Blog

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. —Henry Adams

I was Mother Nature in kindergarten and a year later, in Ireland, hit across the knuckles with a steel edge ruler because I could not read. In fifth grade I had a teacher, Mrs. Sadler, who trusted me as a bullied child to survive without her intervention. It was a risky decision. My nemesis had intimidated and bribed the rest of the class and even paid a small boy a pound to hit me in the mouth. But Mrs. Sadler saw my potential as a swimmer, an embroiderer, a writer, and made me feel incredibly brave. Sixth grade was awful for any number of reasons, seventh grade chaotic and fun with the entire middle school housed in the National Guard Armory as our building wasn’t ready. The teachers were young, and we gradually became a feral group who terrified the high school students when we were transferred to the top floor when the Guard needed their place back.

Read More

Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted. —David Bly.

Work does not set you free, but it does teach you stuff. I graduated from college with a history major into a terrible economy and my first job was taking care of the children of battered women. While their mothers who came to the shelter were being checked by doctors or were in the hospital, put on welfare, signed up for food stamps and legal aid, I shepherded their kids, babies, toddlers, little kids, and furious teens. My father used to drink and hit my mother. I was born to have that job until it nearly killed me as I drank away the images of women with black eyes and slings, kids traumatized, and so deeply hurt as witnesses to violence they might never forget. I knew. I loved them. They were like vampires and after eight months I walked away.

Read More

I have always loved newspapers. My parents received the New York Times and the Trenton Times every day. The New York Times came in the morning and the Trenton Times came in the afternoon. The Trenton Times had the funnies with my secret crush the Phantom and the obituaries which, as a future storyteller, held a magnetic pull for my need to know things. I watched as my mother and father devoured the daily paper and the Sunday New York Times and grew up with the sense that a newspaper was essential for a civilized life. However, my real, shameful passion was gossip and so I became a reader of the Daily News which chronicled the seamier side of living in New York City. In every city I lived in, Dublin, San Francisco, New York, London, Dallas, Chicago, I read the paper, preferably the tabloid. I also read the alternative press avidly and free neighborhood papers. I’m not sure this habit was consistently edifying but it felt important to stay informed even if I was learning what some movie star ate for breakfast or the fight over a parking space.

Read More