Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter! 

Safe to say, we all want the same for our children – that they feel loved and valued, that they respect themselves and others, and that they be resilient. If you’re lucky enough to see your child become a parent, you’re in for a treat. You get to watch from the sidelines as they learn what it means to give selflessly, to love from the very deepest place in their hearts, and to hopefully practice the best of what you strove to impart.
My older son spent a month at his in-laws home in San Malo, France recently, and toward the end of the month, he wrote his ten month old son a letter. He was kind enough to let me share it with you here:

Luca my boy. 
What a wonderful trip we just had together. You were a bit sick when it started. You had an ear infection and lots of wax in your ears. Your teeth have been coming in. You have two top and two bottom now. Changing timezones is never easy and it took you a while to adjust. But when all of that was over, you again shone as your happy self. We got to spend a lot of time together, especially in the mornings before the rest of the house was awake. Your mother needs her sleep. When I would hear you whimper or cry, sometimes waking me up, I would come into your room and pick you up out of your crib, still in your sleep sac, and you would nuzzle against me, happy that I was the one to get you and confident that a bottle was near. Well, sometimes not so patient if you were really hungry. But more often I recall you giggling as I made the bottle. After some milk, I would change your diaper and dress you, we’d go back into the kitchen where I’d put you on the floor to crawl a bit and say hi to your stuffed animal friends. The bear. The otter. The lamb. But you were more interested in the wicker baskets with the chestnuts, turning them this way and that as you lay on your back. You have a strong grip. One day you reached for a weight used for an old scale that I hadn’t even noticed. You pulled it off the shelf, allowing it to fall the 4 or 5 inches to the ground, thankfully not onto your hand or fingers. It was surprisingly heavy and would have undoubtedly broken some bones. Was another lesson for me in paying attention to your new abilities and wide-eyed curiosity. But on an average morning, I would make the coffee, maybe sweep the floor, put away the dishes… I would pick you up and we would open the curtains as the darkness outside began to turn to light. One day I explained the passage of days and years by circumnavigating the dinning table with you in my arms, spinning around and around. We’re the earth and every time we see the table it’s like the sun coming up and night turning to day. You liked the spinning, or maybe just being in my arms. I loved spending the mornings with you. Eventually it was time to wake up mommy. We would go into the bedroom and I’d put you in bed next to her and you would reach out to touch her face, never gently. Doucement, doucement, comme ça, she would say as she took your hand and stroked her face with it. If I remember nothing else from this trip, may it be these mornings. 

The world can be burning or flooding due to climate change, while wars and dire poverty bring undue suffering to millions…yet, sometimes, somehow…I'm lucky enough to bask in the pleasure of moments like this. 

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

The contrast between working conditions at KRE and those of the typical San Francisco radio station in the mid 1970’s was stunning. KRE’s door was never locked. Messages were written on a pad of pink “While You’re Were Out” paper and stuck on a spindle on the front desk. We replaced the typewriter ribbons ourselves and there was no hot running water in either of the bathrooms. Our General Manager and sales staff negotiated trade agreements with local restaurants - ads for food, basically - so a big perk was periodically getting to feast on the salad bar at the El Cerrito Station. 
For four years at KRE, I honed my skills and periodically interviewed for jobs in the city at radio stations that offered far more in the way of decor, professionalism, and salary but a lot less in terms of soul. And then I heard about an opening at KSAN, the legendary rock station whose claim to fame was not only the music but the news. It’s where every young person in the San Francisco Bay Area turned for the truth and the KSAN News delivered. There were no stories from the police blotter; that was better left to local television. The KSAN News team curated the news, focusing on issues that had impact, often covering only a few stories in a five minute newscast when there was a lot to say. Rather than reading from a script as was and continues to be standard practice in radio news, KSAN news people told you the news. They spoke directly to you - one on one - often bantering back and forth with a co-anchor or even the on air jock.
My first day of work on the KSAN News team was a bit traumatic. I arrived at 345 Sansome Street with some anxiety, having never anchored news before. I went directly to the newsroom and found some piles of torn wire copy from the Associated Press and Reuters news services and no sign of a human being. 
“Excuse me, I’m Joanne Rosenzweig, the new news person. Do you know where Dave McQueen is?” I asked someone who happened to be passing by in the hallway. Dave was the News Director and my co-anchor for the noon news.
The guy in the hall looked at his watch and grinned. “Oh, Dave’s probably asleep on the couch in the front office. That’s generally where he is between nine and noon.”
I gulped and slowly nodded, wondering how I was supposed to prepare the newscast without any direction. OK, I thought, I’ll just read over all of the copy that he pulled for the morning drive casts and continue to rip updates from the wires.
An hour passed and my heart rate was gradually increasing, as I ran back and forth from the newsroom to the tiny area that housed the wire machines – checking on updates from Associated Press and Reuters. What the hell? Why isn’t he here to welcome me and tell me what he expects? Isn’t there any training?
I’d been hired by Abby Melamed, the Program Director, and she was out at a meeting. I went into the Production Room and asked Rick, the Production Director, what he thought I should do.
“It’s after eleven-thirty,” Rick said, sympathetically, “I think it’s fine to go wake him up and tell him you need to figure out the noon news.”
“He won’t be angry?” I asked, hoping that Rick would offer to go wake him up and save me the awkwardness and potential humiliation.
Rick shrugged and smiled. I had the immediate sense that Rick would be a friend and ally, even though he wasn’t making the morning any easier for me.
With trepidation, I began walking toward the front office. Peeking in, I saw Dave, asleep on a couch, his long brown hair strewn across a throw pillow. 
“Dave,” I whispered. No response. “Dave,” I said, a bit louder this time. 
Still no sign of life. I held my breath for a moment, wondering what I’d done to deserve this, and said in a somewhat louder voice “David!”  That did it. He moved, opened one eye, and started to stretch. And then he continued to stretch until, gradually, he began to sit up. Then, he grabbed a hair brush from the table and began to brush his nearly waist-length brown hair, bending his head down and flipping all of his locks back over his head, brushing it from the other side. Was this his ritual upon waking up? He didn’t seem like a fastidious person and yet this hair brushing seemed to go on and on. I stared, in disbelief, and started babbling.
“I cleared the wires and read over what you’d done in the morning newscasts, but I’m not sure how you want to handle the noon. It’s 11:40 now, maybe later, and I’m starting to get concerned that we need time to prep.”
Dave continued to brush his hair, not yet responding to my semi-panicked diatribe.
When he finished stretching, yawning and brushing, he walked out of the room and down the long hall to the newsroom. I followed wondering how, in hell, we were going to properly prepare to deliver a newscast. Maybe my notion of “properly” was about to go out the window. Man, did I have a lot to learn. Upon entering his sanctuary - a small room with a couple of typewriters and an audio board - he began cutting out lines of cocaine on the countertop with a razorblade. I tried hard not to give any indication of how shocked and, frankly, pissed I was. Was this standard operating procedure here, or just his way of welcoming the newbie? “No thank you,” I said when he handed me a rolled up dollar bill, indicating that it was my turn, after snorting a fat line himself. “I’m really getting nervous about the newscast,” I said, pleadingly, “I mean, isn’t the news cast in 10 minutes?”
What a rookie, he must be thinking. Why did we hire her? 
David grabbed a pile of copy, flipping through the stories, then looked up and said, “What else you got?”
Somehow, we divvied up the piles and I stumbled through my first KSAN newscast, barely absorbing the content that I was sharing with the radio audience. David sounded as authoritative and in control as he always did. Was he always high on the air? I was in a state of shock and wondered how I was ever going to build a rapport with my News Director and co-anchor. Time heals much, and we later become good friends, spending many an evening, as couples, drinking red wine and pontificating about the state of our nation. Decades later, Dave and I co-anchored audio programs for Hewlett Packard. Rest in peace, my friend.


Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, the meaning of showing up. I’m Joanne Greene.
My eldest cousin passed away. He was 91. We knew it was coming. But that doesn’t make it any easier for his one and only daughter, who valiantly navigated caring for him from afar as his condition deteriorated and his undaunting spirit led him to continue working in his legal practice, attempting to drive, and making questionable decisions that led to numerous ER visits and hospital stays. He remained in Boston, the city in which he lived his whole life while she, her husband and identical twin 6 year old daughters were living in Bogata, Colombia. She spent countless hours online and on the phone, arranging drivers, speaking to doctors, and looking into how to help her father feel valued and of service as his health worsened. And she succeeded beyond measure.
I knew that I’d show up whenever I could be helpful. That’s what we do if we understand that giving is what makes life meaningful. It’s what I most value at this stage of my life – showing up for the people I love. Being present. Sharing both the joy and the pain that come simultaneously if we’re paying attention and living authentically. How, you might ask, could I find satisfaction in clearing out my cousin’s bathroom cabinets? That simple act, shared with his daughter’s mother in law (because she, too, shows up) afforded me some intimacy with my cousin while crossing one more item off his daughter’s to do list. My cousin and I were not close, we didn’t grow up together as we were twenty years apart. But we had shared lifelong memories of holiday celebrations – thanksgiving dinners and Passover seders….an annual tradition of checking on who won our respective neighboring high school football games. At his funeral, I relished sharing the memory of him relentlessly teasing my sister about her losing their annual bet about said football game and how was she going to repay her debt to him. 
Family holds unique importance for me, for many of us. It’s our original blueprint, the people with and from whom we form our initial view of life and what matters. I credit my aunts, uncles, and cousins with helping to form my sense of humor, my work ethic, my intellectual curiosity, and love of tradition. As an elder, now, I try to foster and model that for my siblings’ children and grandchildren, and certainly my own descendants. Our families look different today. Rather than living blocks away or in adjacent towns, we’re scattered across the state and, often, the globe. honoring different cultural traditions as well as our own. Our worlds both expand and contract as we easily Facetime bridging the distance and time difference to celebrate together, to share in joy….to join family members in pain or hardship in whatever way we can.
I received so many tender condolences over my cousin’s passing and for that I am very grateful. But the truth is, I wasn’t in pain. He had a great sendoff, honored for his countless contributions to the lives of many. It was my privilege to help however I could, to further cement the bonds of family, to catch up with the generation now in college and newly forging career paths, to share fond memories and to model the very behavior that I learned from those who came before me. We show up. We celebrate together and we grieve together. That makes life ever more precious and blesses all of us with lasting riches.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, a look ahead to 2025. I’m Joanne Greene.Vision boards are easy. You look through magazines and find photos of places you’d like to go, outfits you’d see yourself wearing, cars you’d want to drive, vacations you’d like to take.

When creating a verbal vision board, there are no suggestions, no ideas from which to choose. You’re making the cake from scratch, without a mix or a recipe.

2025 sounds like the far-off future, yet it’s moments away. In 1979, I hosted a radio show called “The 80’s”, filled with interviews and speculation on where things were headed. Five years later, I could hardly believe we’d made it to 1984. George Orwell surely had a few things right.

What I couldn’t have imagined, years ago, was Waymo, the robot car as my 3-year-old grandson calls it. I couldn’t have conceived of artificial intelligence, where my skills as both a voice over talent and a writer would be supplanted by a free service, available to all, in seconds.

While in high school, I read Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, a book published in 1962 which exposed the dangers of the pesticide DDT & questioned our collective faith in technology. Carson, among others, sowed the seeds of the environmental movement, which grew against the odds. I came of age being skeptical of corporations looking the other way when concern threatened profits, ad campaigns that convinced us chemicals were safe. Natural settings called to me, though they were not the natural habitat of my childhood, just outside of Boston, where I spent more time in movie theaters, bowling alleys and department stores. As a teenager it became clear that I could breathe more freely outdoors, that I could think more clearly surrounded by trees and bodies of water. I moved to California post college and grew to love hiking, finding both solace and adventure in wild places.

