Chaya BarashLast week, I sold some of my mom’s chunky jewelry and dropped off my vintage wedding dress to be sold online. “It’s a good karma dress,” I wrote in the notes, imagining someone else laughing in it, dancing in it, feeling themselves elevated and down to earth at once. Looking back, I don’t feel like … Read more
One day, now decades ago, I said – out loud to myself – “you know, Carol (that was the name I called myself then) everyone you meet is here for a reason. Your job is to figure out what that reason is.” It felt like something my father might say, both simple and oracular, possible … Read more
March 7, 2026 | Chicago I’m in Chicago for the culmination of Luvvie Ajayi Jones extraordinary six-month Mastermind on Book Marketing. I have not experienced quite this feeling of joyful anticipation since the snowy day I defended my PhD dissertation at Princeton. I felt both excited and scared when I was prepping for the Story2 … Read more
When I imagine taking the best parts of all the world’s religions and making one vessel that holds all that is ideal in each of them, I think of Jesus as the exemplar of human forgiveness. The spring after my father died – I was 16 and in eleventh grade – I leaned on my … Read more
My friend was visiting town for Thanksgiving. I was sitting on her couch, as the sun set, when I told her the story I’ve told you … I talked not so much about the violation years ago, but how he had remained a friend of my mother’s, and I had asked him not to come … Read more
February 17 marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year, the start of Ramadan, and Mardi Gras, the masquerade just before Lent in Christian tradition. The Jewish festival of Purim, on which Mardi Gras is based, follows on March 2. We are entering a Year of the Fire Horse – the last one of these … Read more
Trigger warning sexual harm; complex PTSD. He emailed my sister saying he wanted to attend the celebration of my mother’s life, and she asked me what I wanted to do. “Let me think about it,” I said, pausing to ask myself that question overnight. I had forgiven him — and everyone else who knew and … Read more
Last week at the gym, my friend Jenna asked, “So how are you?” “I feel like it’s all too much …” is what I think I said, rolling my eyes and moving into a creaky down dog. “At so many levels …” is what she definitely said, then six of us laughed at once. The … Read more
October 18, 2025 Most of our trip through Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria, I did not write. Jed and I wrote back and forth in that new journal I bought in the paper shop on Winterfeldstrasse, but I did not do the kind of daily writing or writing for the world I usually do, … Read more
Jed woke up and described his dream: It was a very peaceful dream. It took place in a large art installation in nature, (reminiscent of the Dana Milbank article about being in touch with nature and his brother on the Appalachian Trail). Maybe it was also inspired by our walks: noticing shrubs changing, new flowers, … Read more