the Shalin Liu Perfomance Center in Rockport, Mass. Here is a building that makes love to your eyes and ears and heart -- though more from the inside than from the exterior, which is handsome but may a little historico-cute.

Inside, the most dramatic aspect is the backdrop onstage -- a huge picture window out onto the harbor, forever framing the sunset, complete with soaring seagulls and boats moving silently by. But it's the details that do me the magic. Walls formed of granite pieces, recalling the hand work of stone masons. The plank ceiling held aloft by improbably thin, chic black poles. And the light fixtures! Last night, they glowed, gold, and as night fell, reflected back to us inside. That huge window made them seem to dangle, multiplied over the black sea. They looked like lanterns lit by candles, honey-colored, soft, perfect. Wow.

Feast on your life

2011-06-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

This poem landed on my ears today, a welcome gift. In advance of turning 60, which is, it turns out my friends, is a big deal after all.

Love After Love by Derek Wolcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Teen Voices, Teen Writers

2011-06-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

This spring, I had the honor of judging the finalists in an international short-story contest run by Teen Voices, an organization with the mission of “changing the world for girls through media.”

Teen Voices magazine -- a glossy print magazine written entirely by girls for girls -- has been around for 20 years, so the contest was called “20 under 20.” Girls were asked to answer, in 1,200 words or less, the question, “What does the word ‘twenty’ mean to you?”

There were 75 entries from girls as young as 13, representing 24 states and 6 countries outside the U.S: Taiwan, Canada, England, South Africa, Egypt, and South Korea. Teen girls wrote about escaping domestic abuse, auditioning for the Korean version of “American Idol,” losing loved ones, finding loved ones, religion, politics, and school.

The two winners are Pavi Chance (13) and Kay MacPhail (14). Pavi and Kay used the first person, in very different ways, to express intense emotions and draw the reader into the writer’s world. Their stories were vivid, powerful, and quite sophisticated. I look forward to hearing from more these two young women -- and to many of the others who entered the contest.

The two wining stories will be published in the fall/winter issue of Teen Voices print magazine -- but you can read excerpts right now online http://www.teenvoices.com/2011/05/30/congratulations-to-our-20-under-20-winners// The runner-up and 17 semifinalists will be published online.

To learn more about this great organization: www.teenvoices.com

The Red Tent in song

2011-06-05T06:59:00.001-07:00

I still get emails, and even the occasional letter, about The Red Tent. Nearly all of the communication comes from women, and lately from high school students -- some of whom were assigned the book, others who found it on their own.

Since there is a lot of birthing in The Red Tent, as well as accounts of women of the ancient world either trying to get pregnant or prevent pregnancy, over the years I’ve heard from nurses, ob-gyns, and midwives. I’ve always been very touched to hear that they feel the novel affirms and honors the work they do.

Several have mentioned the “birth song” attributed to the midwives of Shechem -- but written by me. (Always remember; this is fiction.) The lyric has been set to music a few times and most recently by Dulcy Sacan, a midwifery student at the University of Pennsylvania. The song was used in the sound track of a video entitled, “Why I become a Midwife,” and won a contest at the recent American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM) 55th annual meeting in San Antonio. The testimony of her classmates -- expressing their passion to support women’s health -- brought tears to my eyes.

Dulcy sings on the four-minute video. http://youtu.be/c-_S3X5y4H0

Shopping Cute (names have been changed*)

2011-05-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

Even before I closed the door, I knew that “Brazen”* was a mistake. The teenager girls behind the counter, who were flirting with some boys about to leave, didn’t bother saying hello, which was fine with me. Having entered, I felt committed to the game but made quick work of it; circling the perimeter and stopping briefly only at purses and scarves (gaudy and cheap, though not inexpensive) so as not to look like a grandma seeking a teenile makeover. I tried to look like I was shopping for a fun high school graduation gift.

It was the kind of shop where thong bikinis of many colors are set out, like impulse-buy candy, right next to the cash register.

“Topaz”* was something else again; trendy and funky and also the shop where I had found my beloved yellow wallet. And a couple of summery tops, too.

The tall, thin, brown-haired salesgirl greeted me with retail warmth. I picked up a deep blue scarf with a discreet sprinkling of sequins along the edge and wrapped it around my neck.

“I love that color,” said the pretty clerk.

“Do you?” I wondered.

I wandered, enjoying the exposed brick, the hammered tin ceiling, the ‘30s jazz in the air. The antithesis of Macys, et. al.

In the dressing room, I tried on a long blouse with interesting details on the side. It didn't do me any favors, and I remembered that the shirt I bought there last time had never really worked. I took it to the consignment store after one wearing.
Before entering “Topaz,” I had walked around in “Morgana’s,”* a boutique for ladies of a certain age -- my age to be precise. There was a large selection of mother-of-the-bride-wear and many “pieces” appropriate for cocktail parties, cruises, luncheons; also some perfectly acceptable suiting for work.

I could wear some of this, I thought, and fled.

I pulled out my credit card at “Topaz."

The towering shop girl handed me my receipt. “I love this scarf,” she said, as if for the first time.

I ignored the bowl of thong panties.

Snail mail

2011-04-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

       I once heard someone object to the term as an insult, snails being associated with slime as well as slowness. But there had to be some way to differentiate between electronic missives and those send by pony express, er, post office.

        I am becoming increasingly impatient with email. Of course, the novelty is long gone, but I find it easier faster to make plans, answer questions, and clear up misunderstandings on the phone. If I'm online and receive an email I want to answer, I often grab the receiver (yeah, yeah, it's still a landline) and say, "Hello." The real-time contact feels like a gift.

      But that's a little beside the point. The point being that my daughter's boyfriend is in the military, deployed in Afghanistan, and the two of them are writing letters. By hand. On paper. Daily. They talk on the phone, too, but there's little privacy for him and the connection isn't reliable. Email access is limited.

       And it turns out that the hand-written letter remains as powerful and romantic and consoling for 21st century twenty-somethings as it has always been for those sent to war and those waiting for their safe return. The daily rush to the mailbox, the tactile satisfaction of holding something that was recently touched by your beloved, and indeed a thing of his/her thinking and making: powerful magic.

         Due to the way that the mail is dispatched and transported, E. and T. tend to receive letters in bulk. Two or four or seven envelopes arrive at once, which is a happy bonanza when it happens but a bummer on the days between. In the meanwhile, there is at least the pleasure of re-reading, of putting the letters aside for safe-keeping, a permanent record of separation and connection, longing and love.

         The news that the US Postal Service may be ending Saturday delivery makes me even sadder now.

Who knew?

2011-03-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

About six years ago, I was invited to speak at a gathering of women, convened by Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues) at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. It was a very cool weekend, with women of all backgrounds, from many continents and even political persuasions in attendance. I was honored to be on the podium.

That was a long time ago and the memory of it faded until a friend emailed me and asked, "Did you know this was online?"

I didn't know and watched it.

Once I got over myself (Why didn't I wear lipstick? Why didn't I smile?) I decided to share it. This I believe, still and always. http://vimeo.com/5127406

Esther Speaks: A silly short story for Purim

2011-02-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

You know that scroll that Jews read every year at Purim? That is definitely not the version mentioned in Chapter 9, verse 29, which states, Queen Esther, daughter of Avichayil and Mordechai the Jew, wrote about the enormity of all the miracles that established the holiday.

I did, indeed, write about the affair in Shushan and actually the literary aftermath is a story in itself. Curious? I thought you might be …
It was about a month after the hubbub, the fighting and killing and burying the poor dead gentiles; Uncle Morty came to my chambers and told me to write an executive summary about what happened, with a shout out to him and how the Jews owed him their lives. He was in a big rush, too; he needed a good story to send along with his letter to the landsman, asking for donations and sponsorships for the first annual Purim memorial donor dinner.

I told him fundraising wasn’t my job but he said he was too busy running the kingdom and what did I have to do anyway?

He had a point. By then, King Achash-horn-dog had moved on to another princess, or as we called them in the harem, ‘fresh meat.’ And Morty had good reason to ask me to write the executive summary. I have a degree in public relations and my king did love my pillow talk.

But Morty’s request set me to thinking; if I put in all the sex and back-stabbing, I might be able to sell the tale to a bigger audience, which of course meant non-Jews. And why not? This story had all the makings of a best-seller: sex, wild parties, discarded wives, secret identities, and court intrigue up the ying-yang. Everyone loves it when the bad guy gets hoist on his own petard, or dangled from his own gallows as the case may be.

So I told my uncle I’d do it. I had Timmy bring out the best fountain pens and a ream of clean scrolls and get ready to take dictation. Poor Timmy never gets the credit he deserves, which simply isn’t fair. It’s not only that he cleaned up my grammar; he remembered some extra- naughty details and helped polish them to a high sheen. One thing about eunuchs, they have great memories. In the world of the harem, they also make the best girlfriends: loyal for life, very funny, and with an unerring fashion sense.

Timmy is the one who dressed and coiffed me for my encounters with King Ah-just-leave-me-alone, which means he deserves some credit for the salvation of the Jews. There really ought to be a Drag Queen Timmy beauty pageant at all Purimspiels. Sure would spice things up.

Before Timmy and I started writing, he poured us a couple of martinis and after a few rounds, the juicy details began to flow. Like how I used a push-up bra to catch the attention of King Achash-lecher. Persian women are nice- looking but they’re mostly a flat-chested bunch so there’s no surer way to nab a husband than to show off the girls. And as for my royal husband, well, you recall that enormous golden scepter he was always waving around? Timmy and I told the truth about that, too, and not in the most delicate terms.

Did you ever wonder why I took an extra night to play King Achash-dumber-than-a sack-o’-doorknobs before I spilled the beans about my ethnic identity and need for royal intervention? I certainly could have gotten it all over with on the first date, but Timmy explained that we could hold onto the jewelery I wore to those soirées and then cash it in.

Oh, Timmy and I had so much fun writing that memoir. We stayed up late scribbling and drinking and laughing like hyenas. That’s the state we were in when Uncle Morty arrived to pick up his scroll. When he read it, he turned blue and started screaming. ‘If this gets out, we’re all going to be spitted and grilled blahblahblah.’

He tore my version in two and threw it into the trash. That account of our eventful season in the palace—the thing you read every year? That was Mordecai’s work. The funny thing is, even my priggish uncle couldn’t avoid all of the smutty stuff; you just can’t put lipstick on a pig and not see the pig.

Thankfully, Timmy, always alert, rescued our draft from the wastebasket, glued it together, and tucked it away for happier times.

And so it came to pass, King Achash-cirrhosis died of drink and was replaced by a ruler who knew Esther not and I was out of a job.

That’s when I put on my power suit, pulled out the old Wonderbra, and strolled over to Simon & Shushan with my sexy scroll and they snapped it right up. The notices were nasty. The Persian Times challenged my grasp of reality, never mind history. Even The Urdu Tattler said I was crude and tasteless for all my explicit depictions of royal foibles and hanky-panky. I really should have sent thank you notes; those reviews sent sales right through the roof.

The book tour was a smash; huge crowds everywhere. And after my hour-long interview with Oprah we sold enough copies for me and Timmy to buy a cozy little villa on Lake Urmia, where we lived happily ever after with Miguel, my special friend, if you know what I mean. And Timmy’s too.

Uncle Morty comes up once a year to kvetch about how the Jews turned Purim into a whoop-de-doo, Mardi Gras, Persian-style New Year springtime bacchanal.

Morty wanted Purim to be nothing but a day of sackcloth and fasting to thank God for sparing the Jews. As I’ve told him a million times, God didn’t have much to do with this one. If it wasn’t for me and Morty—and Timmy—there would be no Purim, no Persian Jews, no chicken with preserved lemons on Shabbos, no gifts for the poor in the middle of getting ready for Passover.

Besides, who needs more misery in the Jewish calendar?

I’m all for making Purim into a frat party. I’ve even written a few editorials—under assumed names— supporting the laissez les bon temps roulez approach. Let the wine flow until you don’t know Mordecai from Haman and a nice dollop of cross-dressing in honor of Timmy. Gambling! Burlesque shows! Unbridled hilarity in shul! You only live once, right?

Poor Uncle Morty would be furious that the great and learned rabbis of ages hence agree with me on this. Indeed, they decreed that the only Jewish holiday to be celebrated in the event that the Messiah actually shows up is not Yom Kippur or even Passover. It’s Purim!

Smart rabbis. Who needs 70 virgins if you have silly, loud, raunchy, godless, Adar-able Purim?

So make your Aunt Esther happy; pour yourself another glass of champagne and kiss that masked stranger. Party on. We’re still here.

This piece was adapted from an appearance at Purimspiel, Jewish Book Week 2010. A version appears in http://jewishquarterly.org/2011/02/esthers-version/

Real Simple -- Age 38

2011-02-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

     A few months ago, the editors at Real Simple magazine invited me to write a short essay about a year I remember with special fondness. The result appears in the current issue, along with wonderful pieces by five other writers.
     Roger Rosenblatt wrote about Age 4. Francine Prose wrote about Age 64. The first number that popped into my head was ... 38.
      Here's why.

   By any meaningful measure, most of my years have been pretty damn good: healthy, blessed with a loving husband, a beautiful child, loyal friends, and sweet dogs.
    But 38 was golden. I had a wonderful job writing a weekly newspaper column, in which I had the freedom to take on virtually any subject. Constantly coming up with something intelligent, original, and/or amusing turned out to be a spiritual challenge of sorts. Because I was always prowling for the next topic, I couldn’t sleepwalk through my days. There was a potential column in everything that crossed my path: headlines, the meals I cooked, TV ads.

     To read the rest .... click on the link.

http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/inspiration-motivation/an-age-to-remember-00000000053345/index.html

More winter? You bet.

2011-01-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

I was completely sick of my winter sweaters. Familiarity=contempt. I put that sentiment up on my Facebook Page and there were suggestions I take up knitting! Ha-ha. That would take too much time away from FB, not to mention work.

So instead, I hit my two favorite consignment stores and got three new (for me) ones. Only one of them is black and all at guilt-free late-January consignment prices, no less.

