Author Archives: dinafried

A Glorious Cascade

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One of my favorite days on our recent trip to Croatia was the day we went to Plitvice Lakes National Park, on an incredible three-hour meander with more waterfalls than I could possibly count. Some were the gigantic gawker spray-in-your face variety, while others were trickles of various intensity sheltered by rocks and shaded by trees that stretched out over the lake, often merging into a more significant outpour. Whatever their size or relative ferocity, all of them pressed the happy button. So much beauty in the sound of the spill and the patterns it creates: a glorious cascade. A day of glorious cascades.

At the same time I was reading a book, I didn’t want to finish because it was so good: Apeirogon by Colum McCann, a novel, about Combatants for Peace, a group of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost close relatives in the conflict and yet have been moved to embrace trust and mutual respect for each other, rather than fear and revenge. Based on real life characters, that was enough of a reason to read it. But what made the book SO exceptional was the way it was written, in small and larger bursts of intensely poetic but also clear and accessible prose, with some sections going on for a few pages and others compressed into just a paragraph or two, sometimes a single sentence. In every section, a cascade of images, emotions, history, context, and open ambiguity circled around and around in itself like the whirlpool of a fall once it hits the water.

In his poetic cascades, McCann weaves through many topics that seem to be unrelated to the plot and theme of the book, but he brings them back beautifully again and again, showing how everything reverberates on everything else and nothing can be viewed without looking at it from an infinite number of angles. In fact, the book’s title, Apeirogon, refers to a mathematical shape with an infinite number of sides and vertices. And that’s how I felt when reading this book. Whether I was reading about birds, or a 19th century failed expedition across the Dead Sea, or the tragic stories of one man’s daughter killed by a rubber bullet shot by Israeli border guards and another man’s daughter dead from a suicide bomb in Jerusalem, I wasn’t asked to park myself in any given spot. I was just asked to sit and observe what felt like a beam of light bouncing off a room full of angled mirrors.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/ servlet/BookDetailsPL? bi=30665233510, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org /w/index.php?curid=67793592

In my MFA program as well as in previous fiction writing workshops, lectures, and books, there’s a strong emphasis on the notion of scene. In very basic terms, a novel or a story should consist of a set of scenes where action happens based on what the characters do within these scenes. And these actions are motivated by what the characters need or want. There is certainly room for exposition, description, and (if one wanted, but it wasn’t required) poetic prose, but the basic questions asked at workshops were things like What’s at stake? Who are these characters? What do they want? We were warned, strongly, not to let our love of the written word go wandering off into nowhere.

I’m not dissing these questions and this approach. It’s definitely important to understand these basic fictional elements. And I also know that once someone becomes skilled in a convention, they can more easily and successfully break it. This book’s strength was in its exposition and description; yet, all of it masterfully flowed back to the main theme. It stood out from other so-called “experimental” books I’ve read that broke from heavy scene/character mold because each “cascade” was a mini-story that landed somewhere and I could be on its journey as it sheeted over rocks, or pooled in a corner, or joined another tributary and kept on swirling.

I’m tempted and inspired to see if I can write a selection of prose poems that works as story. Or a story in the shape of a heartbreakingly beautiful series of cascades. Perhaps some of you may be as well, but whether or not that idea calls, and no matter where you might stand on issues regarding Israel and Palestine, I highly recommend this novel. It will open your heart and your sense of what’s possible–on the page, and perhaps even in the world.

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Fan Bases, Humility, and Publication Success

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Up until about a week ago, 2026 felt like an off-year for writing. I’d done my homework: 40 poetry and 8 Fiction/Essay submissions so far. However, nearly all of it, except for a very small smattering, was coming back with a no.

This is not a complaint or a boo-hoo moment, and, as I’ve counseled others, I didn’t take it personally. But I’d been used to a slightly higher (10-12%) batting average than what I’d been getting. True, I might have been skewing my submission strategy to a higher number of “reach journals” from which I’d be more likely to get rejected, but I still always made sure to include many others that seemed in my ballpark.

Until this past week, where three journals accepted seven poems.

It’s important to recognize that what happened this week didn’t start this week. Two of the journals that accepted my work were places I’d published before, and though I don’t know either of these editors personally, I was touched that they each went out of their way to personally solicit a submission from me. There’s little more gratifying to get an email out of the blue that says, Hey Dina, we haven’t heard from you in a while. Our next theme is __________ and we would love you to submit your work. I’m paraphrasing the wording, but it’s the implication, rather than the words, that matters. Your work touched me. It was memorable and I’d like to see more of it. And share it with others.

