The CWCW Blog

I write to satisfy a fundamental need. I started writing within a couple of weeks after undergoing my third (and hopefully last) brain surgery. Initially, my motivation was to understand the new and inexplicable world that surrounded me, and to understand this new person I was becoming. I wrote to help loved ones recognize how and why my brain [...]

The 1960’s. . . where was I? In Brooklyn, married for a few years, with a baby and toddler. Around us swirled the movements and politics of the time – in the South: bus rides, sit-ins, peaceful protests, and violent responses. My husband and I were frequently glued to the TV, watching Black Americans, and those White Americans who joined them, [...]

Instead of watching the State of the Union speech, I went to the theater and saw Gloria: A Life, written by Emily Mann, the award-winning director and playwright and a past guest on Conversations with Creative Women. The staging at the Daryl Roth Theater in Manhattan’s Union Square was unique – seating all around with two huge [...]

I truly believe that things happen for a reason – that it’s more than sheer coincidence when people are brought together.  Two years ago, I wrote a piece for the CWCW website about a “creative woman” named Sheryl Lee Ralph who left an indelible mark on me after I saw her one woman show “A Diva Simply Singing.”  A few weeks prior, I [...]

I picked up my new car today. Quite a milestone, but I couldn’t have been more depressed. Even though I’ve been driving for 52 years, I never bought a car. The day after I got my license, I hit a telephone pole, badly damaging my parents’ Pontiac Tempest and leaving us car-less for several weeks while it was being [...]

The midwife is a classic literary heroine. She is brave. She is compassionate. She stands like a warrior on a battlefield: life on one side; death on the other, the defender of women and newborns.  As a nurse-midwife and author, I read every book I could find about midwives. Since our popularity has grown, there are so many stories that [...]

IT WASN’T AN item on a bucket list, though that’s what I had told people. A bucket list was easier to explain than the countless classes I had registered for, attempted, and subsequently quit after six months or six weeks. Then there were the classes I took “on and off” for years, such as tango. I can’t remember how I got into tango, [...]

WHEN I WAS sixteen years old, I was eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant with a close friend when he asked a humorous but pointed question: “So what you’re choosing to do with your life is essentially this: You are going to move your arms back and forth repeatedly in order to make a strip of metal wiggle, which will then cause air molecules to [...]

My mom gave me plenty of great advice over the course of her lifetime. Don’t “should” on yourself.  (I should do this! I shouldn’t have done that.) Don’t date men you wouldn’t consider marrying.  It’s a waste of your time and theirs. Don’t expect people to be more than they’re capable of being. But my favorite, and one of the hardest ideas to [...]

I’VE BEEN THINKING a lot about past friendships as I write this blog. My friendships I made in master ballet teacher’s Finis Jhung’s brilliant ballet classes at the Alvin Ailey Extension led me to reconsider my role as a friend.  Mr. Jhung’s classes led me to meditate on seeing myself and how others see me. It was through his classes and the [...]