The link here will take you to the winter wool-gathering piece I wrote for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, my old journalistic stomping grounds. Those were nice days....

More winter thoughts in the Boston Globe

Winter Wear

2011-01-25T14:46:00.000-08:00

Every morning I walk the dog. Regardless of the cold, snow, sleet, ice – and it’s been all that this winter.

Indeed, I am more faithful than the letter carriers around here. Buddy’s gotta go so I gotta go.

After living in this climate -- with a dog -- for over 30 years, I have finally figured out how to dress for the challenge. So in the interest of helping my fellow sufferers cope, I am publishing a list of essential winter survival gear. This stuff is good for people with Reynaud’s syndrome (cold extremities), fear of falling, and common sense. (But if you're a vegan, stop reading now.)

Shearling mittens. I tried everything else, even those hand-warming poppers people take ice-fishing and to football games. These work.

Smart Wool socks. Lifechangers.

Shearling-lined leather water-proof leather boots, but they have to be “made in Canada.” My neighbors to the north are the masters.

Yak-Trax for the soles of the above-mentioned boots. These low-tech wonders are like snow-chains for your feet and have saved my bones and butt on countless occasions. Warning: they reduce slippage but nothing is foolproof.

Silk underwear, top and bottom. Pretty and warm, these long-johns are lightweight and effective; they last for years and are worth every penny.

Fleece headband and/or fleece hat. Hat-hair is the price of admission. (Shearling works, too.)

Knee-length coat with attached hood (down-filled or animal skin.)

Scarf: anything soft. Bright colors are good for your mood.

Consignment boutique cashmere sweaters. Yummy warm clouds at good prices.

Bundle up out there and walk like a penguin.

Stamp collection

2011-01-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

Like everyone else on the planet, I use snail mail less and less. Email, like online banking and shopping, take care of most of what I once sent through the United States Postal Service.

Even so, there are a few vestigial matters that either require a hard copy or that I just prefer to handle old-school. These include:

• Certain bills: mostly local vendors, and charitable contributions where I wish to spare the non-profit the overhead charged by credit cards

• Manuscripts: Not everyone wants to read everything on a screen.

• Cards: Birthdays, thank yous, get wells, condolences (too many of those)

The manuscripts require a visit to ye olde post office to figure out what I owe, but for the rest I just open the right hand drawer of my desk and choose from among a small but ever-changing selection of plain old faithfuls and kicky special issues.

It’s quite possible that the recipients of my mail don’t care or notice, but I enjoy the selection process. There is a kind of etiquette in deciding what to affix to whom. For example, it would be rude to put Bart Simpson’s face on a note of sympathy or a “thinking of you” card for someone who is grievously ill. The “Love” stamps (I’ve got Queens and Kings) work for those, as do anything floral or feathered.

But it’s fun to paste Bart or Homer on a card for someone who is recovering from knee surgery. I also like to put those guys on parking tickets, though I doubt the poor souls opening the envelopes appreciate my postal raspberries.

Marge, Lisa, and Maggie are my birthday go-tos: I love those girls. My dwindling supply of Katherine Hepburns go to those I think will appreciate the cheekbones, the black-and-white glamour, and our shared good taste.

Anything but a "Forever" Liberty Bell stamp works fine on a thank you note -- the most unexpected of all correspondance.
I do have a pile of those gloomy Liberty Bells, which are boring to the point of insult. Still, they're good enough for the faceless machinery of the IRS, behemoth financial institutions, and the like.

But whatever I finally peel and stick (does anyone miss stamp-licking?), I always enjoy the ritual of the mail box. Buddy the Schnauzer and I trot to the blue box around the corner, where I still get that little-kid thrill of letting my letters go, followed by the satisfying resonant kettle drum sound as the slot drops shut: mission accomplished.

"New Acquaintance" -- Lyric for New Year's

2010-12-30T06:05:00.000-08:00

This is my lyric to a melody composed by Bert Seager. We think of it as an alternative to Auld Lang Syne. Wishing you health, happiness and peace in the coming year

New Acquaintance

Let us raise up a glass, the cup of kindness,

Now, as the time draws near

We are gathered in hope, we gather in gladness

To ring in the start of the year.

Yesterday’s sorrows are too much with us

Much as we wish they would pass

Love is the answer to every question

Love is the answer that lasts

As the old year departs, we pause and wonder,

Where did the hours go

Did we greet the sun and welcome the showers

How did our gardens grow?

These are the moments for reminiscing

Stories to share and relive

Savor the memory of time passed wisely

As for the rest, forgive

Let us raise up a glass, the cup of kindness,

Brought by our gentle host

Numbering our days, counting our blessings

All things that matter most

Finishing the Hat

2010-12-25T06:25:00.000-08:00

December 25, the newspaper delivery is late. I don't begrudge the delivery man a later morning,and in fact today I should thank him for it.

I was between books and knocking around the house looking for something to read with my coffee and picked up Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) the new book by Stephen Sondheim that I gave Jim for Hannukah. The books contains more than lyrics from his many songs and shows. The subtitle continues: with attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines and anecdotes.

Mr. Sondheim is sort of a secular saint in my house. His acts are prodigious and mostly miraculous to Jim, Emilia, and me. And as an aspiring lyricist, I read the book as he intended it: as curriculum. Of course, this book is not just for people who want to put words to music. As he writes, "Choices, decisions and mistakes in every attempt to make something that wasn't there before are essentially the same, and exploring one set of them, I like to believe, may cast light on another."

I find not only light but also inspiration in this kind of exploration. I'm often flummoxed by what to write about in this blog. So I'm going to try and write about the experiences, books, conversations, movies, etc., that inspire me. I hope the discipline of this attempt will remind me to pay better attention to what does that. Maybe it will alert you to what fills you with wonder, too. Whoever you are, whatever you want to do.

Happy New Year, December 16 at Club Cafe, Boston.

2010-12-13T08:46:00.000-08:00

Join me on Thursday, December 16 at Club Café, 209 Columbus Ave in Boston, for performances of tunes by Bert Seager with lyrics by me. Thanks to cabaret master, Dane Vannater, six of our songs will be performed, including a world premiere of “New Acquaintance,” a song for the New Year. The music begins at 8 pm with open mic; our songs will go on around 9:30.

I’ve never enjoyed any writing project more than this. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of working with jazz pianist/composer Bert Seager on a series of tunes that were recorded under the title REQUITED.
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7667821

Last year, we collaborated on “New Acquaintance,” a lovely melody with words that hit the same emotional notes as “Old Lange Syne.” Local cabaret master Dane Vannater fell in love with this song and indeed with the whole Seager/Diamant “oeuvre.”

Dane will be singing two tunes, including “New Acquaintance,” which has never been performed before. http://www.danevannatter.com/

He will be joined by the gifted Rebecca Shrimpton, http://www.rebeccashrimpton.com/, the beautiful voice on the REQUITED CD.

My dear friend, the talented singer (and soulful cantor) Lorel Zar-Kessler, will also appear to sing “Open Book.”

David Sparr will be at the piano.

Hoping to see you there.

Poem by Ellen Bass, read by my yoga teacher at the end of class

2010-11-29T18:12:00.000-08:00

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you've held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

Hometown

2010-10-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

I took this picture on my phone while walking through Boston Public Garden at 5pm on an October afternoon. As I stopped, ambushed by the light in this oldest of public parks, I felt like pinching myself, stopping the tourists, and saying, "I live here."
Actually, I live in a nearby suburb, but my leafy neighborhood thrives because it's near a healthy city. There is a beating heart at the center of every city, even the ones that aren't doing so well right now. Density makes for problems (as we all know) but it also makes energy and art and the pleasures of chance encounters with friendly strangers and urban sunsets and silly hats.
I've lived in Boston and its environs since 1975 and have watched the city grow more beautiful, more diverse, more delicious. From the shiny new Institute for Contemporary Art on the harbor to century-old bronze monuments, I love to show it off.

In Praise of Independent Bookstores

2010-09-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

This fall, I’ve been doing a New England “mini-tour” on behalf of the paperback release of Day After Night, my latest novel.

I’m not sure why, but the publicist booked me into independent bookstores only: Gibson’s in Concord, New Hampshire, Northshire in Manchester, Vermont, RJ Julia in Madison, Connecticut, Newtonville Books in Newtonville, Massachusetts, and Tatnucks in Westborough, Mass.

I couldn’t be happier about this.

Every independent bookstore is unique and in New England that often means ramshackle, which is the opposite of corporate. I love the wood plank floors and the kind lighting. You can actually smell the books in these stores. Best of all, the staffs are almost always helpful, smiling, and happy to be working there. (In all fairness, I’ve met delightful salespeople at big box stores, too, but that isn’t the norm.) The customers, too, are usually in a good moods. Sure, someone might run in to “pick something up.” But without bookstores, the verb “to browse” might well fall out of use entirely. Such a nice, slow word, “browse.”

A common question asked at readings these days is, “What do you think about the future of the book?” High-tech readers are growing in popularity; I see more and more of them on the beach, on buses and airplanes, in coffee shops.

I have no good answer to the question about the future of print – I have plenty of anxiety but no answers. But I do know that for all its ease and speed and portability, the e-book doesn’t smile back. For that you need a bookstore.

The people who turn out at indie readings love their stores and also their booksellers. It seems to me that a substantial part of the crowd is on a first-name basis with the person behind the cash register. Strangers chat with each other about books, secure in the knowledge they are among friends. It feels homey. It’s as close to "community" as a commercial enterprise gets.

Whenever I visit an independent bookstore, I ask my hosts how the store is doing. I ask with trepidation, the way you inquire after someone whose health is known to be frail. Bookselling is not a growth industry.

What I'm hearing is that business is okay, and better than last year for sure. The regulars are loyal. New people turn out for readings and buy books. I breathe a sigh of relief, say a little prayer, and say yes, I’d be glad to come back for my next book. My pleasure.

Happy New Year, Jewish People!

2010-09-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

It’s awfully hard to start over. It must be. How else to explain the annual orgy of Jewish “ready-set-go” holidays?

Rosh Hashanah, the “head” of the year, is merely the starting bell. (And I’m leaving out the whole month of Elul with those shofar blasts telling you to get ready, and Slichot services to loosen up the liturgical arm in preparation for pitching the Big One.)

The erev (evening) service on Rosh Hashanah is one of my favorites. Everyone will look tanned and rested in 5771 even more than most years, what with Labor Day still visible in the rear view mirror. And no one is tired of being in shul, yet. This is a festival of meeting and greeting, “Here we go again!”

And then Yom Kippur. Not my favorite; self-denial is not my bag. Still and all, the language of the closing book does work for me. I imagine it rings true to the accountants as well as the writers in the house. Reconcile past debts. Buy a new ledger.

YK is the grand rehearsal for death, what with the prohibitions on food, sex, bathing, leather. (Shoes and belts were ancient symbols of luxury; maybe we should forego Prada and Kate Spade instead?) If those aren’t enough clues, you can wear white, the color of Jewish shrouds. But Yom Kippur is a grim wake-up call, too. By the time you file out of the stuffy sanctuary and head for that bagel, you’ve heard that little voice saying, “This might be your last year. Time to shape the hell up!”

The end of Yom Kippur leaves you empty, hungry, thirsty, and eager for life, and maybe even sporting a little forgiveness from the people you’ve been mean to all year – mostly your family but also that poor lady working the register at CVS at a snail’s pace. (You wouldn’t want your own 70 year old mother standing on her feet like that all day, would you?)

But wait, we’re not done yet. There’s Sukkot, the start of the harvest, the arrival of autumn with the snap, crackle, pop of the school year. New sweaters, apple pie, pumpkin pie, so much to do. Roll up your sleeves!

Finally, and at long last, Simchat Torah, where we start reading the Torah from the beginning. This time with feeling and a little patience for the bloody sacrifices coming in Leviticus. But in the meantime, it’s Genesis time, so generative and juicy, so full of begetting and beginnings. Gardens, families, journeys, mysteries and wonders but contradictions, too. Good for starting the discussion.

But this whole long, long pageant of beginning is exhausting. And very public. And not always so spiritually satisfying.

For that, I take the waters. I get me to the mikveh, to get naked, exhale, and sink; to float and study the leaves visible through high clerestory windows; to empty my head and sidestep my ego.

Water is where everything starts, from our single-celled ancestors to our great-great-grandkids. Genesis itself mysteriously places water in the opening scene; God hovers over it, inspired by the ocean view to make something new. Me too.

I believe in the ocean, the river, the pond and the lake. My days do not begin well without stepping into the waterfall of my shower, or without my cup of coffee, or my walk beside the flowing Charles.

Mikveh is the essential ritual of beginning. Immersion marks the start of married life, and life as a choosing Jew, as well as a renewed return to sex after a menstrual pause. New rabbis, doctors, and college graduates sometimes begin their careers with a mindful walk down seven steps into the water. Cancer survivors and recovering addicts on the precipice of a new month or a new year can make a fresh start in the mikveh, too.

Are you laughing? I start by kvetching about this New Year marathon and end up with another item for the Jewish to-do list. I’m laughing at me, but ….

In a beginning there was the deep, in Hebrew t’hom. Sounds like home. The mikveh feels a little like the womb. But you can’t stay under long, no matter how lovely the sound and sensation of your splashing heart. You have to get out of the water, where the rest of this life is waiting to begin.

May all of our beginnings lead to sweetness.

Full disclosure: I serve as president of the board of directors for the profoundly groovy Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh in Newton Massachusetts www.mayyimhayyim.org where you’ll find download-able ceremonies for immersing in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Star-struck

2010-09-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

So this really pretty, interesting-looking woman comes into the car rental office, which is tiny so there's no way I can avoid overhearing her phone conversation. And then she identifies herself to the less-than-helpful service rep on the other end. "Jonatha Brooke."

Jim and I turned around to face her. "THE Jonatha Brooke? we gush. (She asked who I was and gushed back. We were mutually adoring and probably adorable, too.)