In 2025, I will become certified as a nature and forest therapy guide, spending more and more of my time communing with plants, insects, and animals, finding peace in stillness, slowing down enough to notice what most of us, including me, generally miss. I imagine bringing groups of people into natural places and, with any luck, guiding at least some of them into liminal experiences that ground them and expose them to new parts of themselves.

After a career in radio journalism, more than a decade running out of the box Jewish programs at a community center, and publishing a memoir, I could not have predicted that this is what my next chapter would be. It’s about listening to that still, small voice within and taking a risk. I rarely regret the moves I make when I trust my gut. Here’s to new beginnings and a very happy, healthy, growth-filled, new year!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, what it takes to earn a “Middle Aged Woman” badge. I’m Joanne Greene.
Back in the early to mid 60’s I was a Bluebird and then, a Campfire Girl. We wore cute little red vests adorned with badges that our moms sewed onto the sides after we completed various challenges. If I’d been in charge, we’d have sewed those badges on ourselves – to get a sewing badge, of course. I vaguely recall sewing badges onto my son’s boy scout shirt but, since I hadn’t practiced in an effort to earn that badge, I kept sticking myself.
What if there were a badge one could earn for being a full-fledged “Middle Aged Woman”? An ideal Middle Aged Woman, that is, one who does and says all the right things and knows when to keep her mouth shut. Currently, girl scouts can receive badges for being caring and considerate (at home, at school, and with friends)…for respecting oneself and others (difficult to measure, of course)…and for using resources wisely (reducing use, reusing materials, and recycling).
Arriving at middle age, as a woman, probably means that you still send hand-written thank you notes, that you moisturize, that you take it upon yourself to ensure that everyone around you is happy or at least not in pain at all times, that you’ve learned to pick your battles at home and at work, that you strategically let things slide, that you take the blame when you make a mistake and don’t point fingers when someone else messes up.
But I would submit that there are other defining criteria. I, for instance, would like to get credit for making sure that the refrigerator contains food that every family member would enjoy, for feeling obligated to take on a volunteer role at the school, church, synagogue, sports team or at least go somewhat overboard when it’s my turn to bring snack. A middle aged woman is on the cusp of caring less what others think. Have I shared with you the graph of age & (pardon the expression) “give a shit”? The older a woman gets, the less she feels the need to impress. But we’re not talking about older women. Not yet, anyway.

Middle aged women dress in layers because too cold is often followed by too hot. We might color our hair, wear make-up, or get Botox injections and, then again, we might opt for a daily yoga pants and stained sweatshirt look with a baseball cap or a beanie in winter. The point is middle aged women get to decide. And, these days, as some of our basic rights are being threatened, it’s the all the more important to make wise choices. To stand up for what we believe in. To defend the rights of others. I, of course, am no longer middle aged but, in truth, I care more than ever and I don’t need no stinkin’ badges to prove it.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!


In This Story, I sign up to be a nature and forest therapy guide. I’m Joanne Greene.
A drastic response to the presidential election? Actually no. But I’m sure glad that I registered for the six-month intensive course a month or so ago. Allow me to explain.
Forest therapy is inspired by forest bathing, which was founded and developed in Japan, under the name Shirin-yoku, in the 1980’s. Apparently going from a primarily agrarian economy to one in which most people spent 10-20 hours each day in front of a computer screen was resulting in poor health outcomes. The idea was that getting Japanese citizens out into nature on a regular basis would lower blood pressures and boost immune systems. And, what do you know, it worked. Since then, numerous studies, in Japan, in the U.S. and throughout Europe, have arrived at the same results. The science is well documented in the book “The Nature Fix: why nature makes us happier, healthier, and more creative” by Florence Williams.
Forest bathing is largely focused on health outcomes and participants are medically tested before and after the three hour immersive experience to prove the benefits. I’m working with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy which broadens the focus from human health to the interconnectedness of all living things – including beings in the non-human world – like trees, plants, insects, birds, and wild animals. If we’re going to protect this planet, it’s important that we think beyond ourselves.
In the course, I practice sitting still, in one spot, and notice what’s happening. On forest therapy walks, I spend 15 minutes focusing on what’s in motion, and then share my experience with the group. The forest is the therapist; as guides, we’re there to open doors. Rather than trying to direct the experience of participants, we offer invitations. “Perhaps you’d like to wander down a trail and look for something that calls out to you. Then, consider stopping and notice what you see, hear, and feel.”
There are clear parameters to a forest therapy walk but within the designated framework, that’s been thoughtfully developed over many years, there’s much opportunity for the guide to add make it her own.
Once certified, I’ll be able to take groups into natural places and help individuals to slow down and hopefully have a liminal experience, where time is altered and a sense of well being results.
Right now, I love hiking but years from now, if my mobility is compromised, I still want to be able to spend time in wild places. It’s where I find peace, where my creativity flows, where I remember to prioritize what’s most important. To learn more about this experience, check out anft.earth.

It’s the day after and I’m numb, crumbling under the weight of knowing that we are not what I thought we were….what I was raised to believe…what I hoped and trusted would win out in the end. It’s a feeling of mourning, of deep loss, not of shock but of resignation, the horror of evil going unpunished, of otherwise decent people looking the other way, an awareness of what it must have been for Germans in the 30’s to witness a collective loss of conscience.
Would I feel better if I had gone door to door in Arizona or Nevada? Would I feel even more like a fool if I’d filled out five hundred more postcards? My contributions of time and money didn’t matter in the end, but they were expressions of hope, of belief in the overall goodness of human beings, of truth to win out in the end. I know that life isn’t black and white, that binaries only serve to divide, but where in a nation run by a convicted felon who cares not about policy or any of the values on which this nation was founded and built, will I find my place?
I will find it here in my community where we treat each other with kindness…I will find it in the woods where politics do not reside, where I can focus, instead, on the interconnectedness of living things.
I fear for my grandchildren who, I can only hope, will spend decades trying to undo the damage that will be unleashed. There’s a deadly virus in our judicial system that will continue to metastasize before our eyes. The future feels bleak and yet there’s plenty that we can do, today, tomorrow, and beyond, to strengthen whatever is left of our safeguards, to build stronger communities based on mutual respect, to extend a hand to those in need, to build institutions and alliances that take care of those in need of protection, that serve those willing to work, to care for their young and their elderly, to engage in acts of kindness.
Germany reemerged from the darkness and so will we. Dictators die, pendulums swing. We know what to do.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!


