As acrid smoke from Canadian wildfires descended on the Northeastern United States, the red Sun ominously hung in a dark orange sky. Unfortunately, this wasn’t some newly released doomsday video game. Instead, it was just the dawn of another climate disaster dejour that activated a trauma response in me—even though I was 1,243 miles away … Read more
Years ago, a prolific graffiti artist in my neighborhood festooned the sidewalk with one of his profound truisms written in colorful chalk: “Sometimes we hold onto things longer than we should.” Marie Kondo would certainly agree as the expert on tidying up—which, of course, is the name of the show that catapulted her into a … Read more
When my family gathered for the Passover Seder in 1998, I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d see my younger brother Gary alive. Fifty-one days later on the second day of the Jewish holiday Shavuot, I received a phone call at four in the morning telling me that he had died suddenly … Read more