If you don't know Jonatha's work, allow me to introduce you to this singer-songwriter of enormous wit and talent. My family's connection to her is long and deep. She's a Newton native for one thing, so the local-hero thing is strong. We own four or five of her albums (and will be ordering the other three in the next few hours.)

And she wrote one of my top ten songs of all time: one of those epochal, era-defining, life-changing songs that still grabs me by the heart. "So Much Mine." I wore out the CD listening to that track. Seriously, I had to replace the album.

The lyric is about being a mother and watching your girl grow up into a woman you don't know anymore -- at least not the way you did when she was "so much mine." I wept to that thing when Emilia was a baby! A BABY. Because I knew what was coming even then, when she was so totally mine. When she was seven or eight, ans we spun around the living room to that song. She sang along, too.

"Where'd you get that dress? Where'd you learn to walk like that?"

And it's not at all sentimental/goopy. Not at all. It's got a lovely melody, a beautiful arrangement, a great hook, and it makes you want to dance. It is, in other words, a Jonatha Brooke song.

I have listened, memorized, wept to, and danced to many other songs by JB. But every time I hear that one, it knocks me out. Still. Always.

And I can't wait to get the new album and hear the latest.

My Daughter's Tattoo

2010-08-31T17:30:00.001-07:00

My little girl sat on the bench beside me. It was summertime; we were on vacation near the sea while waiting for the clock to chime our dinner reservation table. This would be one of her first grown-up restaurant meals and we were excited at the prospect.

We were people-watching and the newly-popular belly-button ring was on display. My daughter looked up at me and said, “You won’t have to worry about that.”

She was only 8 years old if that, but there was clearly a conspiratorial edge to her comment.

No belly button piercing? I asked.

“Silly Mommy.”

“No tattoos?”

“No,” she said and rolled her blue eyes.

You know where this is going. My daughter is now 24 years old, and while she has no ring in her navel, her ears are severally pierced. On the left, there is what is called (appropriately, unfortunately) an “industrial” post, which is threaded through cartilage. Every time I see it, I want to wail, “Ow-ow-ow.”

When she called a few weeks ago and said, “I have something to tell you,” I guessed right away.

Jews are not supposed to get tattoos. It’s in the Torah, Leviticus 19: 28. “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves” followed by the words, “I am the Lord,” so you know this rule comes from the top.

Of course, the Torah also tells us that eating scallops and sassing our elders are forbidden. (The rules about earrings are debatable.) That’s not my issue.

In the aftermath of the Nazi holocaust, the Jewish association with tattooing focused on numbers burned into the flesh of concentration camp slave. What was it like to undergo such forced mutilation of the body and soul? Did some uniformed goon hold them down while their skin was seared? Or did they have to extend their arms and hold still, for fear that that some other goon would shoot them on the spot if they tried to resist?

But those tattoos are no longer a primary point of reference for people under the age of 40, and my daughter is a creature of her time and generation. According to a 2007 poll of 1,500 people conducted by the Pew Research Center, 36 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds and 40 percent of 26- to 40-year-olds have at least one tattoo. I haven’t seen a survey of Jewish 18-40 year-olds, and while I’d bet the figure is lower, it’s probably pretty close.

Tattoos on Jews include flowers and butterflies and fairies. But if you Google “Jews and Tattoos,” you’re going to see lots of stars of David, as well as Hamsas, dancing Hassids, and one much-photographed “Kosher pig.” A friend tells me of spotting a full-color diagram of the Kabalistic sepherot (mystical spheres) inked on an upper arm.

My daughter has the Hebrew letters, Chet, Zayin, Kuf on her right shoulder blade. This spells Chazak, which means "Strength."

She says, “I like this because it’s a word used when you finish reading one book of Torah and go to the next. It reminds me that we go from one thing to the next in strength.” She’s been planning this tattoo for nine years, since she was enrolled in a semester-long high school program. “Israel was a time of transition for me, and I feel like it reinforces that message of strength that is inside me forever and ever.

“It's more than just a tattoo,” she explains. “It's a sense of pride, a display of who I am that you might not be able to tell by just looking at me.”

Tattoos are a 21st century industry, a fashion statement, and a fad. When I see women in their 50s and 60s with big ink on their shoulders or chests or ankles, I look away, embarrassed. It’s like they’re wearing tube tops – always a bad idea -- only this is a mistake that stays with you to the grave. But tats on pretty young flesh makes me wince, too. What will they look like in fifty years time as skin weathers and wrinkles and ultimately withers? Will the future hold regret and laser removal?

Clearly, I don’t like tattoos. But disapproval aside, hearing the news of my daughter’s tattoo made me feel … sad.

When my baby was four months old, I picked her up after daycare and found a scratch across the bridge of her nose. It might have come from a toy or her own fingernail or from a small oversight by her caregiver. It was nothing, but there it was -- red and already starting to scab over. And it made me sad.

The scratch healed quickly but it left a faint scar, invisible to everyone but me. And to me, it was a reminder of her vulnerability to the world. It proved that I was unable to prevent the inevitable wear and tear of life. It taught me that we were two separate bodies living separate lives, after only a few months, but forever and ever.

The lessons of parenthood come in many flavors: joy, pride, gratitude and sometimes, sadness.

From strength to strength, we go in strength

I Heart My Uke

2010-08-29T05:08:00.000-07:00

I bought myself a ukelele for my birthday. My husband argued for a guitar, an instrument I strummed (never mastered) in high school. Jim is not a fan of the plink-plink of the ukelele, and I have to agree that the sound of a guitar is far more beautiful.

But a uke is less of a commitment and more of a toy, and that's what I was after. Something to play with. A instrument where failure was not really an option.
I got a uke because my friend Steve has one, and when he picks it up he turns into a grinning 10 year old kid who has no idea what irony is. And I find it impossible not to sing along with him.

He likes songs from the 20s, 30s, and 40s. ("Yes, Sir, That's My Baby," etc.) I find myself drawn to ballads like "The Nearness of You," which actualy sound a little wan on the uke. Thus far, for my money, the best song for uke is "Dream a Little," performed most famously by the Mamas and the Pappas.

But really, it's all about singing.

I was in the chorus and made it into madrigals in high school, the halcyon days of my musical career. Back then, I got solos in school musicals, and sang with full orchestral accompaniment to a darkened theater. Today I'm too damn timid. I don't breathe deeply enough and I'm nervous about singing flat. Fear is inimical to song. (Bumper sticker?) But since this is about playing, which has nothing to do with failing, I'm getting better.

I practice my uke every day and after two months, my husband says I sound much better. I think he's being a little patronising, actually. But I don't care. My uke makes me happy.

Yoga Jew

2010-08-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

I get invited to talk at temples: big ones and little ones; Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative. As much as I dislike the travel, I like meeting the people, who always make me think.

After my presentation at a smallish Midwestern synagogue last spring, I was schmoozing over the dessert table when the rabbi came up to me and asked if my yoga practice had anything to do with my Jewish observance. (Thus letting me know that he had read my blog, where yoga is one of the few personal details in my profile.)

This was a cool, young rabbi; the kind of rabbi who runs serious wilderness hiking trips with congregants and prays with them under the stars. I assumed that he wanted to me say yes, but I told him the truth.

“No,” I said. “Yoga is for emptying my head. The Jewish stuff is about filling it up. I try to keep them separate.”

He grinned at me and said, “Me too.”

Several years ago, I tried a “Jewish Yoga” class in which the instructor used Hebrew metaphors to get us into poses or asanas.

“Think of your body as an aleph,” she said.

“Oh, no,” I thought. That meant I had to remember the shape of aleph, which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. As someone who was then barely (and remains only marginally) Hebrew literate, I immediately forgot what an aleph looked like. And then I had to wonder if she meant aleph in cursive or block letters, because they are very different.

At the end of the class, the teacher asked us to chant the Shema, the foundational six word declaration of the divine unity. (Loose translation: Listen up Jews: Our God is One.) As I said, I go to yoga to empty my head, which means no theology. But there it was: “Adonai,” posing the usual theological problem. Adonai means “Lord.” As in “King.” Which suggests a crown and a head, and all the other anthropomorphic male images that tend to block my access to divine unity.

In my regular yoga classes, the teachers sometimes open class with an “Ohm,” which I’ve heard nicely described as “the hum of the universe.” At the end they might say, “Shanti,” which means peace, or “Namaste,” which usually gets translated as, “The light in me salutes the light in you.” These are all terms that, to my ears, sound utterly vanilla and empty of associations with anything except yoga classes.

This isn’t to say that yoga is without content. There is a spiritual element involved – with or without the Sanskrit names for poses or peace. One of my yoga masters (an Australian woman who has the long body and longer ponytail of a Nav’i) often says, “If all you’re interested in is a work- out, you should go to an aerobics class.” She also says things like, “Yoga is about paying attention, learning to explore discomfort, surrendering to gravity,” and other bon mots which strike me as profound in class but tend to sound obvious and pedestrian when I try to repeat them later.

I have been told that some Orthodox Jews object to yoga because some of the poses look like “prostration,” a position of extreme reverence that is due only to, well, Adonai. I imagine Child’s Pose might be one of the problematic asanas, as it requires you to sit back on your heels and put your forehead to the mat, arms stretched out in front of you. I happen to love that pose, partly because I find it relatively easy and partly because when I stay there for more than ten seconds, I feel calm, humble, and relaxed. My brain shuts up. And as far as I’m concerned, shutting down my brain -- my ego -- has nothing to do with worshipping idols. I’m pretty sure that the only way to experience the sacred is by shutting down the ego – whether you’re balancing on one foot or pouring over a page of Talmud.

For most Americans, yoga is a spiritual practice, but not a religious one. Of course, Judaism is both a religious and a spiritual practice. And while I experience the spirituality of Jewish life in song, ritual, holidays, and communal study, it is on the mat where I manage to lay down my ego for more than ten consecutive seconds at a time.

People I trust and respect have told me about terrific teachers who masterfully blend yoga and Judaism. But I also know that finding the right yoga teacher – like finding the right rabbi or hairdresser, is a matter of chemistry and kismet and timing. So maybe someday I’ll give the Jewish yoga thing another try.

But the truth is, I am not interested in a reconciling my yoga practice and my Jewish practice. I feel no tension or contradiction in this double life.

Judaism demands debate, and justice, tzedakah (charity) and committee meetings. Judaism requires engagement rather than detachment. It’s a complicated package that defines, delights, and challenges me.

Yoga is where I go quiet and stop striving -- even when I’m sweating. This is a counter-intuitive effort for someone like me: opinionated, impatient, perfectionist.

I am happily bifurcated; a Jew who studies yoga, a word that means “union.”

Go figure.

This essay also appears on Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anita-diamant/a-happily-bifurcated-yoga_b_667411.html

Many Happy Returns

2010-07-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

What do you do with old birthday cards?

My friends and family are very good card-givers. Most of the ones I get are truly funny, with a few purely sweet ones.

I line them up on the mantlepiece for a few weeks and then I forget they're there and then I recycle them.

I don't regret my heartlessness even a mere 24 hours later, and yet while in the act of reading the scrawled messages one last time, piling them in a stack, and walking them out to the big green bin, I feel sad and a little guilty.

Not that I think anyone who sends me a greeting card expects it to be pressed forever between the pages of a poetry book. Or saved in a box, like the Hallmark commercial with the mom who saved EVERY SINGLE MOTHER'S DAY CARD her daughter ever gave her. I admit it, that ad choked me up the first time I saw it. And the second time, too.

Usually, I'm unattractively smug about keeping a tight ship. "When in doubt throw it out" is my m.o., which makes mine a mixed marriage.

This year, I got a whole lotta Facebook birthday messages, which was unexpectedly pleasing and without any wistfulness about what to do with them later. Not that I'd trade my little stack of paper for a zillion FB shout-outs.

What do you do with old birthday cards?

I think that I shall never see...

2010-06-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

The trees on my street are dying of old age.

I learned this fact because I, like many of my neighbors, were concerned about the state of the maples that form a leafy canopy over the asphalt road. And so a committee of concerned citizens found out that these trees were planted about 60 years ago, when all the side-or center-entrance Colonials were built. And now, apparently, the trees are reaching the end of their natural lives.

They are under attack by moths. Passing winds send huge limbs down onto driveways, and cars, and even houses. They are mottled with grey and green lichen that wasn’t there ten years ago. But those things are merely symptoms.

I am living on a street filled with geriatric, failing trees.

I find myself surprised and sad to consider the fact that trees have lifespans -- like dogs, like people. Did I somehow think that all trees lived to be hundreds of years old, like Sequoias? Why didn’t I understand how stressed these suburban trees might be, contending with sidewalks, and lawns, and asphalt insults to their root systems.

It is deep June, and the trees are full-out green - even the old ladies and gentlemen outside my window. But I look at them – and their healthier cousins in the park nearby – and wonder how much longer they’ve got. Is that lollipop-shaped tree middle-aged or a youngster? How healthy is that stunning copper beach?

It is, perhaps, time to plant.

The May Deadline

2010-05-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

My goal has been to post here once a month, at least, and since the deadline is coming up fast, here I am. You see, I never miss my deadlines. Never. Really.

It feels congenital but it's probably all due to the years I spent as a journalist. Writing for newspapers and magazines, if you miss your deadlines, you lose your job, you don't eat, etc. etc.

When readers ask me to talk about my writing process, I think they want to hear about inspiration. They ask, Do I dream about my characters? Do I "channel" them? (That is my least favorite question; writing is work not magic.)

But what I talk about is deadlines. For some reason, this often elicits laughter. It's so... unartistic. So real-world.

When writing a book, I have the Big Deadline: the date on the book contract. But there are many intermediary deadlines, too. By the end of next week I will have another 12-15 pages drafted to show to my writing group. By summer's end, I will have at least 125 pages drafted. Bite-sized deadlines make the BD less terrifying.

There are so many metaphors about the writing process. And oldie but a goodie from Red Smith: “Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.”

For me, writing is like working with clay; you find and refine the shape of the book. Writing is also like spinning; making a neat line of yard out of a messy ball of the subconscious.