I know they’re not kosher, but I didn’t know that as a kid. Lobster isn’t kosher either; go figure. Some Jewish people in New England make exceptions; that’s all I can say on the subject. Fried clams are deep fried, which means they might clog my arteries, and perhaps even give me indigestion, given that once I get started, I can’t stop until every last clam is dipped in tartar sauce..or perhaps cocktail sauce if it’s provided as a second option, and ingested, eyes closed, in a state of bliss that can only be described as foodgasmic. A soft moan might be heard emanating from deep inside my memory banks as I’m drawn into the best of my childhood by the smell of salt water and the warm recollection of tiptoeing between rocks on Nantasket, Crane’s, or Wingaersheek Beach during hot, humid Boston summers. When a grain of sand lodges in my back teeth, I smile, knowing that these clams are authentic. As if there was any other kind. Ew, even the thought of a faux clam is chilling.
Clam bellies were an acquired taste I developed post childhood as I’d only eaten clam strips – the neck of the clam – up until then. For many Wednesday suppers, as we called them, my parents took me to the All You Can Eat Fish Fry at Howard Johnson’s. My mom would chide my dad for ordering a second helping, which was perplexing as isn’t that the point of the All You Can Eat Fish Fry? While they were grousing about French fries and fried fish, such alliteration, I would chow down on clam strips, fries and cole slaw. Now that I know that “whole bellies” as these soft- shelled clams are known, include the clam’s gastrointestinal tract, I understand why they’re so tasty. I also can’t unknow that and the image is somewhat disturbing.
Fried clams, for the uninitiated, are Ipswich clams soaked in evaporated milk, dipped in some combination of regular, corn and pastry flour, and then deep-fried in canola oil, soybean oil, or lard. They’re as iconic to New Englanders as barbeque is to Texas, Poutine is to Montreal, and tacos are to Mexico. The earliest mention of fried clams on a menu can be traced back to 1865. It was the menu of the Parker House hotel, now the pet-friendly Omni Parker House on School Street in Boston. The hotel and dining hall opened in 1855 and on that very first menu was an original creation – the Parker House Chocolate Cream Pie, now known as Boston Cream Pie. And, while I’m digressing from the topic of clams, allow me to share that in 1958 –I was just four – Boston Cream Pie became a Betty Crocker boxed mix. In 1996, longer after I’d abandoned my state roots, Boston Cream Pie was proclaimed the official Massachusetts State Dessert. And it wasn’t a slam dunk with competition from the Toll House Cookie, the Fig Newton, and Indian Pudding. You’ve never heard of Indian Pudding? It's a centuries old dessert, perhaps our nation’s very first, made by colonists with cornmeal they’d been gifted by Native Americans and molasses.
You’re welcome for the suggestion of a great Thanksgiving dessert!
But back to my beloved fried clams. It’s sad yet quite special that they are both seasonal and regional. Wanting what we cannot have on the west coast… and, everywhere, throughout the winter months….makes the fried Ipswich clam taste even sweeter.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story I zoom in on things that fascinate me. I’m Joanne Greene. 
Walking slowly, or standing still, in a forest allows me to see, hear and feel things I miss when hiking, chatting with a friend, focusing on where I’m going rather than where I am. There’s movement, even in the absence of wind. Leaves drifting and silently falling from branches; insects building, feeding, mating; birds planning for their future, hiding acorns in tree trunks.
Dried leaves remind me of the aging process. Like aging leaves, human skin and hair dry out, skin wrinkles and sags, joints stiffen, and then we fall to the ground. I feel for the leaves; we are all alive and in some phase of deterioration. Nothing living lasts forever. Even the Redwoods.
Yet we can connect with the living through invisible dotted lines, by absorbing chemicals from the trees, gazing into the eyes of any animal, communicating more deeply over time with our pets. When my dog does exactly what I ask her to do is she learning English words or is she learning to read me? Is our growing codependence and interspecies love a good thing? Is this even a question worth asking?
She loves cheese and bread like every dog, and so do I. My childhood featured cream cheese (for shmearing on bagels), cottage cheese (that only my mother liked) and American cheese, individually wrapped, for cutting in fourths and placing on Ritz crackers for an afternoon snack with tomato, or possibly, V8 juice. The smell of Kraft Parmesan cheese made me gag, yet today I inhale the fragrance of Parmesano Reggiano and my mouth waters. I discovered the seeming endless world of cheese while working at Papillon, a wine and cheese café one summer during college - Port Salut, Camembert, Burrata, Emmentaler. In Amsterdam, I learned that Gouda is pronounced Gouda (Chouda.) And my education is just beginning.
Some of us love the cuisine with which we were raised- comfort food, a taste of home. Others of us moved on, in my case from iceberg lettuce, canned vegetables, London Broil, and chopped liver. I’m fascinated by Ethnic foods of all varieties and even though the grandfather for whom I’m named was a kosher butcher, I can live without meat. Give me spices like zaatar, garam masala, curry and ramen and pho. I’m always game to try a new place, eat with my hands, sit on the floor.
And while on the floor, I might turn upside down or sit in a lotus position. Yoga has been my savior since 1974 when I sang “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine” at the Theosophical Society in Boston and calmed the f down. Slowing down my breathing is at the center of the miracle. Over the years I’ve learned to count my inhalations and exhalations, to focus on one Drishti or point at which to stare, to send blessings to my loved ones, my neighbors, the guy who annoyingly beeped his horn at me when I didn’t leave the intersection fast enough for him. I’m captivated by the ancient knowledge that stretching and strengthening our bodies in certain ways would improve our health – both physical and mental. And they weren’t necessarily overstimulated by cell phones and social media, traffic and multiple competing demands on their time and thoughts. Technology has so many answers, making our lives easier and more efficient, but ancient wisdom, like mother, often knows best. It’s the emphasis on balance, on interconnectedness, that I need, now more than ever, that I believe our world needs now. We have so much to learn from simply observing nature.
Take the spider, for instance. Can you even imagine what it takes to design and create a web that is not only magnificent in its structure but durable, flexible, and can trap live prey? It’s an engineering feat beyond comprehension. As a young girl I knew that I was supposed to fear spiders but, after reading Charlotte’s Web, I simply saw these inventive, delicate, yet dogged creatures as my friends. I’ll coax an indoor spider onto a piece of paper and gently place her outside, rather than squish her like a bug as, admittedly, I’ll do to flies, ants, and other uninvited guests. To me spiders are royalty…and I will remain in awe of their artistry and practicality, the way a lack of light hides their webbing and a beam of sunshine reveals their glistening, symmetrical creativity.
I am endlessly fascinated by the worlds I’ve yet to uncover….