Wow! Do I really have a fan base? Part of me feels uncomfortable even thinking such a thought. I tend to bristle in spaces where writers and other creatives get too blatantly self-promotional. I know there’s a certain amount of PR that has to be done, but I can usually discern when people are a little too connected to their egos, rather than seeing themselves as merely a conduit for the work they’re doing. I know that is a highly judgmental statement, and I’ll probably need to unpack it–and apologize to anyone I might have offended. But I will continue to stand firmly in an aura of humility, rather than arrogance, though hopefully maintaining enough balance not to fall into self-effacement, as one Jewish spiritual practice, the Mussar, teaches.

And taking that significant step away from self-effacement, I’m glad to take this moment to affirm that it’s ok–more than ok–to acknowledge that somewhere there are people out there who love my work.

Retrieved from Open Access: grfpublishers.org

Which is why I do all these submissions. And write this blog. Because I want to expand my reach beyond the boundaries of my communities to others in the ether, whom I hope will be touched in some small or large way by my words and the messages behind them. Ultimately, what I want is connection, whether it’s through my words or (in the cases of writers/artists/musicians, etc. of whom I’d call myself “a fan”) theirs.

Note: this is not a quick process. It has taken years, and many, many rejections and disappointments to cultivate these relationships. Likely there are editors out there who will love your work once they become aware of it, but the amount of time this takes will try your patience and fortitude. However, it is a great way to feel connected–and to get your words out there to a wider audience. It’s also been personally gratifying to friend some of these editors on social media and get to know just a little bit about them as people, as well as to follow journals I like and get a deeper sense of why these editors have devoted so much time to the unpaid labor of love of spreading words into the universe.

So thanks to Katherine McDaniel at Synkroniciti, Michael Broder at Second Coming, Abby Murray at Collateral, Elizabeth MacDuffie at Meat for Tea, Nadia Arrioli at Thimble, Emily Perkovich at Querencia Press, Matthew Krajniak at Consequence, Hayley Haugen at Sheila-Na-Gig, Lee Desrosiers at  Wordpeace and the Naugutuck River Review, Sally Zaino at Earthshine, and many others that I’m missing here for your dedication to forging connections between writers–and readers.

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When Is Your Work Finished?

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How do you know when something is finished? Is everything a draft until you die?

Photo Credit: StevenDePolo on Flickr

This question was posed last night to three writers from my community at a reading last night: John Shierer, Darlene Elias, and Fin Finley. These are writers I’m happy to know and even happier to listen to, all of whom were authentic in using language beautifully, clearly, and compassionately to tell their own truths. John is a master of the 100-word story whose turn at the end leads you right back to wanting to hear the whole thing again. Fin always impresses me with her eye for detail and a voice that straddles a perfect edge between snarkniness and vulnerability. Darlene writes passionately about her own life as a Puerto Rican woman with roots in the barrios of the Bronx and Holyoke, MA, evoking much deeper questions about racism, generational trauma and womanhood.

People asked several questions at the end, but the one about knowing when your work is finished was the one that stuck with me. I hadn’t heard the “it’s a draft until you die” quote, but I’d heard a similar sentiment: Projects are never done they’re just abandoned. Still, I appreciated what each writer had to say on the subject.

Even as I was reading my story tonight, I was rewriting it in my head, John said (paraphrased as best as I can remember). I had to laugh, because I do exactly the same thing. Sometimes I’m swift enough to change a phrase on the spot from the inferior phrase that’s written on the page, even as the cruel inner judge starts its rampage–How did that crappy sentence ever make it into print?

Fin had a more positive response, (also paraphrased): There’s often just a point when you feel something. It could be tears, or some kind of oomph or other emotional reaction. And then you know that you’ve said whatever it is you really wanted to say. I resonate with that one, too. Some snotty writing pundits decry such sentimentality, but ultimately, while most of my writing is intended for an outside audience, it still has to get through the gatekeeper audience of one: me. So if I’m moved, that’s a good beginning. The question is whether I’ll still be moved when I read the piece tomorrow, and the day after that, and the week, month and year after that…Is the impact momentary or can it hold?