Here's the image that rings truest for me at the moment (thanks to Steve McCauley who attributed it to E. L. Doctorow); writing a novel is like driving down a very dark road and all you can see is as far as your own headlights.

That's where I am: knuckles white as I clutch the steering wheel, trying to keep from driving off the road, determined to meet my next #@$! deadline.

Desktop Altar

2010-04-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

It's rare for me to get a question I haven't heard at a book event or lecture. But last week, someone asked what she might see on top of my desk and I was delighted to have a non-boring answer. Because in addition to the piles of paper (fairly neat), tape dispenser, pencil cup, computer gear and other uninteresting accoutrement, there's a kind of inspirational beauty altar. Okay maybe not so beautiful to you, but meaningful to me.

The giraffe (out of a Celestial Seasonings Tea Box) is a memorial to my late father, who said he had been one in a previous life. The wooden "A" is from Toronto and also reminds me of my dad, who was a Linotype compositor.

The shell is from South Africa, a trip that changed the way I view the world. There's a little rock in front of the statuette, which I picked up near Atlit, the setting for Day After Night, my latest novel.

The bit of driftwood with pebbles and words attached was a gift from my friend, artist Joel Moskowitz; the words are five lines of lyrics I wrote for music by my friend Bert Seager; it's a kind of three-dimensional "poem" and I just love it.http://cdbaby.com/cd/bertseager3

Finally, the statuette, which came from a gift shop in the Grand Canyon with the following explanation: "The Anasazi tradition of working with clay and telling stories has merged into a modern art form of STORYTELLER pottery dolls.. The figurine most often depicts a grandparent who gathers his/her grandchildren around to play the drum, sing songs and tell stories of their heritage and traditions."

What's on your desktop?

New York, NY

2010-03-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

I am on my way home (via Amtak/Acelaaaahh) from a 24 hour trip to Manhattan. Train travel manages to be both thrilling and civilized. I've read a book and a half.

I love New York. Especially in the spring -- warm but not smelly. Especially Central Park. Especially when someone else is picking up the tab and I'm wandering around, looking into store windows and museums, and at the urban parade. So many tourists. So many children in school uniforms. Ice cream and hot dog vendors.Bakeries flaunting sexy bread and cookies on every other corner. The light pouring through the avenue canyons. Crocuses everywhere.

I was in movie-land Manhattan; the upper east side, which I hardly know, where on Friday night at 6 pm there was virtually no traffic (at 90th and Lex, at least.) The trip to Penn Station wasn't quite as mellow, but I dig the madness, too. Cabs are back to honking in NYC. I thought they got fined for that.

New York makes me want to make lists that would put Walt Whitman (who loved New York) to shame.

Walking to the hotel this morning, a guy in a rush (I guess) came up behind me and stepped on the heel of my shoe, pulling it right off me. He apologized and hurried off. A woman came over and clucked over his rudeness and hurry. Are you okay?

She was from St. Vincent in the Carribean and we chatted about the end of winter as we proceeded up the avenue. She's been in NY for 18 years but says she'll go back in three more. Go to college. Start a business. Here you work to pay your bills, she said.

We bid each other goodbye at 89th street.

Best seller

2010-02-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

My latest novel Day After Night has not been best-seller. Let me be clear that the book is, thanks to word of mouth, selling and selling. But it's not a block-buster that's shown up on THE LISTS. At least, not in the USA.

But I've had word that the book is at the top of the Israeli fiction best-seller chart. Woo and hoo!

Day After Night is set in 1945 Palestine immediately following the end of World War II. The main characters are immigrants from the European Holocaust who begin to put their lives together in a strange new land.

During my research, I tried to keep from worrying too much about how the novel might be greeted by the Israeli public: after all, I'm an American presuming to write about their local history. But I kept my head down, did the most thorough research I could (using translations and translators)and hoped that the story and the story-telling would carry the day.

So the success of the book in Israel brings relief and gratitude and, yes, pride.

Anniversary

2010-02-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

February 11 is the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison after 27 years on Robbin Island. In the Sunday New York Times, political prisoners from around the world reflected on how that day affected their hopes and dreams for the future. Their words made me recall my experience of that day.

Home in my bathrobe, with my four-year-old daughter, I switched the channel from Sesame Street to watch history unfold. I remember telling Emilia about why we weren't watching Elmo and Big Bird. I doubt she understood a word, but I was riveted and I remember her being patient about the change in her routine.

A few years ago I visited Cape Town, where I took the tour of Robbin Island and saw the prison where Mandela was held, the mine where he was forced to work, the view of the city and Table Mountain -- maddeningly close.

Everywhere we went in South Africa, the affection and esteem for Mandela was palpable. He was and is a major part of the glue that holds South Africa together as it copes with the nuclear fallout of apartheid.

Mandela inspires for his courage and determination, his political skills as president, and his temperament. As he walked out prison, 20 years ago, his smile lit up the world. And it always will.

Tough start

2010-01-16T14:46:00.000-08:00

The images from Haiti are awful and haunting. I made my first contribution yesterday, and resolve to make a monthly gift for the rest of 2010. Once Anderson Cooper packs up his t-shirts and returns to the US, we're all going to start forgetting and get distracted by other calamities --and celebrations. Life is relentless that way.

Closer to home, I've already been to one funeral since the new calendar went up. I will, alas, be attending another funeral in the coming week. Terrible, untimely losses both.

I send cards and visit. I do my best to stay in touch as time goes by. And then my life takes over -- the petty nonsense and the genuine pleasures.

Life is relentless. It wrings us out and leaves us behind and it's tough to find the blessing in the collapsed schoolroom, the mother mourning her beautiful 28-year-old son.

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T14:23:00.000-08:00

No resolutions here but plenty of plans and prayers and wishes for you and me:
May we all have more than enough peace and
inspiration and
forgiveness and
energy and
long days at the beach.

What's on your list?

2010

Facebook confession

2009-12-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

I feel like I've been cheating on my blog with Facebook. I want to apologize.

It's just so easy to write a one-sentence message and send it out. With the blog, I feel a need to revise and shape a few paragraphs into something you might find worth reading.

The other Facebook temptation is the response from "friends," which is also effortless and thus much more plentiful and immediate. (It's all about instant gratification, isn't it?)

Today, I posted something that I thought was pretty mundane along the lines of: "Off to the library to work on a new book and I don't know quite where I'm going."

A few responses were kind and supportive, along the lines of, "You go girl," and "I have faith in you."

But there were several posts with suggestions of what I could or even should write next. I'm not sure why this drives me so crazy but it does. I wasn't shopping for an idea. Honest. That's not how novels are born -- not mine anyway.

I've learned my lesson. I'm going to limit my Facebook comments to the weather, food, and current events and save the more "serious" musings for you guys. Whoever you are. Wherever you are.

La Danse

2009-12-20T14:12:00.000-08:00

I hadn't seen a movie (in a theater) since August. How is that possible?

But finally this past week I went. It was La Dance by Fred Wiseman, a documentary about the Paris Opera Ballet. Stunning footage of ballet rehearsals and performances, both modern and Nutcracker.

Saw Nutcracker here in Boston many, many years ago, first by the Boston Ballet and then when my daughter was a Polichinelle (some kind of doll? a candy?) in a suburban production. I am not a fan of the Nutcracker. Too long, too treacly, too commercial. I know this one ballet keeps companies afloat in America (maybe elsewhere, too) as the holiday performance to which little girls are taken in velvet gowns and headbands.

I'm not much for classical ballet at all, but La Danse focuses mostly on the modern stuff, which is as spiky and exciting and sexual as modern dance, with legs elongated to eternity by toe shoes and a technique that makes me gasp.

Best of all, Wiseman knows how to film dance, especially where to put the camera so you don't feel like you're missing something. He sees dance like a dancer.

The movie is 158 minutes long (yikes) and has no dramatic arc whatsoever. I kept wanting to hit the pause button so I could look at a program: I needed to indentify dancers/music/choreograhers... I needed to breathe and take in what I'd seen. It was dance by fire. Worth it to be sure. But I can't wait to watch it again on DVD.

Premiere of A LITTLE WORK has been POSTPONED

2009-11-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, my friend novelist Stephen McCauley (The Object of My Affection)and I were between books and hit upon the idea of writing a play as a way to keep ourselves occupied until we scraped together the energy to begin new novels. It was so much fun working together on A LITTLE WORK, a mash-up of Nip/Tuck and The Man who Came to Dinner.

We held some Boston workshop readings and even did a staged reading as a fundraiser for a local organization I helped found here in Boston. (www.mayyimhayyim.org). However, we never got to a full production until now.

"Who Wants Cake," a company in Ferndale, MI, (near Detroit) was planning to give the play its premiere in January 8, but production has been postponed. Will keep you posted about rescheduling.

I'm disappointed but hopeful it will be up and better than ever next summer.

Some links

2009-11-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

Blogs are very me, me, me. So here is some more about me:

You can watch the talk I gave to about 2500 Reform Jews about the status and future of American Judaism at the Union for Reform Judaism conference on November 4.

And here are some book reviews about Day After Night.

Jerusalem Post

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258624592186&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/books/review/Fay-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=anita%20diamant&st=cse

That's me all over

2009-11-22T17:31:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since my last post. And a long, strange, wonderful trip it's been.

A few highlights. I was in St. Louis to receive an alumni award from Washington University. The featured speaker for the night was to have been David McCullough, who has written so many terrific histories including Truman and John Adams.

Alas, it was announced, Mr. McCullough was very ill and unable to appear. As someone who travels to make speeches myself, I knew he had to be extremely sick not to show. It was our loss.

The next morning, sunning myself in the little square in front of my hotel, I noticed a distinguished gentleman on the bench nearby. I approached.

"Mr. McCullough? How are you feeling?"

He declared himself a bit woozy but much improved from the extreme misery of the day before. He was deciding whether to travel on to Ohio for his next appearance, or go home. He invited me to sit down and I spend a magical half hour, chatting about being on the road, writing, and reading. He told me about the book he's working on, which sounds amazing. (It's not my place to divulge.)

I asked him what he was reading and he said, "Trollope."

"You are the third person in the past few months to tell me to read Trollope," I said and confessed the length of his novels discouraged me. He suggested, "The Warden" as a good place to begin, and then he let me know he needed to sit in quiet again.

I went back to my hotel room, fired up my Kindle and much to my surprise and delight, I found "The Warden" available for free! I downloaded it and am enjoying it not only for the story and the writing, but also because the pleasure of that delightful mashup of coincidences and centuries and technology.

On the road again

2009-11-07T13:07:00.000-08:00

I write from St Louis, MO. Home of my alma mater, Washington University, for a Founders Day Celebration which includes a nice honor for me as an alum. Am also here for an appearance at Left Bank Books, which is celebrating its 40th birthday -- a minor miracle in these days of amazon and walmart sales.

I was briefly and peripherally a member of the collective that started and ran Left Bank in its original location. The details are all a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I do recall the pleasure of getting to read through catalogs and order books. Kid in a candy store.

This is the middle of a ten-day trip to promote the new novel, and so far, everything has been better than great. In Toronto, I got to spend three days with daughter as well as husband at the Reform movement biennial convention, where I also saw people I've known for years and years. (Including youth group pals from high school days, two of whom I had not seen in more than 40 years!)

Sitting between Emilia and Jim at Shabbat services last night (beautiful music and the energy of singing and praying with 3,000 people) was a profound joy.

Airplane reading: Gail Collins's history of the modern women's movement: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present. Having lived through this,participated in some,I find it riveting. Just finished the part where Nixon vetoed a bi-partisan bill that would have supported childcare. What a difference that could have made for so many of us...

Boston Book Festival '09

2009-10-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today was the first Boston Book Festival and what a big WOW. Thousands of people converged on Copley Square for panel discussions, readings, and a first-class celebration of literacy in all its forms.

If you've never been to Boston (and please do come visit), Copely Square is an architectural jewel, featuring two stunning churches (Trinity and Old South), and the Boston Public Library -- all of which hosted events.

Festival is really the right word for what I saw in the crowds, in the focused attention to what was said and read, in the stress-free lines to buy books or score a cup of free coffee or ice cream. No one kvetched even about the drizzly weather, which gave way to clearing skies and warming temperatures.

Altogether, readers and writers left feeling good about the fate of writing and storytelling, whether delivered on the page or the screen.

Everyone who participated and attended agreed: WE WANT THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

Here's to Boston Book Festival 2010.

The Bookstore

2009-10-14T18:53:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow evening, I'm doing a reading at THE BOOKSTORE in Gloucester, Mass.

It is, along with a handful of other nearby independent bookstores (Toad Hall in Rockport, Newtonville Books, Brookline Booksmith) a place that I love for the way it supports authors and readers.

I just finished a book on my Kindle, a device that is perfectly lovely on an airplane, but has a couple of big problems. The first is that I can't tell where I am in the text (table of contents not so helpful in many novels) which is very disorienting. Like not knowing what time it is, as friend and writer Steve McCauley put it.

But e-books also lack the face-to-face association of a book that was purchased in a particular bookstore, from a human being that I know and like. It adds another mysterious and delightful layer to the pleasure of a book.

Please support your local independent bookstore. I cannot imagine life without such islands of sanity, good cheer, and really nice people.

Awesome

2009-10-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

It escapes so often and so lightly from the lips of preteens and their hapless parents, I thought the word had lost its purchase. And then I stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon, the address of awe.

People from around the planet showed up beside me and, regardless of language, we all said the same prayer.

Oh.
My.
God.

And then we took pictures. Millions of pictures. On fancy cameras with long lenses and tripods, also on cell phones.

Regardless of the equipment, the photos will be puny. There is no way to capture a view that knocks the wind out of your lungs, brings tears to your eyes, and beggars speech.

It was my first time there. I held up my cell phone. (See attached postage-stamp-sized image of the ineffable.)

Hallelujah.

I believe...

2009-09-26T09:08:00.000-07:00

By Yehuda Amichai:

I say with perfect faith

that prayers preceded God.

