Letters from Rona / Sort by date

I had never heard of Dina Vierny when I read that she had died in Paris, age 89. Yet I had often seen the splendour of her naked body, sculpted by Aristide Maillol, whose creative powers she awakened when he was 73 and she the 15-year-old schoolgirl he knew on sight to be his model of a lifetime. [more]

In the small cheerless hours of the morning, when there's nothing I want in the world except another few hours of sleep, I close my eyes and revisit our first house. I find it soothing to contemplate the rooms where, for 14 years, I read and wrote and cooked and raised my son. [more]

Once upon a time, when I played with paper dolls and wore Mary Janes, I wanted to be a ballerina. I thought I was the star of my Saturday morning ballet class, pirouetting with more enthusiasm than grace. I didn't know that my short waist, knock knees and crooked spine disqualified me from the tutu'd elite. When I danced, I felt beautiful. [more]

On October 18, 1979, when I was starting out at Flare magazine, I dictated the letter that gave a young journalist named Antonia Zerbisias her first magazine assignment. I had high hopes for Antonia, who'd just sent us one of those rare pitch letters that have editors asking, "Why has no one else discovered this writer and how fast can I connect her with my readers?" [more]

Ah, Sunday. Where did it go? Mostly, I cooked. I haven't cooked so much--we're talking both frequency and volume, great potfuls of garlicky fare--since I was young and poor. Now I'm middle-aged, recession-battered and frugal. Out comes the slow cooker. What an apt name. Believe me, it's a project to cook this way. [more]

The hardest thing about writing is saying what you mean. Or is it finding just the right words to make your point? I waffle back and forth on this, and no wonder: wordcraft is all about meaning. If you haven't figured out what you mean, you're bound to cloak your woolly-mindedness in one of those vague, catch-all expressions that leave the burden of interpretation to the reader. [more]

I'm plenty old enough to know that my talent for predicting the future is roughly equivalent to my flair for Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics. yet I persist in thinking of my life as a story I can shape--every year with a theme and a tidy resolution. I imagine myself as the author. Fact is, I'm an uppity character with delusions of control. [more]

Way back when I had a child at home and an overflowing in-tray at the office, there were times when some emergency or other left me no other choice but to bring my son to work. It was a tense business for us both, not to mention my colleagues. So I was amazed to hear about the new trend shaking up the workplace---kid-friendly offices where children check in every day. [more]

"Terminated," "downsized" and "packaged" are bad enough. Now along comes---brace yourself---"upgraded." [more]

Everyone's got a mental museum where the discarded beliefs of a lifetime gather dust. Welcome to mine. Step right up! I'm not embarrssed in the least. [more]

If someone you love is an alcoholic, one question is never very far from your mind: "Why is he doing this to me?" Maybe your drunk is a she, but that's a detail. All of these stories are essentially the same, and one of them is mine. Which is why, especially around Christmas, I turn for insight to alcoholic writers---John Cheever and Raymond Carver---who have told the truth about their illness. [more]

Today it struck me that I'm falling out of step with humankind. I've never been downsized, let go, laid off, packaged, terminated or otherwise exiled from the ranks of the gainfully employed. I left every one of my jobs when the moment seemed right, not when someone else decided my time was up. How quaint. [more]