As I wrote in my last blog post- it’s not so easy to be grateful. Especially, when some days, everyone is acting so shitty. I mean we know we should be grateful because we have so much to be thankful for- not being in a war zone; not being in a flood or drought prone part of the world; not being in a mass terrorist attack. You get the drift. You’d have to be totally clueless not to realize how … Read the rest
AND YET
(with acknowledgement to Alan Jay Lerner’s “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”
Every person I speak to lately seriously sounds like they’re struggling with some sort of PTSD, anxiety, stress disorder, or depression. I know I feel that way. I describe it like inches of grey ash, the kind you see after a volcanic explosion, weighing me down. On my head, shoulders, eyelashes…Can’t be brushed or even washed off. Always here. Not difficult to figure out why. Onslaught … Read the rest
I was doing my yearly reflection and writing when I was caught off guard by the din of the news channels pointing out that it was not only the end of the year, but the end of the decade. This was followed by naysayers arguing that the new decade would start in January 1, 2021. Whichever is correct, it caused me to reassess my assessment.
I don’t know how it almost slipped by me. Perhaps because the arbitrary delineation of … Read the rest
I’ve been practicing gratitude for a long time. I mean a reallllllly long time. As in before cell phones. I had 2:30 pm on my running watch and that’s how I was reminded to stop and take a moment.
And it’s a practice. A lot of the time, I don’t get it “right.” Meaning I don’t feel very grateful. And that’s especially true since Drumpf was elected.
I wonder why I had to live at this time. I wonder how … Read the rest
When I was a little tyke in the Bluebirds/Campfire girls, one of the many earworms they infected us with was, “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, but the other’s gold.” Recently that’s been playing on my mind nonstop because this past week I’ve spent time with two of my very, very long-term friends.
My friend Cory goes all the way back to high school—we were, among other things, cheerleaders together! She was kind enough to tutor … Read the rest
I was not happy in high school. But I don’t know many people were. People may not have talked about it, but the angst was as palpable as the raging hormones.
So it doesn’t make me happy to see that in Netflix’ 13 Reasons Why, high school life is just as tortured as it was way back when. Cliques, in-crowds, mean girls, divisions like jocks and nerds, uggh. I have doubtless some good memories and one incredible friend who … Read the rest
Years ago, I imagined what death was like. Not that I was looking for it—I just imagined that I knew.
My conception was based on an Our Town/Carousel like idea of death, where everyone’s really there in spirit, checking everything out, seeing what you’re doing, but you can’t see them and they can’t speak to you.
I think I conjured this up when I first went to Israel, and was all alone in a skeevy hotel, waiting to be transported … Read the rest
Whenever I speak about documentary filmmaking to audiences, whether students considering the field or adult aficionados of the genre, I invariably attempt to dissuade anyone from pursuing this career. Why? Because it is so friggin’ difficult. One spends more time on fundraising than creativity—by a ratio of what feels like 90 to 1. And though one may be comforted by the idea that they are doing SOMETHING to address the brokenness in the world, documentary filmmaking, on the whole, is … Read the rest
Growing up, Thanksgiving in my house was a big affair. I remember my mother ז״ל waking up at 5:30 to continue the preparations she started the night before, shoving a supernaturally large turkey in the oven, and cooking all the way through till 3:00 pm when the 20 plus family and friends arrived.
Thanksgiving would start with drinks—whiskey sours with more sour than whiskey, and whatever the current fad hors d’oeuvres. One year it was cheeses, another shrimp, (which one … Read the rest
On a beautiful spring day 3 ½ years ago, I wrote the voiceover to the very first video we posted on this site. I was thinking about how grateful I was to be out and running, and that spurred me to review all the things I was grateful for, which is why I wrote the line, “Be grateful that you work with at least some people you like.”
I was thinking about this line because recently we’ve been looking to … Read the rest