Prayers created God,

God created people

And people create prayers

that create God who creates People.

Graphic Poetry

2009-09-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

On Thursday evening, I went to the opening of an art show by my friend, Joel Moskowitz, and was amazed, amused and moved by his miniature masterpieces.

Based on 3X5 inch library catalog cards, some are heavily embellished with layers of paint, others sport cut-outs from an old dictionary or buttons, beads, even wine corks. But in each of them a bit of the text from the catalog card peeks through so they all "say" something in a literal sense. Making the poetry three-dimensional -- color plus texture plus language equals ... something fresh and new and delightful.

The show is up until October 30 at Gallery 1581 at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (where I imagine faculty and students analyzing the heck out of each and every) which is located at 1581 Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts.

5770

2009-09-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Today is the birthday of the world, symbolically at least, for us Jews.

I spent much of the day in synagogue, singing, smiling, marveling at the faces I've known for more than 25 years now, growing up, growing gray.

Sacred stuff (friendship, gratitude, sympathy, recognition) happens everywhere in/near/around the temple on a day like today: in the foyer, in the garden, in the parking lot, even in the ladies room.

Yes, the ladies room. Running in and out of the freshly painted W.C., I had at least four meaningful --though very brief -- conversations with women I had not seen for many months. We kissed, checked in about our kids, praised each others' outfits -- the nuts and bolts of human connection, which is so fragile and so fraught and so powerful.

Wishing you all a sweet beginning.

Book Touring and Talking

2009-09-13T12:26:00.001-07:00

I'm off to New York tomorrow, for the official start of the book tour for Day After Night, my new novel. I'll be in Manhattan, Long Island, and Atlanta this week. Check my website (www.anitadiamant.com) to see where and when.

In fact, the "tour" began last week, with a reading at my wonderful local bookstore, Newtonville Books, and several on-line and radio interviews.

I adore radio interview. Hosts of radio book shows are the most literate and prepared interviewers I have ever encountered. Even better than print, for some reason. From coast to coast, male or female, young and old, folks who choose this work are simply wonderful at their jobs.

First of all, they've read the book. (Not something I take for granted.) And then they take the time not only to come up with good questions, but to shape the conversation -- regardless of how much time we have -- with a beginning, middle and end. It's always a pleasure.

The other day, I spoke with a real master, Ron Charles, of the Washington Post. If you're interested, you can click on the link below and listen in.

http://video.washingtonpost.com/media/podcast/bookworldpodcast091109.mp3

September Song

2009-09-07T18:49:00.000-07:00

The crickets are loud at night
Do they protest the coming of the winter, their deaths, the end?
Do they celebrate the limpid blue skies, the crunchy grasses?
Of course not

I hate to close the windows and lose the shrill, happy music
But it's chilly
Summer's back is broken despite the odd hot evening
and sticky afternoon

School starts, the calendar fills, the apples are ripening
I saw pumpkins, already, orange on a granite bench

More about sea moss

2009-08-31T15:58:00.000-07:00

Maybe you thought one posting about this very arcane, odd substance was enough, but I received the following message from my friend, Amy M., and I had to share it.

"When we were up at Prince Edward Island, Irish Moss is harvested in this incredibly beautiful, 'old time' way-- during storms, on horses! There is a museum in Miminigash about Irish Moss, and a project called Women In Support of Fishing, which runs a little place called Seaweed Pie Cafe, where one can eat Seaweed Pie and buy dried Irish Moss. I got a little burlap bundle of it, which came with a recipe called Irish Moss Pie Filling or Blanc Mange.

Seaweed Pie itself was more like a strawberry pie as I recall, with the moss used more as the thing that held it all together.

My little burlap bundle might have just enough dried seaweed for one round of pie. Here's a recipe I found online:
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/PrinceEdwardIslandHarvest/moss_e/recipe.html

I read the news today

2009-08-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

It was not quite 7 am and I was the only one awake, here in my house. I put on the coffee and went out to pick up the newspapers from the front walk.

The Boston Globe had the story. Senator Ted Kennedy died last night.

Not unexpected, of course. His absence at his sister, Eunice's, funeral was a clear indication of how sick he was. The blow lands hard, nonetheless.

I moved to Massachusetts in 1975 and Teddy was my senator from the start. I heard him speak in person once, at an unscripted event in support of a local hospital, I think it was. He rambled and rambled. I was reminded of the Doonesbury comic strip where a reporter called out, "A verb, Senator, a verb."

He was a flawed lion. He got away with manslauaghter, probably, and I don't know if that is forgivable. He also suffered terrible losses -- the war-time death of one brother, the murder of two others, the death of his sisters, his own son's cancer, the travails of nephews and nieces.

In the end, though, I think he will be remembered for tireless efforts, unto his deathbed, to make the world a better place, to challenge America to live up to her highest calling. And to provide health care for all of us. (May his colleagues in the Senate see to it that his dream comes to be, and in his name.)

The noisy and noisome chatter of television and blogosphere has already begun. His memory will be flogged for ratings. His life story will be parsed and pilloried and beatified. There will eventually be complaints about how too much attention is being paid to the loss of this one flawed, gifted, generous man.

At the moment, I am grateful to have gotten the news of his death the way I did. In print and in silence. I could hear my own sigh and feel the loss.

Rest in peace.

Movie Update

2009-08-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

Not even The New Yorker reviewer could resist.

Critic David Denby writes, "Julie & Julia” is one of the gentlest, most charming American movies of the past decade. Its subject is less food as something to cook than food as the binding and unifying element of dinner parties, friendship, and marriage."

Go see it. Bon appetit.

Summer Movies

2009-08-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

Not so much the bloody, exploding blockbusters, but I do tend to go to the movies more during the summer months. Just the way I tend to read more in the summer. So here's what I've seen so far:

Up: The best. Inventive, heart-felt, funny and beautiful. Best movie for grown-ups since WALL-E.

The Girl from Monaco: a really silly, totally French comedy. Absurd, offensive, delightful.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: For my money not the best of the franchise, of which I am a big fan (both books and movies) but it's great to see the kids growing up. And I can't get enough of Alan Rickman.

Away We Go: Delightful small movie with a great cast. Thanks to my friend Aliza who insisted I see it.

The Proposal: One of the worst movies I've ever seen. I'm okay with stupid romantic comedies and I wasn't expecting much but this one was really stinky: bad script, flat performances and no chemistry between the stars. I only went because some of the externals were shot in Rockport, MA, but there weren't enough of those to compensate for the rest.

Summer Hours: Another French film, which was a bit oversold to me as the best thing since sliced baguettes (Dontcha hate when people do that?) Still, a lot of fun in that wistful, global Gallic way. And the last song on the soundtrack took me straight back to high school: The Incredible String Band!

500 Days of Summer: Who new LA could be so pretty? Loved the way this one cut forward and back, and there is one scene where our hero, Ted, finally realizes that it's over with summer and the world turns into a drawing that is then erased. Haven't seen a more articulate and poetic sequence since Amalie splashed to the floor, undone by disappointment.

Next up: Julie and Julia -- Meryl Streep, a script by Nora Ephron, and all that food? Who can resist?

Any other must-see suggestions?

Mass MOCA

2009-08-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

Mass MOCA is not a big cup of chocolate-flavored coffee but an acronym for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, a huge and wonderful playground for the senses located in North Adams. Once a thriving manufacturing center that long ago fell on hard times, the town is set in the stunning green hills of western Massachusetts. Some years back,several of the handsome brick mill buildings (square footage up the wazoo) were turned into a center for far-out art.

I had meant to visit for years and this summer, thanks to a lovely invitation from friends who summer in the Berkshires, I finally got there and saw a huge show of the works of Sol Lewitt. When I say huge, I mean it fills a whole mill building where walls were constructed to accommodate.

This is high-concept art to the max; if you wanted to purchase a Lewitt, you don't buy the drawing or painting but the directions for making it. Exactly like a musical score. Someone else must "play" it -- or post it. Not on paper or canvas but directly onto a wall.

If you erase or tear down the wall, you still own the work of art, in that you maintain the right to have it redrafted/painted on another wall.

Sounds very abstract and indeed, there is a "machine-like" quality to some the scores for many of these pieces, which are variations on themes of colors and lines.

But they are also, many of them, full of color and humor and good cheer. They are also enormous, which makes them feel exuberant and positive.

This was one of my favorites.

The show will be up for the next twenty-five years (at least) so you have time to visit, too. www.massmoca.org

Sea Moss Custard

2009-07-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the beach last Sunday, I noticed a woman walking amid the rocks at low tide, bent over to collect seaweed. I have seen many people search for starfish and seaglass and shells on these north shore beaches, but never this stuff, which is the opposite of showy -- nearly colorless.

As she passed by, her hands full of the the small, tan, crenelated leaves, I had to ask. "Why?"

"Sea moss custard," she said. It's something her mother and grandmother made. "You wash the seaweed till all the sand is gone and then boil it with milk." The seaweed gives off a rennet-like substance that binds into a custard.

"How does it taste?" I asked. "Like seaweed?"

She couldn't describe it.

When I got home, I went to the computer and there, at www.hungrybrowser.com I found recipes for sea moss "pudding." Simplicity itself: milk, sugar, vanilla, and sea moss, boiled.

Perhaps some smart, thrifty New England housewife figured this out a hundred years ago...

There were no reader comments, reviews, or descriptions.

Wondrous strange.

Slowing down

2009-07-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. I am relaxed.

Now what happens?

I finished the book (and various edits) over a month ago and I have not yet plunged into my next big project. I'm not sitting on my thumbs, of course. I'm not built that way.

I've been reading for fun. Frivolous books; titles I'm not going to share. I've been taking more yoga classes than ever before. I've been having coffee with friends I haven't seen in ages. I've been doing the email stuff: setting up the fall book events mostly. Responding to interesting queries from the Israeli Hebrew translator.

For creative fun, I've been writing a "revue" format/frame/show for the songs from Requited, the CD of original songs to which I contributed lyrics. (Music by composer Bert Seager.)

To hear the music, go to: http://cdbaby.com/cd/bertseager3

Writing for the stage and for music is now officially a passion/hobby. Don't know if this will ever go anywhere (though I do think what I'm up to is commercially viable as well as meaningful and beautiful)but I need to be engaged in some creative project to be happy.

Sounds like a lot, but really, it's not. Or maybe it's just different. This is the longest period of time in memory that I haven't been committed to the next book. The ideas are there... just not the oomph to write proposals and get up on that horse.

Instead, I feel ... light! Uh, relaxed even.

I enter this posting from a quiet spot near the ocean, on a glorious sunny day, with no obligations. Though I do have to head back to the city later. And the dog will need another walk at some point ...

But for now, I think I'll go sit on the porch and read ...

Morning Routine, Mourning Routine

2009-06-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

Every morning I brush my teeth, brew coffee, turn on the computer, check my email and click on the Breast Cancer site to make a free donation to make mammograms available for those who cannot afford them. It is a tiny gesture in solidarity with the women I know (and all the ones I don’t) who have battled this disease. Usually, I do this more-or-less thoughtlessly.

But this past week, my morning ritual became an act of mourning. Last Sunday night, I paid a condolence call to the family of a 57-year-old woman who succumbed to breast cancer.

As my husband and I drove to the house, I knew it was going to be a very sad shiva service (shiva, which means seven, refers to the week of mourning observed by Jews – a time of reflection, sadness, remembrance, and communal support.)

Joyce was a long-time member of my synagogue, and while I didn’t know her very well, we had many mutual friends who were deeply saddened by her loss. Even closer to home, my daughter, Emilia, was friends with Joyce’s two girls growing up, and she had called me to talk about her memories of Joyce and of being in her home.

It was an untimely death, which inevitably holds up a fairly frightening mirror to a 58-year old like me. But I was touched and even gladdened as I looked around the very full room and saw so many young faces – friends and relatives there to comfort Joyce’s daughters, who are both in their 20s. Had Emilia been in town, she would have been there, too.

I’ve been to many shiva gatherings over the years, nearly all for older if not elderly parents – including my father. Those who gathered for condolence, in solidarity and community, were all of my generation or older.

And now our kids are adults: beautiful, compassionate, and wise enough to know how important it is to show up for one another. And that is what makes human life possible.

The season is changing. Sad as I am for Joyce’s death and her family's grief, I honor the gifts she gave and left behind. Including this lesson to me.

Here is the website: http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

You know what to do.

The Art & Commerce of the Blog, Part 2

2009-06-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I didn't stop writing when my reading circle stopped growing beyond 12 people. Maybe it is because blogging is inherently valuable to me. The responsibility of it makes me notice the details of my experiences and feelings. I live life more fully because I blog.

This was one of the comments on my last blog entry. Thank you so much to "PrincessMax" for this.

Her sentiment rings true. Someone famously said, "I don't know what I think until I write it down." As a newspaper/magazine columnist, the pressure to produce something fit to be printed on a weekly basis made me pay attention to the world around me in ways I would have never done otherwise. Crassly put, I was searching for column fodder. But it turned into a mindfulness practice, too, keeping me alert to the pleasures and pains of my life, my community, my world.

Sounds like naval-gazing, but it's not. At least not if you take the time and do the work to shape your experience and reach for insight.

Blog on.

The art and commerce of the blog

2009-06-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

There was a great story in today's New York Times about blogs and our fantasies for them. The dream of bloggers everywhere is that we will become well-known, if not famous, thanks to the effortless publication that is the blog. That we will be discovered, be invited to produce books for mass markets, make a living if not a fortune from these postings.

Turns out that most of us blog in obscurity, read mostly by family and friends, our efforts blooming unseen in the vasty darkness of the 'net. And once we discover this fact, we give up. According to the Time, "In a 2008 study, Technorati estimated that since 2002, 133 million blogs were started. Of those, only 7.4 million have been updated in the last 120 days. The rest are essentially abandoned."

I think people stop blogging because no one writes back. No one cares. It's too sad.

But having written for newspaper and magazines, I'm sort of used to that deafening silence. Sure, I hoped that more people would post comments if only because it's so easy to do. No paper. No postage.

