[I suggest that you read “Gravity-centric” before reading this.]

I meditate with Deepak Chopra. He’s online. I am in my bed with my laptop. His suggested thought for today is ”I realize every day that my purpose is to evolve.”

Perhaps I thought he said “…revolve”, thus adding to my desire to spin, escalate and revolve inside a wind tunnel.

If it was an error of hearing, it was an enjoyable error as I mused on my recent iFly experience.

In addition to a daily thought, Deepak offers a daily mantra on which to focus while meditating. Today’s mantra is “Eem, hreem, shreem” (“my being radiates wisdom, truth and abundance.”) As Deepak instructs, if we find our mind wandering during meditation, or are distracted by thoughts or physical sensations, we should simply re-focus on the mantra.

I WAS distracted during today’s meditation as I kept adding to the mantra and turning it into “Eem...

Two years ago when Jesse asked me what I wanted for my birthday
I replied, “Indoor sky diving.” I had seen it on the Today show, loved the idea and fact of it. I then researched places where it is offered. The nearest one was in Virginia Beach, a long way away which would require that we stay overnight. In the two years since the question was asked and answered, we hadn’t been able to find a mutually agreeable date.

Thursday, Jesse called to say that on his way home from a photo shoot, he saw signs for iFly somewhere near Dulles Airport in Loudon County. He asked if I wanted to go there the following night. Friday. Last night.

Last night was the night I flew. Thanks to my son making good on his offer of this gift. It was a fantastic gift.

No blow by blow report here and now. (No pun intended in reference to the gigantic blowers, the speed of which can be controlled at will, that...

Mother was always threatening apoplexy. Although I only had a vague notion of what that is, I was certain that it was serious, painful, and that whatever it was that I was doing that caused her to threaten it, I had better stop doing it.

It was an effective behavioral control device in “Freda’s Rules For Raising Children.”

I lived through the threats and never actually saw her commit apoplexy.
Or maybe I did, but I didn’t know that’s what she was doing.

As I am thinking about it and writing about it, and because I had never actually looked up the exact definition, I just Googled it:
ap·o·plex·y
apəˌpleksē/noun dated noun: apoplexy; plural noun: apoplexies
1 unconsciousness or incapacity resulting from a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke.
2 informal: 
incapacity or speechlessness caused by extreme anger: “this drives the social engineers of government into apoplexy”

While the first...

It used to be that when I wanted to know something, my mother would say “Go ask your father.” And I would. I would walk up to my father, who would undoubtably be sitting (watching TV, eating, reading) and ask a question: “Daddy, how long will it take to drive from point A to point B?” Or whatever it was that I needed to know.

I asked, and he answered. An interaction. Exchange. Physical communication. And, there was always a chance I’d get a hug, or an extended conversation, or I might just sit next to him while he watched his ball game. Whatever ball it was that was being played at that moment
in that season.

Now when I want to know something, I Google it. Don’t get me wrong:
I LOVE Goggling, It makes me feel so smart, in whatever language I choose. I Google many times a day for various reasons. And with delight. It’s great.

But I also realize that I miss a certain kind of casual...

Last year for my birthday I got skin cancer. Then it was taken away, “cleanly” removed from both the right side of my nose and the right side of my right leg. At least that’s what the surgeon told me: “Clean!” Coming from the doctor with a bright smile on her face, it felt more like self-congratulations than a gift to me, but I accept the doctor at her word, and I appreciate
the gift.

What will I get for my birthday this year? I’m thinking jewelry, but…
I wonder.

I live in a corner unit. The wide side of my house – 6 windows total on 2 floors - faces a lawn with a big locust tree. It’s given me shade in summer, someplace beautiful for the snow to frost in winter, green to look at in other seasons. Its leaves blew in the breeze. It cast wonderful shadows and made great sillouettes (two of my favorite things). It gave me privacy from the neighbors across the parking lot. It framed the parking lot so it was much prettier. It gave me birdsong.

There are trees in this village that are huge. Some of the biggest city block trees I’ve ever seen. Some truly majestic beauties. Several had over 50 birds nests in their branches last winter. One, in the Spring, was almost deafening in the volume of its peeping. Arlington Village is known for its beautiful trees.

This particular tree wasn’t so big and beautiful, maybe. But it had two things going for it:

1. ...

When Jesse was five he learned to hop on one foot. He also learned to snap his fingers. And wink. He then figured out that he could do them all at the same time AND turn in a circle as he did so. And sing!!! This hopping, winking, snapping, singing, circling child is how I came to understand the word “multi-tasking.” I have yet to know anyone else who could do anything like it.

I have tried, of course. As a single-mother who worked a stressful full-time job and had lots of things that I liked to do including spending time with my child, I came to think that washing dishes or cooking while speaking with Jesse and jotting occasional notes about this project or that or making mental lists of things to do, that this behavior made me a full-fledged member of a club whose existence people seemed to value: multi-tasking.

Books were written, talk-shows had a field day, trainers emerged and...

My father died on December 2, 1994. Nonetheless: happy officially sanctioned Father’s Day, Daddy! I can see you sitting at the kitchen table.
I can see your hands as you picked up the first envelope. Your expression as you read the card from one or the other of us gathered around. Your ho ho ho light response and that look that said “isn’t that something?”. “Thank you, Dahling.” and a kiss to whomever had penned that particular note. There was always a gift or two, over which you always made a fuss. And then we ate breakfast.

As Norman Rockwell a scene as could be. It still defines my understanding of “normal” and “home”. So I think the real meaning of Father’s Day - on whatever day one happens to be thinking about one’s father - is not what is being expressed to the daddy, but what is being felt by his children.
I always felt bursting. Proud to be his daughter. And hoping for French...

Daddy liked his liquids - coffee and soup - hot.

REALLY hot. Mouth scalding hot.
He salted almost everything.
Wanted rye bread and butter on the table with every meal. Real butter.

His favorite desserts were from Ebinger’s bakery in Brooklyn: Victory cake (whipped cream with chocolate cake), chocolate pudding cake (between layers of yellow cake), crumb cake, jelly rolls. These made it to our table in Plainfield, NJ via my Grandparents, who – even after they moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan – would go back to the old nabe, get the cakes, and then drive out to Jersey. They loved their son.

He disliked Chinese food and lobster, and wasn’t nuts for Italian food– my mother’s three favorites.

I like my father’s favorites. And my mother’s.

Gefilte fish is another story for another time, though I am certain that its only excuse for being is as a delivery mechanism for horse radish.

[Originally written on May 24, 2009]

I woke up at 6:15 naturally. No alarm. I figured, “As long as I’m up, why not? I’ll go now.”

A friend who lives in Boston had asked me if I would photograph a name on a page in the Viet Nam Memorial’s Guide Book. That book lists all the names that Maya Lin had immortalized. My friend had decided to make a collaged tribute to her childhood friend, William McKim, and she needed more materials to include in her piece.

She figured that he died sometime around 1969 or ‘70. That’s all I knew.

At nearly precisely 7:00 this morning I was out the door of my apartment building, heading on foot for familiar turf: Iwo Jima/Netherlands Carillon/ Arlington Cemetery/ Memorial Bridge, heading to the memorial that is just past the Lincoln and to the left of it, to the Viet Nam Memorial. I know the route by heart. Easy peezy. A perfect morning at the end of May...