Darlene talked about the importance of deadlines–timelines in which pieces had to be done, perfect or not. And this is also a good thing to remember–especially for recovering perfectionists. I make it a point to spend no more than one-to-two (well, occasionally three) hours on a blog post, and I’m determined complete each one in a single day. So, while I do read over my drafts several times before hitting the post button, making little tweaks here and there, I don’t obsess on getting getting my posts perfect and think of them more as musings in progress. They might turn out very differently if I gave them a week to simmer, but I’ll never know.

Poems, stories, or essays targeted for journals are an entirely different matter. I can’t read over prose I’ve written without omitting at least a few sentences and words that clearly don’t need to be there, though in most of my “finished” stories (which have gotten to a point where I have the emotional oomph) I don’t tend to mess around too much with the plot or the characters. But I have often deleted a page or two at the beginning or end. Or a random paragraph in the middle, or added something to a scene that felt chopped off.

And I do have some poems in my file that have 5 or 8 or 10 different versions.  Sometimes when I take them out to work on, the tenth version seems no better than the first version. Often it seems worse, but the first version also feels like an idea that’s only half-baked. These are the projects that are abandoned. No flood of tears or emotional oomph in sight. But every once and a while a year or two will go by and when I’m going through my files and “Kondo-izing,” I’ll find a gem in these abandoned piles that I can polish into sparkle–and, dare I say, finish it!

Everything will be grand, then–until I read that piece at a reading somewhere and rewrite the whole thing in my head.

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Stories from Trieste

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As promised, I’m posting from Croatia, but I’ve spent the last few days in Trieste, Italy—a town with 5,000 Jews in 1938 and only 500 now.

I hadn’t been much aware of Italy’s Jewish history other than the obvious knowledge that their population was impacted by the Holocaust. What drew me to starting my trip in Trieste was not this gruesome history, but the current joie de vivre I’ve come to associate with Italy based on previous trips: outdoor cafes lining all the little alleys offering good coffee, good wine, stellar desserts I’d deny myself at home, and places to watch the sunset over the deep blue Adriatic Sea.

But I generally have checked out Jewish museums and synagogues in my travels, so it was totally in character for us to visit the small Museo Ebraico in the old city. Now that many synagogues in the U.S. are often under police protection, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a security vehicle in front of the building, patrolled by two men in army camouflage gear, but of course, I was. It’s hard not to cling to the illusion of feeling safe wherever I go.

Even though I’ve been to many Holocaust museums before and had to do extensive research when writing Escaping Into the Night, something about visiting this museum hit me harder than usual. Perhaps it was the emphasis not on the Shoah itself, but on the period leading up to it: how the encroaching fascism in the 1930s split so many of Trieste’s Jewish families—some supporting the move toward greater order and authority, and others eschewing it in favor of communism or socialism.

Sound familiar?

Or perhaps it was the slow creep of laws restricting rights for Jews and others targeted by the rise of the new regimes. Or the longer overview of all the the times Jews didn’t have rights in Europe, which even though I knew that from past studies, it’s still a concept that’s hard for me to wrap my 21st Century American brain around.

Even with what’s happening right now in our country.

And with what has continued to happen in many places throughout the world.

It’s much easier to embrace the daily joie de vivre, even when I’m not on vacation. And on the days that joie de vivre seems out of my grasp, to focus on the day-to-day household and life problems I can solve, rather than things that are out of my control.

And ultimately it was the deportation stories that tied the threads between then and now. Photos of person after person deported to Auschwitz, never to return. And in front of the pension where we were staying, several blocks away from the museum, plaques commemorating the Jewish family that used to live in that building–all of them ending their lives in Auschwitz.

The owner of the pension, who asked in a whisper if we were Jewish, told me her mother, now 102, lived in Trieste at the time of the Shoah, but escaped with her family to Assisi, where they were hidden in a convent. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have been here, she said.

Some of the families in Trieste didn’t go to Auschwitz. And most were sent originally to Risiera di San Sabba, an old rice mill just outside of town that was converted into a holding facility and deportation center.

Sound anything like current plans to convert warehouses into massive detention camps?

We could have visited the site, but we chose not to. We were on vacation and I didn’t want to see the crematorium. So we chose to go to Miramare Castle instead, and bask for a few hours in lifestyles of the rich and famous, while enjoying the views of the sea.