But the experience of print is instructive. If I received a single letter to a column published in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine (in the days when it was read by millions rather than tens of dozens of New Englanders)I was thrilled. If one person was moved to pick up a pen, that meant there were others who thought about doing the same. After all, I am just as guilty as the next browser of not taking the 60 seconds to thank a favorite author, applaud a great singer, or say hey to fellow bloggers, whose words I follow. (Yes,that's you, Dr. Paley.)

Sitemeter Report

2009-06-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, I wrote about my addiction to checking the location of readers who stop by this blog. That confession prompted more comments than any other posting so far.

So I thought perhaps you'd like to know from whence come some of your far-flung brethren and (more likely) sister-en.

States heard from in the past month or so: Georgia, Washington, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota, Louisiana, Alaska, New York, North Carolina.

And from abroad: Ireland, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Panama, Holland, Scotland.

Small world.

I think that I shall never see

2009-05-07T16:26:00.001-07:00

This is what's going on in my backyard, and believe me, I'm a terrible photographer.

Around the block there is a dogwood abloom in pink flowers, rising from a bed of spiky purple perennials.

The lilacs are out to seduce, and the perfume is staggering.

All I want to do is sit in my backyard and look at this tree.

Can you blame me?

The manuscript

2009-05-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

It's baaack!

The title and cover image have been finalized. The book tour is shaping up. A photographer has been hired to make me look ... creative? mysterious? authorial?

But the galleys are back with me, which means the book itself isn't quite finished and I get to make changes to the manuscript of DAY AFTER NIGHT. I'm looking for typos, of course. I have found a few, which means there have to be more that I'm not seeing. But the truth is, it's hard for me to see the book at all.

"Manuscript dysmorphia" is the clinical term for my condition. The diagnosis was coined and delivered by one of my writing clinicians, Stephen McCauley. This is a condition not unlike body dysmorphia, in which the patient has an extremely distorted view of him/herself, or in this case, her book.

I'm working steadily, 20-30 pages a day to meet my deadline. That's all I can sit still for. I'm changing a word here, a phrase there, checking for internal consistency. Thanks to the "word search" function, I can hack away at my worst excesses of repetitive language syndrome. ("Of course" is a problem for me.)

But please, don't ask me how I feel about it. Is it brilliant? Does it suck? Manuscript dysmorphia strikes again!

The Good Ship

2009-04-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

I write fiction that celebrates the power of friendship. Although my novels are very different from one another in form, style, and setting, that is the one constant.

In my collection of essays, "Pitching My Tent: On Marriage, Motherhood, Friendship, and Other Leaps of Faith" the subtitle elevates friendship to the level of family. And whenever I speak about the way that popular culture denigrates women's friendships (mean girls, frenemies, bitchy bosses) and say, "That's what sells, I suppose. But the nasty exceptions miss the most important point: women friends keep each other sane!" The audience smiles and nods a collective head.

So it's nice to see that as of today, the most forwarded article in the New York Times details the health benefits of friendship -- especially among women. The article, "What Are Friends For?" ran in the Science section, and reports the obvious: Friendships are good for you. (The second half of that headline: "A Longer Life.")

Mostly, the story focuses on women's friendships and a book called "The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a 40-year Friendship." But it also included citations from a few scientific studies that show reduced rates of heart disease and even head colds among those who tend to their buddies. And then there's this:

Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.

The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.

Pass it on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21well.html?em

Site meter

2009-04-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

My in-house information technology staff (that would be Jim, my husband) just set up a site meter/counter on this blog. And now I find myself checking it compulsively. Sort of the way I used to check my books' Amazon rankings. And the way I used to play computer Solitaire.

I'm not proud of this, and maybe this is too much information and I shouldn't be telling you. But I'm fascinated to see that someone from Australia dropped by. And Tennessee, and North Carolina, Illinois ... and down the block.

Of course, my most frequent visitor is me -- because I can't stay away.

As with my other computer compulsions, I know this one will fade. But for now, Hello out there, wherever you are!

Manuscriptless

2009-04-12T04:45:00.000-07:00

Chatting on the phone with Steve, cherished writing partner and Ukelele guru, we covered the usual topics (movies, books, gossip) and then he asked, "Feeling a little rootless?"

"Yeah," I answered, glibly.

He knew that I had shipped the copy edited manuscript of my novel back to the publisher about a week ago. Ever since, I've been cleaning my office, filing stuff, purging the bookshelves of college texts (did I really think I'd read Horace ever again? and if I want to, there's the library...)Sure, Passover kept me occupied for a while there but, the chasm yawns. What next?

S. and I shared a laugh.

Either we're miserable and writing, or else we're not-writing and shuddering with anxiety about what to write next.

Nuts.

La Tienda Roja

2009-03-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

The Red Tent has been out of print in Spanish for a few years now. Today, I received copies of the newly-released edition, published by ViaMagna Ediciones.

I don't read much Spanish, but I dearly love the look and sound of the dedication in this beautiful language: Para mi hija Emilia

"Benditos sean vuestros ojos ... "

Spring, almost, sort of, at last

2009-03-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

The light is back in New England even if it is chilly, and so the walks with Buddy (Schnauzer) get longer. Along the Charles River, the birds seem glad to be back.

That said, March in Boston is a month of yearning for April,daffs and crocuses. I visited my daughter in North Carolina last weekend, where daffodils were in full evidence and everything else was ready to pop. I know I'm supposed to complain about the misery of winter where I live, and I do get tired of it. But since I don't have to commute (the consolation of a home office) and am past of the age of needing to get children to school, I don't suffer so much and feel less of a need to kvetch. My friends and I muse about spending winters elsewhere but where? The only place that seems possible to me is California. But Jim has this thing about earthquakes, and so we'll plod along in the extremes -- walking on the ice in our silly-looking cleats and waddling side-to-side like penguins to avoid slipping.

The change in the season comes like a resurrection. Which is a big deal for a Jew.

BTW: My website is now refurbished, so do check it out: www.anitadiamant.com

The photograph

2009-02-11T07:27:00.001-08:00

The cover photograph comes from the archive of Herbert and Leni Sonnenfeld. Herbert (1906-1972) was a Berlin-born photojournalist who, with his wife, Leni (1907-2004) chronicled Jewish life in Germany until they fled the Nazis in 1939. The couple tried to immigrate to Palestine, then under British Mandatory rule, but were denied entry. They settled in the United States and went on to photograph Jewish communities in Iran, Morocco, and Spain. The Sonnenfeld photographs of Jewish settlers in Palestine in the mid-1940s helped to shape the image – and self-image – of the state of Israel.
This picture was not taken in Palestine but in Germany in 1935 at the Ruednitz youth aliyah (Aliyat Hanoar) camp. This pre-immigration training center allowed young people to test their ability to live collectively and do the demanding agricultural work of kibbutz life in the land of Israel.
The image haunts me: Did some of these dancing teenagers make it to Israel? Did any of them?

Book Cover

2009-01-29T11:29:00.000-08:00

This is the cover for my forthcoming novel, DAY AFTER NIGHT, which will be published in September, 2009.

Set in 1945, in the summer immediately following the end of World War II in Europe, DAY AFTER NIGHT tells the stories of four young Jewish women -- survivors of four different kinds of hell. They make their way to the land of Israel where they confront an uncertain future haunted by the past.

My protagonists -- Leonie, Tedi, Shayndel and Zorah -- are interned when they arrive, sent to a place called Atlit, a prison camp run by the British, who were under an international mandate to rule Palestine. In Atlit, the women meet, befriend one another, and begin to grapple with a new life in a new land.

Some of the details of the plot are based on historical incidents, but the characters are of my own invention. You might think of this novel (with a smile) as THE RED TENT meets EXODUS -- the novel by Leon Uris.

2009

2009-01-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year.

It's begun with much snow and ice in New England, and as tough as than can be (especially when I'm walking Buddy the Schnauzer first thing in the morning) I've been struck by one of the true gifts of living in a climate like this: things change before your very eyes.

The world is transformed.

My neighborhood in January looks nothing like my neighborhood in June.

The Charles River, a few blocks from my home, is not the same from week to week.

The blanket of snow and exposed architecture of the trees wake me up to new appreciations. Even when it's miserable (and today, folks, it's pretty miserable) I remember that this too shall pass.

On my desk, I've got a purple post-it up: Cultivate cheerfulness.

I just don't see any alternative.

Burying the lede

2008-12-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

January approacheth, which means the plague of year-end best-of lists is upon us.
Recently, I was asked to name four books to recommend as holiday gifts, and I had a hard time coming up with anything newish. The awful truth is, I read very few books last year. I have lots of excuses — mostly having to do with my own book deadline. Never mind my laziness, which probably ought to be the true confession of this posting. But because it is my blog, I will instead lay a big lump of the blame on the damage done by the endless political campaign to my ability to concentrate on anything else.

This really had nothing to do with being an informed voter. I obsessed and succumbed to anxiety. I spent far too much time reading OP-ED pieces and editorials. And WAY too much time watching MSNBC, CNN. I compulsively checked the electoral polls of a couple of websites -- so much so that I barely wasted any time playing Solitaire.

The post-election readjustment isn't easy, and now we’ve got the financial melt-down that makes the morning newspaper and NPR broadcasts into a car-wreck from which I cannot avert my eyes. Still, I do plan to return to reading. I have a whole list of books, including novels, which I actively avoided in 2008 due to the fact that I was writing my own novel.

Which I just submitted to the publisher on Friday. Yep. Hit the send button. Ta-da.

Talk about burying the lede.

:)

empty nest, refeathered

2008-11-18T13:41:00.001-08:00

When my daughter, Emilia, was in high school, there was a TV commercial on the air that portrayed a mother who transformed her kid's room into a fancy-shmancy spa-bathroom within minutes of his departure for college. We used to tease each other about that ad.

"That's what we're going to do," I promised.

"Don't you dare," she'd say.

And of course, I didn't.

Until very recently, Emilia's room looked pretty much the way it did when she was a high school senior. It's not that we made a shrine out of it. The closet and drawers have slowly been emptied, the surfaces cleared of cosmetics. Many of the postcards and collages came off the walls a while back. Nonetheless, several of her posters remained. The bedspread faded from brown to beige. We didn't add a thing.

But as of this fall, it's been five years since she lived here so ....

No, Jim and I did not turn it into a spa bathroom or a home gym. It's still the room Emilia lived in during middle school, high school, and some summer weeks as a college student. And I know she'll feel comfortable in "her" room, when she returns for Thanksgiving next week.

But it's not exactly the same. We bought some some curtains and a new coverlet. We moved the furniture around and peeled the tape off the walls (well as much as we could) and hung some new pictures among the old.

And now that we did it, I'm as pleased about how nice it looks as I am wistful about this little, private milestone.

It was time.

Change is good.

Yes We Can

2008-11-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama and I go way back to May 2004, when he was running for the senate. I met him via a profile by William Finnegan in the pages of The New Yorker. Describing Obama in his Chicago neighborhood, Finnegan wrote,

Every few minutes, our conversation was interrupted by passersby congratulating Obama on his primary victory. The people who stopped to shake his hand were black and white, old and young, professors and car mechanics. Some Obama obviously knew. Others seemed to be strangers. He was affable with everyone, smiling warmly, but in exchanges that lasted more than a few seconds it was possible to see him slipping subtly into the idiom of his interlocutor—the blushing, polysyllabic grad student, the hefty black church-pillar lady, the hip-hop auto shop guy. Black activists sometimes say that African-American kids need to become “bi-dialectic”—to speak both black English and standard English—to succeed. Obama, the biracial kid from Hawaii, speaks a full range of American vernaculars.

Nice, I thought. The man has a good ear for the language.

In July 2004, I heard Barack’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston and I got religion. Do remember that speech? No red states or blue states; the United States. He used phrases and, ohmygod, whole sentences that seemed to heal the million little paper cuts inflicted upon the English tongue by W.

Gosh, I thought, wouldn’t it be great if someone like him… someday .. maybe … oh well.

My next encounter with Barack came a few months later, in Chicago, were I was on a book tour. I had hurried back to my hotel room to see if the Yankees were still beating the Red Sox in the playoffs, but there was no coverage of my home town team. I kept flipping from station to station but they kept showing the Cubs getting killed. And then the news flashed on the Illinois senate race. “Hi Barack,” I said to the TV screen. “I’m rooting for you.” He won that election with 70% of the vote.

Two years later, I saw him in person at Boston campaign rally in support of gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick. For $15 contribution, I brought my then-college-age daughter with me to a crowded ballroom at Hynes auditorium.

Barack spoke first, though not for long – five minutes tops -- and I honestly cannot recall what he said. He made it abundantly clear that he was there for Deval and not on his own behalf. He was the warm-up act and gave a great introduction. Then he stepped back, out of the spotlight, to listen to the candidate’s speech.

I was standing on the side of the stage. He was maybe 30 feet away from me –sort of sitting, sort of leaning up against a stool – in profile. And for the 15 minutes of Deval Patrick’s speech, Barack did not move. He was still, not stiff, and clearly not bored. He listened attentively, modeling both respect and deference to the man with the microphone. He smiled at the good lines, but he did not move. There was no Bill Clintonian lip-chewing. He didn’t need to be looked at.

He was perfectly still, which made he think of … Mt. Rushmore. “Aha,” I thought, “So that’s what is meant by the word presidential.”

Barack announced for president in February, 2007, and while I wished him well, I must confess that I was afraid to get my heart broken. I said, “I’ll support whatever Democrat wins the nomination,” unwilling to let myself…uh … hope.

But in January, 2008, Barack won the lily-white Iowa caucuses and his victory speech sealed the deal between us. You heard it, right? And it wasn’t only the things he said but the way he spoke. The music in it, the poetry. It set me free and I will never again apologize for voting for the person who understands that we need and deserve poetry in political discourse.

Poetry is fierce. It burns through the baloney. And it’s why young people turned out to work for his election; because the generation of hip-hop, rap, and poetry slams knows that words can cause the heart to flex and heave … and hope.