Early the morning of October 7th, 2023, I took a call from my daughter in law Marie who, unbeknownst to me, was in the process of becoming Jewish.
She said, “My mom called to tell me how upset she was about the attack on Israel.” I held my breath. Her mom lives in France. I’d been awake for all of 20 minutes, blissfully unaware. When we hung up, I turned on CNN and began to grasp the magnitude of the still unfolding catastrophe. In the moments and weeks that followed, I understood that Hamas had unleashed the worst assault against the Jewish people that had taken place in my lifetime. The pain and confusion were just beginning.
I felt personally attacked – the first time I’d questioned my safety as a proud Jewish American. From the start, people on the left, my people, or so I’d always thought, were justifying Hamas’s actions, couching the unbelievably gruesome assault in the larger context of the occupation, as though there was any way to justify the slaughter of peace loving concert goers, as if there could be an excuse for attacking the very Israelis who lived close to Gaza in hopes of building bridges, of helping people whose own government put them in danger.
I read a post that my young Muslim friend posted - the friend who, on behalf of her mosque, sent flowers to the JCC after a bomb threat forced our evacuation. She’s the partner with whom I planned interfaith activities to bring Muslims and Jews together – an Iftar, an art exhibit – as part of the Salaam, Shalom, Speaking of Peace initiative. Her post, like so many, condemned the actions of the Israeli military, the killing of innocent Palestinians. Her tone stung and I reached out, asking if we could meet to discuss our collective pain. She responded with an emoji – a tiny symbol that may have meant we were okay, the two of us, but that was it. Our people, I feared, were no longer okay with one another.
I felt betrayed by the left, by the very people with whom I’d spend decades marching for justice, reproductive rights, voting rights, affordable housing, against racism and Islamophobia. I watched what was happening on college campuses, wondering where I would have stood as an eighteen-year-old. Would I, too, have seen Israel as the all-powerful occupier, the military giant, a puppet of the United States? Would my sympathies have gone to the thousands of Palestinians abandoned by their leaders yet killed by Jewish bombs? Why is no one on the left talking about the Israeli women who were raped, whose bodies were mutilated?
During the first intifada, as a radio talk show host, I felt pressure from the Jewish community to speak out publicly. “You have a platform,” they said. But I was a journalist. I hosted debates giving both sides a chance to make their case. I asked questions, like my people have done for centuries. We learn by asking questions. With age comes perspective and, knowing so much more now about the history, it’s hard to listen to people who haven’t taken the time to learn. “From the river to sea,” they’re chanting but, when asked, too few knew which river and which sea were being referenced, not to mention the fact that their chant was calling for the end of Israel. Too few of those sacrificing sleep in encampments, feeling solidarity with the oppressed, had knowledge of all the attempts that have been made to make peace with Palestinians while ensuring the security of Israelis. As Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said, “You cannot negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.” On October 7th, 2023, Hamas came to kill, rape, torture, and kidnap Jews, as many as they possibly could. Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist, therefore a peace treaty with Hamas will never be attainable.
It’s human nature to try to fix things, to come up with solutions, to reduce conflict to good and evil, us and them, the occupiers and the occupied. But most conflict is filled with complexity and nuance and, as such, demands empathy. We are meant to struggle. We make a grave mistake when we tell ourselves that we are totally in the right and not at fault at all. Our tradition offers us an opportunity to make teshuvah, to accept our human frailty, to look, to see, to acknowledge, to turn, and to try harder next time.
My heart feels the pain of the hostages and their families, the displacement of families from Israel’s northern border, the trauma of Israeli soldiers who put themselves at risk every day, and the worry that plagues all Israelis and all people who fear for their safety. And my heart cannot grow cold to the suffering of innocent Palestinians, people displaced from their homes time and again, people used as human shields by their terrorist government. They didn’t ask for this and the hatred they’ve come to feel for Israelis, for Jews, for me, is understandable. May this war end. May something good come from all this horror and loss. May there be answers.

