Podcasts & Articles
Welcoming Sadness: Sitting with the Pain of Loss
Sometimes, we just need to sit with our pain. Maybe we breathe through it, or make it the focus of our meditation, or we just wail into the void, but we stay with it, for an hour or an evening or a good cry. My yoga teacher friend would call
A Widow’s Galentine in Modern Loss
I am thrilled and grateful to have my Valentine’s Day post in Modern Loss, an online journal I’ve always wanted to be in. It’s called “A Widow’s Galentine to her Girlfriends.” It’s about how I found my tribe doing flow yoga: “At over 50, I have my first tribe, and that
The Women’s March and 6 Tips when You come Home to an Empty House
It’s my first protest! My writer’s group and I marched in Walnut Creek, CA, a conservative suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over 10,000 people filled the streets in “a suburb known more for shopping and restaurants than for protests.” Someone was handing out signs which is how I
5 Reasons Why Older Single Women Give Up On Men
The last time I hung out with my single girlfriends, the talk turned to why we have a better time hanging out with each other than with the guys we’re dating. Several of the girls had recently broken up with their boyfriends. A couple of others were seriously considering it.
Eight Red Flags to Spot When You’re Dating
I’m an ex-online dating addict. For a while, I was terribly social until I discovered binge-watching. Here are seven red flags that cropped up when I was dating. Sometimes, it took me weeks to figure out what the problem was. But when he says these things, beware! 1. Premature
My New Year’s Post: 8 Things I Learned While Widowing
I learned a lot this year. It just doesn’t feel like it because translating “what I’ve learned” into “things I’ve accomplished” feels really disconnected. But for the fist year since George died, I have had glimpses of happiness and tranquility. So: the main thing if you’re coping with loss:
6 Ways to Swim in the Adult Dating Cesspool (and One Work Around)
My last dating post was about how many people think of adult dating as dumpster diving. Sadly enough, most women agreed with me. But some men didn’t! A few evolved male souls talked about how they’d worked on themselves to be more open, giving people. Then they looked for
Getting through Grief with Humor, Honesty and Time
I’m taking an online blogging class. My assignment: a post on why I blog. This is who I am. I just updated it because in the three and a half years since George died, I’m not nearly as lost, although I’m more curmudgeonly. Ever have a lawyer who’s supposed to be
Surviving the Loss of a Loved One in Elephant Journal
Dear Blog Friends, I’m thrilled to be in Elephant Journal with my article “Surviving the Holidays After the Death of a Loved One.” Here’s the start: “Since my husband George died in 2013, I get really depressed over the holidays. With him gone and having little family myself, things don’t
Coping with Widowhood over the Holidays
Dear Friends, It is again the holiday season. And it is so fucked. End of post. I jest. I think the holidays look terrible to us sometimes because they don’t look how they’re supposed to look. But we’re the ones who decide what things are supposed to look like. Not
Returning from Sorrento: 6 Things I Learned
I went to the Amalfi Coast in Italy with a UC Berkeley Alumni tour group. I met them at the airport in Naples. It’s the most alone I’ve ever traveled. I saw the archeological museum and Pompei and Herculaneum and the ruins at Paestum. I shopped
Is Adult Dating Just an Exercise in Dumpster Diving?
This quote really resonated with the women, especially the single ones, at a recent women’s only yoga retreat. Dating as dumpster diving. Do men feel the same way about dating as adults? Which might be the point. Do any of us remain adults when we enter the dating
The G-Word: Attempting Gratitude
I’ve been thinking about gratitude lately. Almost involuntarily. I’ve been wondering, is gratitude a prerequisite to living well? I just came back from a short vacation to Lake Tahoe. And as I got closer to home, that sinking feeling seeped in, “I am returning to an empty house.” I loved
From Married to Mutant
I finally realized we don’t recover from loss, we mutate. We can’t go forward but stay the same person, returning to a happy version of who we were. So we change, a change borne of necessity, not desire, but a way to move forward nonetheless. The problem with the ending to
Becoming Pudding: Abandoning the Outside World
I think I’m devolving into a blancmange. (I loved the whole Devo, de-evolution thing). About a year after George died, I realized that life on Planet Widow also meant that I was single. That was weird. I was never really single, having been with George since my high school prom
Relationship Blues
I don’t know what an adult relationship is supposed to look like. I married my high school prom date. Maybe we never changed, or if we did, we changed in ways that worked together, as I moved through college, then law school, then practicing law, then quitting to be
Dating in a Time Warp with Erma Bombeck
OMG what am I doing posting twice in two days! Well, I wanted to share that my new piece “Dating in a time Warp” is up today on the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers’ site. It starts like this: “Online dating is like a time warp. I keep meeting
Shame by Skinny Jeans
My skinny widow pants no longer fit. My stomach muffins over the top. These are the pants I bought after George died. I was down about 15 pounds, I was going to start venturing out again and my old clothes were too big. My first reaction when I recently tried
Let’s Rant (Socializing as a Widow)
Dear Blog, This is again one of those times when you and I are not hitting it off. I don’t seem to have that much to say if I’m not getting published somewhere else. So, let’s rant: Stuff I Hate about Socializing as a Widow: 1. Being introduced as a widow.
Anxiety and Widowhood
Since George died, I’m much more anxious than I used to be. I’ve probably always had an anxiety disorder which, in the past, I’ve called “being anal retentive.” When I was married, George took care of everything. And I liked it. Looking back, I‘d have liked to have had
Kissed in the Louvre (flash non-fiction)
I was getting lost in the Louvre when I found a different sort of artwork. Gorgeous, French, leather jacket, sideburns, a Jean Paul Belmondo type or “type,” as they say there. He put my hand on his white t-shirt. “See how my heart beats for you,” he said after
I’m Clingy in Woman’s Day
I’m in Woman’s Day talking about being needy in my relationship. My article is written from the perspective of a widow, but I think these feelings arise when we’re adrift in a new romantic situation, be it from death or divorce or a break up. And much of my
George in Woman’s Day and The Male Breast Cancer Coalition
While I was out: I just got back from France and wanted to share two new article-things. Apologies if this is redundant of my Facebook Pages. I’m in Woman’s Day again with “How I Dealt with the Dark Aftermath of my Husband’s Unexpected Death.” It begins: Seven days after my husband
How I Embarrassed Myself (Oh no!) on Woman’s Day: It’s About S-E-X
First, I do not pick the writing prompts for the magazine group I submit to. This one was “My sexuality as a widow.” And I thought, what the fuck, I’ll try it. I’m probably the only person who did. So it’s published on Woman’s Day and starts : “My current
I’m in Elephant Journal! Three Years After George Died…
April 10, 2016 will be the three year anniversary of my husband George’s death. I’d hoped to feel healed by now—to have emerged from grieving stronger and complete—but most of the time I don’t feel that way. It’s like there’s this sad, little rodent within me that scurries against my
Superb Tips from an Online Dater on Huffington Post
Hello! It’s me again. I’ve distilled all my online dating tips into one article. And it’s on the Huffington Post right here: Superb Tips from a Former Online Dating Addict. The editors changed the title to “Superb.” I just called it tips. AND they put it, for now, at the top
The Hungover Widow Contemplates Employment
It is now time to contemplate getting a grown up job. (Ok, a part-time sort of grown up job). Now, I suck at being a grown up. I wrote about it. My Teenager article in Good Housekeeping It was not a popular article. My great freelance writing thing is not