Of course I supported Barack Obama because of his positions on the issues: on war and peace, on choice. I trust him to make good Supreme Court nominations. His election has already helped restore America’s good name abroad. His flawless campaign bodes well for his steering us out of the many awful messes that we’re all in, together.

But I also supported Barack Obama because he has the gifts and the soul to speak, on occasion, with the tongue of an angel. And because he can be silent and still when it’s not about him.

Now that he is president-elect Obama, he appears to be the very same man described in that 2004 New Yorker profile. This long strange campaign trip hasn’t changed him. Which gives me even more faith in his ability to accomplish great things.

Yes We Can.

Back to the Real World

2008-09-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

September is a beauty in my neck of the woods, which makes it a bit harder to get back into harness and return to work. The kids who live on my block head to school wearing t-shirts and shorts, with the sweatshirts their mothers press on them wrapped around their waists. I head out to walk the dog following their lead and shiver for the first few minutes, but warm up quickly.

I do not use my ipod when I walk Buddy, the schnauzer, around the block and along the river. I like the sound of the birds. I even like the rush of the traffic. I talk to the Bud-man and his ears perk up. I try to empty my mind and stay in the moment. My mantra is "dappled," one of the prettiest words in English, which comes to mind because of the play of the light through the trees where I take my daily constitutionals.

And then I sit down to write.

The deadline for my next novel is December 1 and I'm on track to meet it, as long as I continue putting in long, concentrated days as I have been since about Labor Day.
The light at the end of the tunnel is visible from here, which is the most effective motivator of all for me. All systems go.

All in all, September may be my favorite month. Except maybe for June. And July. August is pretty good, too. Trying to keep my head in the moment. How about you?

Vacation days

2008-08-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm at the beach for the week. Not working on the novel,which has consumed my consciousness pretty much non-stop all summer. So it's not easy putting on the brakes. I'm on an "enforced" time-out (enforcers being my writing-group partners, Amy Hoffman and Steve McCauley, to whom I am eternally grateful for everything.)And I know I need the distance to go back and edit and make my deadline (Dec 1)

So I am reading the papers, going to the beach, walking the dog, reading nonfiction and comic novels, trying not to worry about various friends and members of the family who face challenges of various sorts. Watching movies and sunsets. Seeing a few friends...

And basking.

The light at this time of year is so seductive and so elegaic. I'm on the North Shore, north of Boston that is, on Cape Ann. The marshes and the fields are showing a little color, but mostly it's the slant of light in the late afternoon that transforms the world into a honeyed place, about to slide into autumn and the deep sleep of winter.

How wonderful. How sad. How grateful am I.

Reading Delivery Systems

2008-08-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

For me, the morning begins with the newspapers, which arrive somewhere in the vicinity of my front door, every single day of the week. This fact brands me as a bit of an anachronism, and certainly a demographic cliché: middle-aged, middle-class, blahblahblah.

According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, only about four in ten Americans get their news this way anymore; down by 18% since 1993, a trend that continues. I am not among the 57 % who watch TV newscasts. And while I am glad to know that between 1993 and 2006 National Public Radio nearly doubled its audience from 9-17%, I will never quite forgive “All Things Considered” for what I swear was a 20-minute segment about Indian cooking that included a lingering sound-clip of garlic hissing in a frying-pan.

I have friends who long ago canceled their hard-copy subscriptions and pick up the news from a laptop. My reticence to join them has something to do with the fact that I already spend far too many hours staring at a screen. The computer is my work station, a place where I frequently pull at my hair and wish I could be somewhere else. The last thing I need is to start my day there, too.
I know that my morning newspaper is on its way into the Smithsonian, along with the model T and the whalebone corset; perhaps within my own lifetime. And while that prospect makes me a bit wistful, I am not convinced that the end of newsprint signals the death of literacy, reporting, language and/or civilization itself. The daily paper is, after all, only one of many news delivery systems. And some of the new systems are way cool.

Recently, I have taken to reading novels and works of nonfiction from the screen of an ebook -- an electronic book – a paperback-sized, ten-ounce wonder that enables me to lightly lug a whole library in my carry-on luggage and to change the font size if I misplace my reading glasses. In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I acquired this nifty little reading device as payola for taping an endorsement of the herein unnamed product. That said, I do love my new toy, which means I’m never stuck for reading material. Well, almost never.

I get all peevish when a title I want is not available in electronic form; what’s the matter with that publisher, that writer? Are they quill-and-parchment Luddites? Get with the program already!

But when I settle into my airplane seat and fire up my ebook, I am one very chill Cheshire cat. The young man who sat beside me on recent flight admired it and asked if I worked in high tech. I glowed, feeling a good twenty years younger than I am, and precisely the sort of person who gets her news online, too.

And yet I cling to my paper. I’m bi-literate, and proud. If I lost my ebook, I’d buy another. But cellulose is part of my morning ritual, a song-and-dance that starts when I open the front door to make sure it’s been delivered. Will I need to put on shoes to retrieve it? Is an umbrella called for? Generally, I just sneak out in my robe and slippers, regardless of weather, studiously keeping my eyes on the ground, which makes me invisible to the kids walking past on their way to school.

Back at the kitchen table, I inhale the reviving aroma of coffee and open her up. First, I peruse the headlines and check in with the presidential campaign. But after that, it’s pure chance what catches my attention. I flip through the sections: city, business, arts, sports. I wander and meander, chewing my toast with Red Sox nation, finishing my grapefruit over a movie review. I pour a second cup and sigh about the situation in Israel, or Zimbabwe, or in a local public school. I glance at the ads and wonder who buys those “Sex for Life” books. I read all of the comics.

My husband wanders in and I say, “You’ve got to see this.”

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe (c) May 12, 2008

Reading and writing for you and others

2008-07-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

YEARS AGO, I made myself some of those print-your-own business cards. They were kind of flimsy and perforated around the edges, but I didn't want to spend real money because I was so rarely asked for a card. Those homemade nameplates languished in my wallet until eventually they were too faded and grubby to hand out so I threw them away. Of course, that very day someone asked for my business card.

That's when I got my in-house information technology staff (a.k.a. Jim, my husband) to create a basic, vanilla sort of website in my name so that the next time someone asked for my contact information I could say, "Just look me up online." And my preferred "title" changed from Ms. to www.

I have friends, acquaintances, and colleagues whose websites are state-of-the art things of beauty, complete with animation, fade-outs, musical accompaniment, and breath-bating opening sequences. I eventually upgraded to nicer fonts and colors, but never opted for more than cheap and simple because, as I saw it, the site was just a pixilated version of that unseen perforated business card; out of sight, out of mind.

But then, about a month ago, my server went out of business. Without notice, warning, or so much as a farewell e-mail, my website disappeared. Poof!
When I typed in my URL, a wan little message appeared: "No results found." I had been erased from cyberspace, my virtual presence amputated. And much to my surprise, I was steamed.

How could my hosting company just leave me high and dry like that? I resided online through a regional mom-and-pop outfit that used to send me personalized notes whenever it was time to renew; I thought we had a relationship!

Then, I felt mortified. Would the people I had told "Go to my website" think I had blown them off? Did they now see me as the kind of person who shares her brownie recipe but leaves out the baking powder?

Thanks to wise and patient counsel (Jim again), within a couple of weeks a new server was located, a transfer was effected, and the relaunch was complete. My virtual flag was flying once more, easy to access 24/7. In the alternative reality of the Internet, I was wwwhole. Hooray!

But again, I was surprised at my reaction. I think of myself as firmly rooted in the real world. I am not a techie. I have no avatar, do not frequent chat rooms, and find Facebook as dull as a box of hammers. And even though I created a Web log for myself (so easy, I didn't even ask Jim for help) I'm a poor excuse for a blogger. I'm too self-conscious for a format that seems to require an unedited stream of consciousness. Whenever I do post an entry, I feel silly; like I'm standing in my backyard in the middle of the night, humming softly into the darkness and waiting for someone to respond. The fact that the only answers I get are from people selling land in Costa Rica suggests that I put my energies elsewhere.

Like into e-mail, a format that I love almost as much as my dog. (That's me in the theater checking the inbox on my cellphone during the coming attractions.)
E-mail is like a wagging tail, the nontheological proof that I am not alone even when I am alone. Which is why it took me years to get up the nerve to change my e-mail provider and address; I was afraid of missing a single message.

But then I did it, and even though it was not the simple carefree experience advertised, it ultimately provided even more evidence that e-mail is the water cooler, post office, back fence, coffee shop, and town meeting of the digital age.

My inbox was filled with "nice to hear from you" messages from folks I hadn't heard from in years. It was like Christmas in springtime, with a paperless pile of good wishes and news about new careers and homes, college acceptances, the birth of grandchildren. Alas, I heard about divorces, declines, and a few deaths, too. I wrote back to everyone, and we all promised to stay in touch from now on. :)

This essay appeared in The Boston Globe (c) on June 2, 2008

Internetworking

2008-06-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

This is an experiment in internetworking.

I would like to enlist your help, suggestions, ideas for a project dear to my heart.

Bert Seager and I have written REQUITED, a CD of songs, which is now available for you to hear and/or purchase. (Check the link in a previous posting or at my website homepage, www.anitadiamant.com.)

We would dearly love to have this music heard by a wider audience and the way that is done, I am told, is by getting it into the hands of well-known singers, the likes of Diana Krall, Audra McDonald, or Kurt Elling. (To start at the top of the jazz/standards list.) Have you a childhood buddy/ college roommate/ BFF or friend of friend who is or knows a famous voice? Or are you a hungry and talenter singer interested in presenting new music, which comes with a ready-made news hook? (Author starts writing lyrics with jazz pianist writing for voice for the first time...)

Email me or leave me a message if you've got an idea, a connection, a hankering to sing these songs.

Thanks so much. I'm curious to see if anything will come of this...

Most Important Books...

2008-06-13T11:33:00.000-07:00

I am often asked about favorite books or books that influenced me. This is one of them ...

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf influenced me as a journalist and as a novelist in ways that continue to unfold. I’m pretty sure that I missed the humor on virtually every page when I first read the essay as an earnest undergraduate. But the underlinings and exclamation points in my college paperback (cover price: $1.95) remind me of the impact it had on me then. Today when I re-read it, I’m still inspired not only by Woolf’s clear-eyed message that women’s stories need to be told, but also by her style, conviction, and wit. Written in 1928, 80 years ago, these 118 pages still challenge readers and writers to consider the quesiton: Who was left out?

In one memorable passage, Woolf ponders the lives of the flesh-and-blood lives of the women who were Shakespeare’s contemporaries. She wrote, “One knows nothing detailed, nothing perfectly true and substantial about her. History scarcely mentions her... She never writes her own life and scarcely keeps a diary; there are only a handful of her letters in existence. She left no plays or poems by which we can judge her.

“What one wants,” Woolf wrote, “ is a mass of information; at which age did she marry; how many children had she as a rule; what was her house like; had she a room to herself; did she do the cooking … “All these facts lie somewhere, presumably, in parish registers and account books. The life of the average Elizabeth woman must be scattered about somewhere, would one collect and make a book of it.”

Virginia Woolf challenged me to write The Red Tent. And Good Harbor. And The Last Days of Dogtown – and probably much of what I have written and will scribble for the rest of my life. Thanks to A Room of One’s Own, I want to tell stories that have fallen off the pages of history simply because they belonged to women.

In the case of The Red Tent, a historical novel set in biblical times, there were no letters or parish records to consult. The historical record has almost nothing to say about the ordinary lives of women before the nineteenth century, and even then, working women, poor women, and women of color remained invisible, forgotten, and often nameless.

“One often catches a glimpse of her in the lives of the great, whisking away in to the background,” wrote Virginia Woolf, “concealing, I something think a wink a laugh, perhaps a tear.”

In Genesis 34, there is a glimpse of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, heading off to visit the daughters of Shechem. We have no diary, no letters, no testimony from Dinah about what happened to her in that ancient city. The tale of Jacob and his sons includes a brutal footnote about that adventure, but it is not told in Dinah’s voice. It is not her version.
What did Dinah do in Shechem? What was she wearing? What did she see and feel and learn?

The Red Tent is my answer. But the question was first put to me by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own.

Mayflowers and etc

2008-05-08T06:52:00.001-07:00

1) Spring at last. In New England it's revelatory to the point of ravishment. The dull, grey, dreariness has been replaced by little flowers and big flowering trees, very un-Yankee in their bright display. A new shade of green, young and fresh and tender, blushes the landscape. It makes the winter seem worth the wait. At least for the month of May.

2) If you tried signing onto my website, you may have found yourself, as I did today, unable to connect. I fear my hosting company went out of business, without letting me know. Ouch. I will try to correct this as quickly as possible.

3) For the next six weeks, I have the privilege and challenge of writing an op-ed column for the Boston Globe. These pieces will appear on Mondays starting on May 12. I used to write weekly essays so it's a familiar format. I'm a bit rusty on the weekly deadline though and am reminded of the old panic of finishing one piece only to realize I don't know what I'm doing next.

4) Speaking of next week, I'm going to the Jerusalem Writers Festival. It's a lovely honor and one of the high points for me will be standing in the presence of Nadine Gordimer, a South African writer of enormous talent and courage. I may try to post from there, but don't know about my connectivity. I'll certainly try to post something about the trip after the fact.

Happy Spring

Today I am a lyricist! Listen to "Requited"

2008-03-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

Ta-da!

As of today, you can hear the beautiful voice of Rebecca Shrimpton singing my words set to the lovely music of Bert Seager. The title of the CD is REQUITED.

As it says on the inside cover:

Requited means “given in return,” “completed,” “made whole.”

Requited is the word that best describes how I felt working on this music with my friend Bert Seager. I have been listening to Bert’s compositions for many years, but one night while driving alone on a dark road, listening to the haunting melody of “Pioneer,” I thought ... “This needs a lyric.” I called to ask if I could try setting words to it. His “yes” led to our collaboration on these ten songs, and the most fun I have ever had as a writer.