In this story...The war on Zoom. I’m Joanne Greene.
It started slowly, tentatively. Those of us living outside of Israel had joined a zoom call to support our friends, fellow writers with whom we’d been meeting virtually since the start of Covid. We’d become a community and had been present, to hold one another through tough times – the loss of a grandchild, the end of a marriage, the crime of a brother-in-law, the passing of a beloved grandfather, the horrors of October 7th. We’re Writers Near and Far, mostly living in the U.S. and Israel, with origins ranging from Italy to South Africa. We are women, celebrating the joys and milestones in our lives, juggling relationships, and health concerns, triathalons, and flower beds, and all the while creating beauty, when we find the time and the inspiration, with our words. 
But this meeting was different. Five of us showed up to listen, to nod empathetically, to give our exhausted friends, who’d been running in and out of safe rooms in the middle of the night for a week, as the Iron Dome beat back many of the ballistic missiles Iran was shooting at Israel. One by one, four of us entered the Zoom room from Israel, all relieved to share both the horrors and the tender moments they’d been experiencing. For Dori, this was it. Born in Israel to an Israeli Yemenite mother and an American father, Dori had been drawn back to her native land after October 7th  yet now, after two years of the atrocities in Gaza and now this second war with Iran, she is finished, fed up with this government. When her mother recovers from surgery, she’s taking off, again, with no firm plan. When asked if they, too might be ready to give up on Israel, at least for now, the others all shook their heads. 
“I chose to move here from South Africa,” said Gaby, “and I’m committed to remaining in this, my homeland.” 
“Let me put it this way,” said Stephanie, who shuttles back and forth between her home- town of Berkeley, California, and Jerusalem, where three of her six children have put down roots.
“In Berkeley, I wear a baseball cap to cover my hair and hide my Star of David under my shirt. Here, I proudly wear my head scarf and Magan Daveed. That difference, the tacit permission to be who I am here means everything to me.”
Traveling each year between the city of her birth, Philadelphia, and Tel Aviv, where she currently resides with her husband, Caroline has often considered leaving Israel, perhaps for Rome or elsewhere.
“But not now,” she says on our call. “I’ve considered leaving for personal reasons but not because of war.”
And then she grabbed her cell phone, a look of alarm on her face, and abruptly jumped from her seat and out the door.
We were stunned, at first, knowing full well that this could happen at any moment. We concluded that a siren had gone off, leaving Caroline seven minutes to grab her phone and head across the street to the underground parking garage which was now serving as her safe room. She and her husband had been sheltering in a room in their building, but this parking garage was less claustrophobic. Her dog could run around with the other dogs. There was even food being provided on one of the floors. Israelis are nothing if not adaptable, practical, built to survive. Apparently, this siren had only gone off in Tel Aviv, which was why the other Israelis remained on the call.
I kept looking at Caroline’s square, the rooms we’ve come to know in each of our homes. Not having time to close her laptop, we were watching her room grow darker as the sun was setting. She, we assumed, had fled to relative safety. It was eerie to see her empty room and know that bombs were flying. Her empty room enabled us to share the horror of war in real time.
Two of Caroline’s adult children live in the U.S. and are unlikely to return. What does that mean for her future? She doesn’t know. Gaby lives on a kibbutz in the northern part of Israel and shares that some people in her community continue to go about their business during this frightening time, while she chooses to limit her movement, to feel safe, not to tempt fate.
Everyone in Israel has family members who’ve been called up to the military. Everyone knows someone who has been killed in Gaza, in the war that seems to have no end. A second war, and a government she cannot abide, have pushed Dori over the edge. 
The rest of us shake our heads, unsure of what to think. Was it right for Israel to bomb Iran now? Who knows? Was this the moment for the U.S. to step in and try to help finish the job, with bunker busting bombs? Perhaps. “Death to Israel. Death to America” have been the chants for far too long and a nuclear Iran is a threat, not just to us, but to the world.
In the meantime, we listen. We show up as our humanity dictates. We read and we watch, we hope, and we pray, for our friends and for all people to be safe and at ease.


Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, I board a cruise ship. 
For decades, my image of a cruise featured loud, gluttonous fressers (that’s Yiddish for people who stuff their faces with abandon at the all-you-can-eat buffet.) I envisioned tiny airless rooms with, at best, a porthole; smoke-filled casinos with spilled drinks due to sea turbulence; and long lines of parents with screaming children waiting to board and disembark at every port. Unappealing? Ya think?….
But then, in the 1990’s, we bought a timeshare that came with a free Royal Caribbean cruise for two. The inside passage of ALASKA, we agreed, would be our destination. Hoping an Alaskan cruise would attract nature lovers and not be the cruise of choice for dedicated party animals, we signed up for a weeklong adventure, starting and ending in Vancouver, British Columbia, that would include stops in Juno, Sitka, and Ketchikan.
Ever the optimist, I focused on not having to unpack and repack every couple of days – a big plus – and on the fact that the ship we’d chosen featured a spa area with healthy food choices and numerous exercise opportunities and options for pampering. We reserved an upgraded cabin with a door leading out to a small private deck. Our bases were covered.
Eyeing our fellow travelers as we boarded the floating city that would be our home for a week, our minds began to settle. There were people who looked enough like us, smiling, chatting, anticipating a good time. When asked on the guest form if we were celebrating anything that week, we shared that it was our wedding anniversary, figuring telling them might mean a bottle of champagne or some chocolate covered strawberries. What we didn’t anticipate was that it would peg us for participation in the Very Wed and Newlywed Game two nights later.
What the heck? we thought when invited to be on stage to compete against other couples. Then they plied us with margaritas. Oh boy. Joined at the hip and hardly shy in front of a crowd, we answered their outrageous questions, winning nearly every round. The competition wasn’t stiff, of course, and we were letting loose. And then they asked the final question: “What is something your spouse continues to do that you find REALLY annoying?”
Hmmmm…how should I answer this, I wondered? The first thing that popped into my mind is how Fred disappears, quite suddenly. When I say he gets lost, he tells me that he knew exactly where he was the whole time. We’ll be walking down a street together, for instance, and I turn to say something to him and he’s not there. Could have been a store that wooed him in. More likely, he stopped to take a photograph and either forgot to tell me or mentioned that he was doing so in a voice that I couldn’t hear.
“I have a pet peeve,” I said to the game show host, convinced that none of the other spouses would share my answer. “My husband sometimes disappears. We’ll be together at an event or walking somewhere and ……
At that precise moment, Fred left the stage. The audience went wild. I had to admit that he stole the show.
But that wasn’t the end of the game.
Two days later, people all over the ship were recognizing us. “Weren’t you the couple from the Newlywed game? You were so funny!” We nodded and smiled awkwardly.
Back in our room, we turned on the television and there we were, a bit tipsy, sharing oddly compromising secrets on the television show no one mentioned they were producing of our Very Wed and Newlywed game. They were running it over and over again, 24 hours a day, in every room on the ship.
We tried to be incognito…eating our meals in the spa section….keeping to ourselves as best we could, but it was not to be. Unwittingly, we’d gained our ten minutes of fame on a cruise ship named what was it…. Lengend of the Seas? Splendor of the Sea? Splendor in the Grass? Chicken of the Sea?