When we came back we sat outside at a gelato bar enjoying mixed cups of cioccolato nocciola, fragola, tiramisu, e pistachio while listening to a street musician play My Way and Hit the Road, Jack on the saxophone. Later that evening, we walked a few blocks to an Indian restaurant for dinner in order to take a break from all the white flour pasta and pizza we’d beem eating. When the owner said he looked forward to coming to the United States again, we told him he’d be better off waiting a few years until things changed.

And now it’s up to all of us to make sure things do change. Soon.

To-Do List Hypermode

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I’m excited to tell you that my next post will be from Croatia!

I’m looking forward to meanders by the sea, exploring hiking paths with gorgeous lakes and waterfalls, old towns with narrow alleys and medieval buildings. Most of all, I’m looking forward to a break from my life’s nurturing but relentless to-do list, even as I know that all those to-dos in my regular life will somehow seem much sweeter and more meaningful on my return.

Meanwhile I’ve been scurrying around for the past few days in “To-Do List Hypermode,” trying to get things done that I don’t want left hanging when I get back in early May. Already, I know I have to figure out a way of giving myself dispensation because I know won’t get to all of it, and sadly, a lot of the administrative and deeper household maintenance tasks that I often put off for months will likely still be waiting for me. In the meantime, I’ve done the things that feel more essential and time-sensitive, like drafting a thank-you letter to our fabulous Congressman, Jim McGovern, for his unannounced visit to the Burlington ICE office/detention holding facility last week, writing an article for our immigration justice newsletter, and starting on an agenda for the next monthly meeting of our regional immigration advocacy network, which I’ll miss, but am still committed to helping with planning.

And I completed my April writing submissions goals (I usually aim for around 10/month).

I also planted the peas this morning. It’s a bit early, but if I wait until I come back, it will be too late. This involved digging up and composting a big chunk of my cover crop, covering the peas with seed cover to protect them from the birds, and carpeting the rest of the exposed area with as much cardboard as I had to keep the weeds from a three-week party.

I could list tons of other stuff that’s still a hopeful maybe on my list. And that doesn’t even include the essentials of packing, acquiring last minute stuff we need, using up perishables in the fridge, and making sure the house is tidy enough for our friend who is coming to live here and take care of Andre the cat. But I’m trying to let myself off the hook for most of it. What did I write about a few weeks ago: calm, balanced, focused…? So much of my battle with myself is to stick with the task at hand, rather than get distracted by something else.

Of course, weekly blogging is always on the to-do list. So, I’m glad to get this task checked off, even if this isn’t the most profound blog I’ve ever written. It’s an interesting process, trying to figure out what to blog on each week. I usually get to a topic by thinking about what’s gone on in the past week (either in my own life and/or in the wider world) and then–hopefully–connecting that incident or event to some bigger theme related to art for change, writing, activism, or a niggling question about the universe that I hope others share.

But today, it’s just about that endless to-do list and the way it gets so bloated before traveling. I guess that might be universal–our inclination not to leave too much undone. I do take solace in the fact that the minute I get on the plane, the memory and thoughts of what I didn’t do will disappear like wisps of cloud sinking far below my view-scape.

At least, until I get back home…

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Limbo

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I think my mother nailed it when she said on Tuesday, “4 PM: Mets; 7 PM: Yankees; 8 PM: end of civilization.”

Luckily we seem to have sidestepped that disaster–for now, but it does give pause to think about how fragile the trajectories of our lives can be, how we’re living in a perpetual state of limbo.

This feels true for me on on a personal level, as well. There’s no more fighting the notion that I’ve entered the senior citizen demographic, where obstacles to the body’s ability to maintain optimal function (all the risk factors and things one has to worry about) have seemed to increase exponentially. I’ve emerged relatively unscathed, so far, but many of my friends have had far more serious challenges than I have maintaining their health, mobility, and in some cases, their lives.

As I address my own (relatively minor) challenges of aging with a frenzied oscillation between fretfulness over the inevitable and a can-do attitude on how much weight I can dead-lift to improve my bone density, bigger questions continue to loom on the horizon, especially in these tumultuous times. How long do any of us–even those nowhere near the age for decline–have to lead full and happy lives?

And no matter what their age, how many people’s lives are unfairly upended by loss of a loved one through war or other unnecessary acts of destruction?

Finally, what’s been at the forefront of my mind: how many people’s lives have been compromised through personal harm and separation from their families due to our country’s cruel and inhumane detention policies?