Singer Rebecca Shrimpton unites Bert’s tunes and my phrases with a rich, agile voice and a warm intelligence to create a musical experience that is greater than its parts; a celebration of hope and love. the sound of hearts Requited.

If you want to hear, download, and/or buy this music, the link is http://cdbaby.com/cd/bertseager3

I hope you enjoy the music.

Vacation

2008-03-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

Jim and I visited Emilia in Costa Rica and had a Pura Vida time. Relaxed.
I did not even turn my computer on for a solid seven days, which is some sort of record for me.
The beaches were lovely, the food was simple and good, the heat (which I had been dreading) was bearable thanks to kinly ocean breezes.
Best of all, Emilia is thriving and learning and talking the talk. My favorite story of the trip:
Within hours of our arrival, as we were driving a rental car down the long road toward Jaco, a police officer pulled us over. We were speeding, I admit it. But then, the limit changes almost every five kilometers, from 40-60-25 km and back again.
Emilia talked to the cop. He kept asking leading questions. She told him we'd pay the ticket at a bank.
He didn't say it but made it clear that he wanted us to pay him, then and there, in cash.
Emilia wasn't having any.
He let us go with a warning.
Hooray for Emilia.

Election

2008-02-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

It's crazy. My brother called me to ask about poll results in Massachusetts.
My mother is glued to the talk shows.Everyone I know is thinking and talking and donating and making phone calls. The most exciting election in my lifetime, for sure.

I will be out of town tomorrow so I already mailed in my vote: Obama, without angst.
It's the poetry that got me at first and keeps me reeled in.
Am I supposed to apologize for voting for the person who understands that people need music and poetry in their political discourse? Does this make me naive?

There's all this blather about young vs. boomer in this election. Blather it is.
This boomer, and most of my boomer friends (boomers: the people who brought you feminism, civil rights, gay rights, patients' rights -- human victories all) are for Obama.

Hilary is competent. I'm actually very proud of her. But she lacks the poetry gene. And as tough as she is, it's a weakness. Poetry is fierce. All the spoken-word art (hiphop and rap included) flex this muscle, which helps explain why the kids are standing up for him. In today's Doonesbury, the college girl says, "He'd definitely hooking up with my better angels."

There are other reasons for choosing Obama. His positions, his advisors, his campaign's smart and smashing success, his chances in the fall. But it's the poetry, first and last.
Yes
He
Can

Resolved

2007-12-24T12:41:00.000-08:00

New Year resolution lists are such a cliche. But that's never stopped me before, so here goes. In 2008, I resolve to:

Read more books.
Wag more, bark less. (That's actually a bumper sticker on my car.)

Listen more, talk less.

Take longer walks.
Lose five pounds. (I told you this was a cliche.)
Finish the novel I'm writing before the deadline.
And once I've finished the book, go back to taking voice lessons.
Be kinder.
Try to like beets. Last year I learned to like brussel sprouts, so now anything is possible in the vegetable department.

Happy New Year.

Adventures in Technology

2007-12-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

I got an ipod for Hannukah. I asked my husband for it, and he obliged.
Why? Well, I felt old not having an mp3 player, not having those earbuds in my head, not understanding what the fuss was all about.
My daughter was a little shocked that I wanted one. I don't think she views me as hoplessly antiquated, but this was a surprise to her.
I think the main reason I wanted this new toy is because I'm sick of what's on the car radio and I am a menace rifling through cds while driving.
So why not?
It is such a slim, elegant thing. And I'm a sucker for the ads. Maybe it'll turn me on to new musicians and new music.
The reality is not as simple as the concept. The machine requires energy time and a zillion choices and mastery of downloading and dial-spinning. Thank goodness for my friend Steve, who told me he felt the same misgivings at first, but is now a total acolyte, in love with the music he's discovered, happy as a clam with very cool music inside the shell.
Last night, I walked the dog with my new ipod in my ears. (Grateful for the amazing new earphones S. gave me) I listened to an old favorite, a familiar track by Rickie Lee Jones, and heard dimensions in the drums and bass and in her performance that had never been there before... at least not for me.
So maybe I'll fall in love with my ipod, after all. I've already figured out how to use the "import" command.

November 23

2007-11-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was spent with wonderful friends, who are masters at The Big Meal; cooking, serving, cleaning up. My husband, mother and I shared the table with 13 kind people and two turkeys (one smoked, the other deep fried, both delicious.)There was pie and cheesecake and wine. What could be bad?

Over soup, we went around the table and gave thanks. Most of us spoke about the gratitude we felt for family and friends, and for being included at this Thanksgiving dinner. Two of us mentioned the fact that dear ones are healing after grievous illness/diagnosis. Someone mentioned his gratitude at being in a place where everyone knew how to laugh at a joke. Our hostess acknowledged the blessing of beings Americans, for all our serious disagreements with the current administration.

I have working on gratitude lately. As I walk the dog in the sharp cold air of late fall. As I touch my toes in yoga. As I taste my daily bread. As I answer the phone call of a friend (caller ID is a good thing that way). I try to quiet my mind long enough to observe my luck and count the blessing of another day.

November 4

2007-11-04T12:47:00.000-08:00

Today is my daughter's 22nd birthday.

She is my one-and-only child, so this is a red letter day in my personal calendar.

E. is living in Costa Rica this year, so I sorely miss being able to celebrate with her. To console myself, I visited with my friend A. and her little girls, age 3 and 1 this afternoon. There were songs from Sesame Street and songs sun by Raffi on the CD player. I remembered the words! (A miracle given the state of my memory). And I remember the delight of those bright eyes.

I cannot quite believe it's been so long since I sang those songs, since I played those games, since I lived that life: the sensations are still so available to me, so present.

The intervening years have been filled with the most important lessons of my life. It is my birthday as a parent -- a role that contines to teach and to shape me more profoundly than any other.

So Happy Birthday to E. and to her dad, J. and to me.

And many more ...

Red Sox Nation

2007-10-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

I'm wearing a Red Sox bracelet and I care too much about whether they win. I was in New York City yesterday and I realized that not everyone is as focused on this stuff as us maniacs in Boston and beyond. We grin sheepishly at one another, some of us anyway, at how much it matters to us.

Only a game, purely a game. There are so many more important things to worry and think about.

But what a relief, to think for a little while about a bunch of guys playing the same game that little boys and girls play, and the regular women and men on the ballfield down the street from me are playing.

And oh those individual stories. Smooth-cheeked rookies doing well! Old timers showing that experience can trump those torn muscles and aching bones! Tell me more.

Red Sox Nation is parochial but not stricly local, I know. So to all of my sisters and brothers who know what the heck I'm talking about, from sea to shining sea and around the world, I say, sheepishly and proudly, and wearing my bracelet (did I tell you I bought a pair of earrings, too?) GO SOX!

Ten

2007-09-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

It's been ten years since the publication of The Red Tent, and the publisher has produced a new edition in its honor. Inside, there is an essay I wrote musing about why I wrote it and what it means to me. Outside, there's a sort of shiny "medal" and the title is in gold foil instead of red.

People often ask me if I knew when I was writing the book, that it would become a best-seller. The answer is "No."

Everyone who writes a book hopes and prays it finds its audiences -- hopefully a really big audience. But having published four titles before, I knew my life wasn't going to change overnight, if at all.

The Red Tent was a "sleeper" success, which found its audience almost entirely because of word-of-mouth recommendations from book group members and book sellers (especially those in independent bookstores.)When I get email from readers, they almost always tell me how it came into their hands: pressed upon them by mother/daughter/sister/co-worker -- this "geneology" is important to them, making it a shared family/communal experience. It's lovely.

Today, I received a wonderful gift by way of my local weekly newspaper. Written by Mary Cotton, the owner of our wonderful independent store, Newtonville Books, it celebrates the 10th anniversary of The Red Tent with amazing kindness. Thank you, Mary. Here is the link: http://www.townonline.com/newton/opinion/x775326971

And thank you, out there in blogville, for reading along.

My Summer Reading List

2007-09-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl, growing up in Newark, NJ, the public library had an annual summer reading contest. Who could read the most books! I don't think there was a prize apart from bragging rights. I tried, but I never won. This summer, I read a good deal and learned a lot -- from the bestsellers as well as from some classics.

The Reader’s Companion to South Africa, edited by Alan Ryan
Cape Town Calling: From Mandela to Theroux on the Mother City, edited by Justin Fox
Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton
The Whale Caller, Zakes Mda
Jump, and Other Stories, Nadine Gordimer
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
Jane and Prudence, Barbara Pym

What did you read?

Vacation

2007-08-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

I am on vacation, which is to say, I am not living at home for a few weeks. And yet, I am trying to work on my new book and I am answering emails of all sorts, and I'm doing a few bookstore readings in the area...

So what allows me to say, "I am on vacation?"

For one thing, I'm reading a lot, which I almost never do. (Mortifying as it is to admit.) And I'm watching movies but not tv, and walking the dog for long stretches of time. I'm going to the beach, and taking yoga classes. I'm not going to meetings, or getting up too early to have breakfast with people I would otherwise never get to see.

Maybe this more like retirement than vacation. Except for the writing and the emails and the bookstores.... Semi-retirement? Or maybe it's just my kind of vacation.

The truth is, I'm having a wonderful time. I hope you are too.

Letting Go

2007-08-07T07:11:00.001-07:00

My 21-year-old daughter, Emilia, is spending the coming year in Costa Rica. She will be working as a dorm advisor in a private school. It's her version of a "gap year," a break between college (NYU '07) and whatever comes next.
I am in awe of her spirit of adventure, her willingness to experiment with her days, her commitment to learning more about herself as a teacher/traveler/citizen of the world. That same wilingness to live on the planet at large is a feature of her generation. Many of her friends are moving to parts of the US and the world to study, volunteer and experience cultures and lives far removed from the priviledges and protections with which they grew up.
Of course, this mother's heart is in her throat. I wish her safe journey and speedy return. I wish it was easier to let go. But love ain't cheap. It costs in tears and fears and everything else ever immortalized in twangy country-western heartbreak songs.
Her dad and I will visit when it's very cold here in New England. By then, she'll be fluent in Spanish and, she claims, an expert surfer. I can't wait.

Africa accompanies

2007-07-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

Walking the dog (a miniature Schnauzer named Buddy) down my tree-lined street, I thought

Everyone here has water inside the house. And electricity. And the children all go to school, immunized, dressed, shod.

This is the first world. It is safe on this tree-lined street. No one really worries about safety, at least not in a daily, chronic way.

Africa accompanies me.

I met a woman who lived in Mali many years ago, serving in the Peace Corps. She wrote a lovely/sad/hopeful book called "Monique and the Mango Rains" and she asked when I was going back to Africa. She said Africa stays with you, changes you.

I live in the first world, and most of the time I am oblivious to the priviledge. But sometimes, I remember, grateful and ashamed.

Back from Africa

2007-06-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the US, in my home office, a little logy with jet-lag.
I'm sorry I didn't post while in Cape Town, where I spent most of my 10-day sojourn in Africa. But by the time evening fell, I was too tired, overwhelmed by the intensity, beauty, contrasts, experiences of the day.
The truth is,I am out of the habit of writing a diary.(I hate the use of "journal" as a verb.)I think the last time I tried, my 21-year-old daughter was a baby. Which also explains why the process of blogging is a bit of a challenge.
Now home, I find myself tongue-tied trying to recount what it was like to those who ask. My husband took hundreds of photographs, and while many of them are beautiful, they do not do the place/people/wildlife/flora justice.
Vast.
Everything about Africa is vast. The poverty and the wealth, both vast. The horizons shaped by mountains, the Atlantic and the Indian oceans.
Oh dear. I'm reduced to telling you that the oceans of Africa are big.
The night sky seen from a game reserve on the Eastern Cape: the sight of the Southern Cross and the rest of the stars in the "wrong" place.
The example of Nelson Mandela (held in tender, awed reverence by everyone we met)is beyond measure. To hear the word "reconciliation" -- as Mandela defined it and gave it to his nation-- in the mouths of people whose first language is Aafricans, Xosa, English. Everything is named after Mandela, and there will never be enough honor.
There is a big strike going on in South Africa. I find no mention of it in the two major US papers that land on my doorstep daily. The questions raised by this strike are so important, the consequences so dire: would government find a solution? would the unions agree to terms? should they agree given the incredibly low wages paid teachers and hospital workers? There is such danger that the whole experiment that is South Africa will fall to pieces. And yet, the hope and optimism that this crisis shall be managed is palpable.
I go online to find out what happens next.
They asked me, in South Africa, if I would return. I said, "I hope so." The truth is, Africa will stay with me.
In Xosa, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, the salutations for taking leave are:
To the one who leaves, "Go well."
To the one who remains, "Stay well."

My Big Adventure

2007-06-01T12:20:00.001-07:00

Next week, I'm going to South Africa. I can't quite believe it, but it's true. My husband and I will be in Cape Town as the guests of the Jewish community. I will be speaking at various events, seeing the sights, stopping in at an international bookfair, and spending a few days on a game preserve.

I am not very well-traveled nor am I an easy traveler. I am a home-body, which probably has something to do with the fact that I'm a bit of a control-freak. Still, this is the trip of a lifetime and I can't wait.

Jim and I have been studying guidebooks, preparing the camera, and reading. In the past few weeks I have read, CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY by Alan Paton, THE WHALE CALLER by Zakes Mda, and JUMP by Nadine Gordimer. I have a book of essays about South Africa by various authors for the plane right.

If I have access to a computer and the internet, I'll try to post from the other side of the planet.

Stay tuned...

Dipping a toe in the blogpond

2007-05-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Hello out there.
I am entering the blogosphere with my daughter, Emilia (21), at my side to guide me.
I wrote this book called THE RED TENT, which is probably why you stumbled upon this webdiary. I will be posting about TRT as that vermilion shelter will be ten years old in September -- so expect a little hoopla. But this space will be mostly devoted to the more than in my life -- my other projects,
musings, rants, etc.
I'll be back soon, as soon I figure out how to navigate this universe with a little finesse.