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Whiskers on kittens are okay but dogs’ ears really do it for me. Basset hounds take the cake, but I’ll stroke a spaniel’s ear, a lab’s, a shepherd’s, and, of course, any part of a doodle, anytime. Speaking of taking the cake…feel free. In my estimation cake is grossly overrated. With the exception of a really moist carrot cake, my mothers’ spice cake, or a flourless chocolate cake, I’d choose am oatmeal or chocolate chip cookie nine times out of ten. After my summer working at Household Finance Loan Corporation, above a donut shop, when I inhaled an ice-cold lemonade and a glazed honey dipped donut every morning at 10:30, I hate the smell of donuts. Pie is rarely worth the calories but a solid fruit crisp or crumble or Apple Betty gets the salivary glands going every time.
Life is filled with food and chores.
Why is ironing so satisfying? I assume because one sliding motion and a little heat eliminates the crease and thereby solves the problem. With that framing, I should enjoy vacuuming, which I don’t. But folding laundry? Oddly relaxing. While I enjoy the look of a well-made bed, I don’t relish the walking back and forth, straightening the sheets, pulling up the duvet and making sure what’s inside isn’t bunched up in one corner. Bed-making sucks. We’re living in the guest room temporarily, due to a little construction, and- don’t tell anyone but I’ve just been pulling up the top sheet. I tell myself it’s a summer look. But really, I’m just cutting corners. 
I love checking in with friends and family members but hate it when I’m ready to hang up and move on and the other person just keeps talking. Y’can’t just say, okay, I’m done. You’re starting to bore me. So, usually, I say something stupid like – I have to go to the bathroom or file my receipts so take care and have a great day! I also squirm when people tell me about people I don’t know and won’t ever meet. Who cares? Stop wasting my time. 
Strangely, I never get sick of listening to my kids and my heart skips a beat, like a teenage girl hearing from her new boyfriend, every time caller ID shows it’s one of them reaching out. Like every stereotype of a doting grandma, my face lights up and my smile is so wide it hurts when any of my three littles appear on FaceTime. 
The first bite of a perfectly ripe nectarine, bouquets of dahlias, the smell of a Eucalyptus tree and the majesty of a redwood. These make my heart sing and activate the gratitude which I continue to express for the feel of clean sheets, being able to walk for hours without pain, for my cancer being stage one, for sunshine and beaches, to Biden for finally stepping down, for age old friendships and the memories of laughing so hard we peed, for Motown and margaritas, for unbuttered popcorn and kettle brand sea salt chips, for vape pens and firepits, hot tubs and massages. I am ever so grateful for my husband and family…for good health and anti-depressants…for treasuring my Jewish heritage…and for finally having ….and being enough.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

