Oct 28 / Simcha

It All Matters (L. McBride)

In her heart-wrenching novel narrated in four distinct voices, Laura McBride looks at the humanness behind, and the significance of, our every action. And she suggests that it all really does matter.

The book’s title — We Are Called to Rise — is drawn from the quote by poet Emily Dickenson: “We never know how high we are, Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies.” The following two eloquent quotes capture the book’s essence.

Following the first selection, click on the black box to view the short video I prepared for my husband’s 70th birthday, using this text. He really, truly lives his life this way.

Oct 28 / Simcha

She Was Listening

In his excellent novel The Lazarus Project, Bosnian-born author Aleksandar Hemon combines historical, personal and fictional elements (in multiple narratives) to portray the overarching human experiences of exile, migration, alienation and loneliness.

The narrator feels at time isolated in his marriage to a woman he professes to love deeply; with the gulf created by their very distant cultural worlds and experiences he often finds himself feeling “unseen.” The following are two selections from Hemon’s novel (with my brief introductions).

Oct 10 / Simcha

Handling Your Partner’s Dark Moments

A frequent challenge among many couples arises when one is feeling very low, in a depressed or negative state that inevitably affects the other partner. The “feeling low” partner may feel a great need to share his/her intense emotions or to have them recognized and validated. The other partner may be worn down by the negativity; unable to identify (and commiserate) with the other’s intense emotions; or possibly resentful of what feels like unfair blame and criticism.

Apr 12 / Simcha

Robots, Sex and Love (Z. Heller)

Zoe Heller’s thought-provoking article “How Everyone Got So Lonely” (New Yorker 4.4.22) takes a look at loneliness and the recent decline in sexual activity. The latter part of Heller’s article, from which this blog piece has been excerpted and edited, focuses on robots as a (possibly?) satisfying solution for growing loneliness among people of all ages.

It is a powerful statement about the degree to which we underestimate both the epidemic of loneliness and the challenges of relationship.

Sep 04 / Simcha

No Bucket List for Me Before I Die (K. Bowler)

In her recent guest essay in the New York Times, Kate Bowler (associate professor at Duke Divinity School and host of the podcast Everything Happens) suggests that the modern bucket list industry is a form of experiential capitalism; with at least a hundred books with titles like 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, it can provide enough activities to “keep people industriously morbid…. Hang gliding. Snorkeling. Times Square on New Year’s Eve and Paris in the spring….”

Nov 20 / Simcha

How to Have Deeper Conversations (D. Brooks)

NYTImes opinion columnist David Brooks writes about the art of connecting, even in time of dislocation. His list of “non-obvious lessons for how to have better conversation, which I’ve learned from people wiser than myself,” are applicable to non-Covid times as well.

Nov 19 / Simcha

Calling In, Rather than Calling Out (J. Bennett)

In her recent NYTimes article (What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?, 11.18.20), journalist Jessica Bennett introduces us to Professor Loretta Ross, who is combating “cancel culture” with a popular class at Smith College.

Ross, an activist of more than 40 years, helped organized a delegation of women of color at the March for Women’s Lives in 1989.

Aug 13 / Simcha

Old Age is a Slow Surprise (R. Banks)

The novel The Darling by Russell Banks (HarperCollins, 2004) is told in the voice of Hannah Musgrave, the ultimate privileged child of the 1960s, a former Weatherman sought by the FBI, widow of a minister in the Liberian government, and caretaker of threatened chimps. The book begins with Hannah’s decision to return to Liberia in her late 50s. “We return to a place,” she writes, “in order to learn why we left.”

The following is Hannah’s magnificent description of aging and of death, as her story unfolds in the book’s opening pages.