This weekend, a friend of mine drove out to Bay Saint Louis to get out of New Orleans for a respite with her young son. She stayed with other friends here. She is part of a great love story that had a painful twist. The father of her son – the great love of her life – died of cancer without him ever seeing their child. On my walk with Stella this morning, I listened…
Yesterday, I witnessed the unprecedented – the price of oil dropped to negative $40. While oil price gyrations send shock waves throughout too many industries to name, let’s talk about what it means to me. At the end of 2011, I was laid off from a company I helped build where I covered Global Media along with a wide array of other industries. When I left, two long-term clients came with me. Within a year,…
This often seems like the most difficult question to answer – whether it’s what do you want this day to be or what you do want your life to be. World peace rolls off my tongue, but as to what Rachel wants, I’m often stumped. Maybe I wanted this messy life, filled with love and beauty, trials and error, poetry and trash memes, friends who stay, friends who come and go, friends who leave, indelible…
Yesterday, early evening I did not go on my bike ride so I could join my friend’s Zoom life coaching call. Veronica’s a warm and wonderful friend, and I’ve been the beneficiary of her coaching largesse on multiple occasions. My take away from last night’s forum was “use everything” – Veronica’s mantra that all of it – the relationship crap, the coronavirus pandemic, the under-earning, the life struggle whatever it is is there for our…
I moved to Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi nearly two years ago. I had a strong yearning to be part of a smaller community, surrounded by nature, experiencing a slower rhythm, with space for my child to run on a longer leash. I had to juggle – I knew what I wanted, but making it happen took stacking uneven blocks on top of each other, not being able to connect all the dots in the future…
Flower, my Russian friend, has many pithy sayings but one of my favorites is “Hope dies last.” This has been a reminder during my darkest hours that to give up hope is the equivalent of annihilation. So I always go through my list and at the bottom is this: I hope I don’t give up hope. On Friday, March 13, I decided to not send Tin to school. At that time, I had been sick…
Every year for Passover, we host a seder and invite people from all backgrounds to join us as we remember when we were slaves in Egypt. We tell the story of the Exodus so that our children realize their freedom is precious. When Tin arrived in my life, our seder became more multicultural as we blended the narrative of African enslavement in this country with the Jewish enslavement in the old country. I love the…
Tin is frequently called out for being disruptive in school. I know his invisibility in a class of 27 students, seven with special needs, fosters some of his behavior. He wants to be Seen. Heard. Touched. Here in our home school, his rhythm is the antithesis of my “get r done” process. I go after a task as if it were my sole purpose in life. He flits in and out of his tasks as…
I went to Costco yesterday. I had my N95 mask and rubber gloves. I wanted to get power greens for my smoothies. I got a list of needs from a neighbor and also wanted to get power greens for another friend. On the drive over to New Orleans, I felt a touch of apprehension about going to Costco but last week when I was there it was virtually empty. I let it go and felt…
My friend Alicein shut down our beloved Mockingbird Cafe yesterday and oh what a difference to us. This morning, she brought over some of the kitchen produce and I was cooking my mom’s cabbage dish and needed tomatoes and Wala! Thank you, Alicein, for giving during tough times. Yesterday, my friend Kat left books for me and Tin on her porch steps along with two containers of homemade chicken soup. On top of the box…