Yesterday, I traveled two hours with a friend to the ICE office in Burlington, MA, which is also being used as a detention center, despite not having adequate facilities–i.e. no showers, minimal food, and one exposed toilet for 40 people captured by video camera. We had just learned that our Congressman, Jim McGovern, whom we’d been urging during a recent meeting, was planning to make an unannounced oversight visit. All previous Congressional visits to Burlington have been pre-arranged, giving ICE time to clean up their act (with one unannounced Congressperson turned away at the door), but a recent court order reaffirmed the right of Congress to conduct oversight inspections without needing to make advance plans.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

This time, they did let McGovern in. He confirmed that what he saw was a jail. He also had the opportunity to speak to a young man from Honduras–not “the worst of the worst” but someone who had a job, paid taxes, and had no criminal record and an asylum claim in process. This man has now been separated from his wife and two children–ages 12 and 7, with his future in limbo. McGovern’s visit is covered in this short news story. His recount of his observations to the people attending the weekly Wednesday witness in Burlington is here.

I know this post has gone a long way from annihilation, to aging, to bearing witness, but in all these cases, limbo stays with us, setting us on edge. Being alive right now feels a little like being on the balance board my grandson has. No matter how firmly my feet feel grounded, there’s always that possibility of sudden toppling. And I can only imagine what it’s like for those in the direct “line of fire”: people in war zones, people being targeted by ICE. How to wake up each day and just hope that you can go about your life and things will turn out okay? In the meantime, as long as my aging body holds up, I’m determined to do what I can to not only improve my chances of living well, but those of others, too.

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Why Can’t This Night Be Different From All Other Nights?

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Photo: D. Dina Friedman

Of all the Jewish holidays, Passover is my favorite,  I’ve always liked that the Passover Haggadah (the book that is read during the seder that tells the story of the Jews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt) has so many metaphors that are easily adaptable to modern times. Over the years, I’ve spent many hours adapting the text to whatever issue is plaguing (pun intended) me most at the moment, as well as enjoying the contributions of my family and community in making the text and the rituals it includes meaningful and relevant.

But this year, with all the conflict going on in the world and in our own country, it’s hard to get into the mindset for celebration, even with the holiday’s themes of liberation against oppression and hope for the future. The small group I celebrated with last night started the night by acknowledging our fear, anger, and unease at what’s going on in our country and in the wider world. And yet, I was also so glad to be in this circle of friends, most of whom I’ve known for decades. When it was my turn it speak, I said, To me, Passover is about community, more than it’s about God, or Egypt, or any of that. 

As I think about that comment a day later, I’m wondering whether it’s actually true, or if I was just thinking off the top of my head. I’m not saying there’s no truth in what I said. Community is definitely a big factor, and I really don’t care that much about most of the traditional Passover story. But Passover does comprise more than community. It even comprises more than the yearly menu-squabbling and “back-seat cooking” as my partner and kids and I all pile into the kitchen to grate and chop the vegetables. Or the reminiscences of all the goofy things we used to do to keep it light and entertaining: putting the dog on the porch so he could walk in when we opened the door for the prophet Elijah, or the years we told the story through improvisation games, or through parodies of songs from musicals, or raps.

But there’s serious stuff, too: I love the metaphor of the internal journey through “the narrow place” (Egypt) and the casting off of internal “chomaytz” (the leavened products you don’t eat during Passover) as a way of ridding yourself of excessive ego, pride, or unresolved emotions. I love some of the side stories: the midwives who helped the Jewish women hide their babies instead of following orders to kill them; Nachsun, whom I wrote about last year, who jumped into the Red Sea, before the waters parted an act of incredible hope when it seemed there was no hope to be had.

And, there are some troublesome parts: Like the ten plagues as collective punishment against an entire people for the actions of a tyrant. Or, really, any aspect of “us” and “them,” as two separate entires with a winner and loser. I’m not saying that oppression of the Israelites in Biblical Egypt didn’t exist, but I wish I could think we were past oppressing others, and celebrating victories where innocent people, like the first-born children of the Egyptians, lost their lives.

And, of course, the elephant in the room: the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza where 64,000 children were killed or injured in 23 months of war. And the current U.S./Israel war agains Iran whose victims include 168 elementary school girls whose school was bombed. Hard to say, “next year in Jerusalem,” (the closing words of the seder) after that. I’d like to think that after 3,000 years we’ve moved beyond killing children, I’d even like to think we’ve moved beyond war, or beyond tyrants, but I guess that’s too much to hope for.

