Jumping Off

“If no one has bodies or faces in heaven, and we’re just energy, how will we recognize each other?”
I sit at my mother’s bedside, listening to her words about death and thinking that this is a funny question.

Peace, At Last

As some friends and I stood in a circle in my living room, saying goodbye to a man who profoundly touched our lives, I felt a strong wave of old emotion well up. I was his first girlfriend, and it seemed right that this final ceremony should end with me.

Murphy

It is 9 a.m. on a hot Bronx summer morning. I stand behind a thick glass entry door in my apartment building. On the other side of this door, eight brick steps lead up to the street. Alone in the hallway, I silently wait for the camp bus to arrive.

Bernice

A truly remarkable thing just happened to me: I got back in touch with someone whom I’ve been almost constantly thinking about since I was 11 years old!

Feeling Joy

“This lump on the right side of your throat is probably nothing,” said my primary care physician. “Most of these nodes are benign. Let’s do an ultrasound, just to be sure.”

Giving Magic

On July 4, 2001, I was sitting in my friend Dick Nathan’s San Francisco living room with a number of our musical friends, jamming and having fun — what we call “playing in the sandbox.”

José

What did this chubby Bronx Jew know about a 12-year-old Latin lover? The first day José arrived from the Dominican Republic, he set his eyes on me.

The Survivors

“Tom, you have cancer.”

Silence.

More silence.

Some words change your life forever. These four put a knot in my stomach that didn’t go away for years.

The Fire Kiss

When I was a little girl, I remember crawling into my father’s outstretched arms, snuggling in as far as I could go, and planting a ticklish “fire kiss” right in the crook of his neck.

In a Word: Backpocket Crosswords

I stood before the audience at Jigsaw Java in Redwood City and asked, “Can anyone give me an eight-letter word?”

“You mean any eight-letter word?”

“Yes. Just pick one — out of the air.”