So I can understand why our host last night opened the seder by expressing how hard it was to even sit down and celebrate Passover. Yet, it was the small community of like-minded people I celebrated with that helped me feel able to take a small step back into my Jewish identity. We still can use the metaphors and inspiring parts of the story to envision a better world. And after that, act on them to make that vision more of a reality.

Chag Sameach!

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My Little Life

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Yesterday, catching-up on the phone with a friend, I said in response to our mutual lament on the state of the world, I just keep doing my piece of the work, along with the rest of my little life.

My little life! echoed the depressed, despairing child that lives inside of me. It’s one of the things that keeps me up at night when the inner critics are jazzed on caffeine and partying away. Why should anything in your little life matter and why aren’t you doing enough to stop the tidal wave of horror that’s sweeping over everything around you? 

It gets to the point where I can’t read the news stories any more, like this one where ICE tricked a father with no criminal record and arrested him when he went to ICE to reunite with his children. Or the emails from friends in the community about people they know personally–caregivers, neighbors, friends being kidnapped and sent to Texas or Louisiana with no hope of bail. Not to mention the horror of a new war. And the constant twisting of language into an unrelenting spewed and venomous hatred of any one who is “other” in any way, shape, or form.

But enough ranting. What is “my little life,” anyway? Is it enough?

Here’s a snapshot:

Wake up. Open the shade and consider the sky. Sunny or cloudy? Spend a moment taking in the potential of the day. Center on the long reach of the naked trees. They’re still here, so you can be, too. Sit somewhere you can look out the window at the tree, and do your 5 minutes of breathing practice. Turn on the phone and play a 10 minute meditation tape. Do NOT open email or social media until you’ve done this. Then, quickly scan your email, but only for 5 minutes max. Go downstairs, where your partner is waiting, for 30 minutes of exercise: cardio, yoga, or strength-training. Segue into breakfast. Take your vitamins.

Finally, get to your computer with a large cup of tea. Consider the choices spread before you if you’re lucky enough to have a morning with no appointments. Generate new writing, revise writing, send out writing, work through the never-ending pile of house/admin; and all the activist tasks–emails, articles and letters to read or write, writing from others to edit, phone calls. Ask yourself two questions: which option calls the most right now, and which option is most urgent? You may get two different answers. You may get seven different answers, but try to make a choice. Try, despite your dopamine-craving brain to focus on whatever choice you made. Try NOT to stop what you’re doing to check your email and read more horror stories (a.k.a news).

If you do have appointments. Sit by your computer and talk to the people in the Zoom squares. Admire people’s writing. Chew on nuances in political strategy. Volunteer for more than you think you can do easily, and get overwhelmed. Or know this is your tendency, and only volunteer for half of what draws you.

Interrupt writing blog post for urgent phone call about flyer for Street Theatre Presentation at No Kings Day in Easthampton and Amherst that needs to be sent to the printer this morning. Interruption for all of you: Please go to a No Kings Day protest this Saturday, March 28th!! And bring a friend, or three!

Eventually it will be lunch time. After lunch, try to set aside time for a walk in the woods. Visit your favorite tree. Try to do this even if it’s cloudy, or nasty. If it’s really nasty, go to the Y. Or go to the Y anyway if you’re going into town to run errands, or see a friend, or if you’re on your way home from taking care of your grandson.

Photo by Shel Horowitz

Take care of your grandson as often as you can. Jump fully into the world of a three-year-old who knows nothing about wars. Don’t think about the three-year-olds in detention. Don’t think about the three-year-olds whose parents are in detention. Don’t think about the three-year-olds who were killed in the wars in Gaza or in Iran, or the ones whose parents are dead.

When it’s your turn to cook dinner, spend mindful time preparing a nourishing meal. After dinner, call your 92-year-old mother and listen to the details of her day. Study Spanish, then practice piano or do your voice/yoga exercises and sing your heart out with karaoke tracks on you-tube. Chat with a friend. Watch a show. Do the crossword puzzle together with your partner or curl up with a book. Give your brain a rest from its obligations. Take a hot, relaxing shower and try to turn off the light before midnight. Try to sleep at least 7 hours. 8 is better, though it will skew your day so that you’ll feel behind as soon as you wake up.

Rinse. Repeat. And remember, spring is coming, so, soon, it will be all this, plus gardening.

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