My family of origin never took a single vacation. I didn’t feel denied; didn’t know anything different. My father worked seven days a week and we had neither the money nor the template for how to vacation. I remember my mother saying that some people needed to vacation, as though they were somehow weaker. She, by contrast, did not. Married and with my own children, I made family vacations a priority. Did it matter that one of our kids was both anxious and hyperactive? It should have. But instead, we just kept right on planning and moving through the meltdowns.
But there was that first memorable trip when we took the family to Italy in 2002. Our high school wrestler tried to lift a SmartCar and we have the photo to prove it. We had our first round of beers together in Rome, eating filetto di baccala. At the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, the four of us watched Andrea Bocelli, blind since birth, carry Madame Butterfly offstage. The opera didn’t start until 10pm, which meant that at least two of us nodded off during the performance. On our bike tour through Tuscany, we ate epic caprese salads and stopped for photos at the site of a famous scene from the film Gladiator. The boys bonded on the day we went to Cinque Terra, preferring to remain on the beach in front of our hotel that featured topless young women; they wore mirrored sunglasses to shield their staring eyes.
Family travel can be tricky, particularly when one’s family is filled with strong willed and opinionated people. Someone wants to just sit and read while someone else is up for major adventure. But this trip hit the absolute right note – a blend of group and solo activity, exceptional food, short visits to museums, and a private tour of the Vatican. I can still hear the voice of the guard in the Sistine Chapel crying “Silencio!”
Perhaps the quintessential moment of the trip took place in our rented apartment in Sienna. As older siblings do, Danny played a trick on his younger brother, hiding amidst the blankets in an old wooden chest that stood in the hallway outside our bedroom. We told him it could take a while, so better get comfortable in there and be sure you’re getting enough oxygen.
“Mikey, see if you can find any board games, or anything we can do together after dinner tonight,” I called out from the kitchen.
“Where am I supposed to look?” he asked, mildly annoyed that I was assigning him a task. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Check the drawers, cupboards, that old chest in the hallway.”
Fred and I could hear the opening and closing of cabinets and held our collective breath as Mike approached the hall that held the chest that held Danny. And then we heard the piercing screams – Danny jumping out of the chest loudly yelling “BOO” and Mike’s blood curdling terror response. Somehow, we managed to hold Mike back; by then, he’d acquired both the skills and the incentive to cause major hurt to his brother.
Neither Fred nor I had a reference point for what a family vacation should look like. I guess not having expectations set us up to accept when things didn’t go well. Our two weeks in Italy, when Mike was a sophomore in high school and Danny a freshman in college, was filled with all the right ingredients for a great vacation – phenomenal food, the right amount of touring, and a ton of laughs.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In This Story…I steal a pair of gloves.
We were young enough to need a ride to the shopping center but old enough to tool around by ourselves for a couple of hours before meeting up with the mom-in-charge. It was 1968 and despite all that was going on in the world, and there was a lot, I was bored and in search of cheap thrills.
My girlfriend and I were in an Ann Taylor store where there was nothing in my price range. But purchasing wasn’t on my agenda that day. It was the “five finger discount” I was after. See an item, look around, shove it up the sleeve. I didn’t want a pair of fine leather gloves. Would never have worn the gloves – they were far too sophisticated. But they were flat enough to fit under my sleeve so in they went. My friend wasn’t looking – she was certainly not an accomplice – and would never have known of my bad behavior had the store manager not swiftly escorted me upstairs to her office. Clearly, I had no game. None.
As I followed her up the stairs, feeling like I was walking the gang plank, I wondered if my friend – not to mention her mother – would be worried about me. ‘Course this concern distracted me from whatever real consequences I would face.
“Please hand over the gloves and write your telephone number down on this pad of paper,” the lady said in a mildly annoyed voice, as though this exercise was pro forma, part of her job description. Silently, I obliged.
I squirmed hearing the familiar ring and pictured the black rotary phone with the twisted cord on the telephone table in the hallway at the top of the stairs of our two-family house. My mother answered.
“I’m calling from Ann Taylor at the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center. Are you the mother of Joanne….” and here she stopped, unsure of how to pronounce my last name. Rosenzweig. Tough on the first go-around.
“Yes, I’m Joanne’s mother, is she alright?” my mom jumped in, worried that I’d been hurt, never suspecting that her daughter was capable of committing a crime.
“She appears to be just fine but I’m calling to let you know that we apprehended her stealing a pair of gloves.”
A moment of uncharacteristic silence followed. Then my shocked and humiliated mother spoke.
“Do you need us to come and get her or will you release her to her friend’s mother who brought the girls there today?”
“That’s fine,” the store employee said. “I’ll bring her back down to the store and hopefully her chaperone will be waiting.”
My chaperone? More importantly, it sounded like I wasn’t being sent to jail. The crisis was thereby downgraded to having to face my friend, her mom, and then my mom. Descending the stairs, I tried to weigh which I dreaded more.
Our car ride home was silent. Mrs. Sherman didn’t ask me a single question. Every time we stopped at a red light, I knew that I’d have to endure this shame spiral for a little bit longer. Finally, she pulled up in front of my house and I quietly thanked her for taking me shopping and driving me home.
“Also,” I said while closing the car door, “I’m sorry.” Mrs. Sherman might have heard me.
Deep breath. Two down. One more to go.
I entered the house as quietly as I could. My mom both heard and saw me walk up the stairs, but she didn’t say a word. Unusual even if she hadn’t been called by a store manager to say that her child had stolen a pair of leather gloves. I stood there, waiting for the hatchet to fall, for the speech to begin, for something to free me from my self-imposed torture chamber. Her silent treatment was excruciating. I went up to my room and wallowed in shame, rolled around on the green shag rug in ugly humiliation, promised myself and anyone who might be listening that I would never steal again, and went deep into self-loathing. What’s wrong with me? Why would I do such a thing. Quickly, I shifted to when is she going to tell me my punishment? Yell at me. Ground me. Do something.
I marched downstairs and took a seat in the dinette. Wearing an apron, she was cutting carrots into small pieces when I asked, “Aren’t you going to say something? Tell me how ashamed you are of me?”
Without looking up from her cutting board my mom said, “I assume that you’re already punishing yourself enough. There’s nothing for me to say.”
I was stunned. She was right. Giving me a punishment would have let me off the hook, changed the subject, allowed me to focus on the punishment instead of my crime. I went back up to my room and considered why I wanted so badly to get away with something. What was the feeling I was seeking? I didn’t know about dopamine but, apparently, that rush was very appealing. My very wise mother made me think and dwell on what I’d done. Her approach was so effective and made such an impression on me that I used it on my son that time he…… uhhhh, wait a minute,…that’s not my story to tell.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In This Story, we take off our clothes. 
I never saw either of my parents naked. Unusual? Probably not for that era. But did it sew the seeds of bodily shame for me? Perhaps. There’s a fine line between modesty and shame. Modesty, for my mom, was tied to virtue, morality. Good girls were never naked. Even the word naked made her squirm. So, imagine the awkward moment when they took me to see the play Hair when I was 15. At the end of the first act, the lights went out briefly and when they came back on, the actors were completely nude. On stage. Front and center for all to see. I thought my parents might pass out. I was tickled.
I never much liked my body… too pasty white…too chubby in the belly. The focus was on how we looked in clothing. Was the outfit (and I quote here) “flattering to the figure”? “Hold in your stomach”, my mother would say, which these days sounds more like “engage your core.” Ultimately, it was solid advice, but for all the wrong reasons.
In the 60’s and 70’s, at least in the circles in which I traveled, there was peer pressure to skinny dip, when the opportunity presented itself. While I certainly couldn’t refuse to participate and risk being called a prude, I wasn’t the least bit comfortable and ran into the lake as fast as I could, wishing I had at least two more arms to more fully hide my body. The first time, it was pitch dark out and I consoled myself that no one could see much. Years later, at a nude beach south of San Francisco, I had to talk myself into removing my swimsuit top. And, even then, I was mortified. It took far too many decades for me to feel good about my body – to appreciate its beauty without being disgusted by my pouchy belly, ashamed of the sagginess of my boobs. I never once had sexy tan lines like my flat stomached friends. They didn’t know how good they had it! How can we expect girls to love their bodies if we insist that they cover up, even at home? I don’t think I would even have been permitted to be in my own bedroom naked, alone. Of course, the thought never once occurred to me.
My granddaughter loves to be “nakie” as she calls it. At home, with the family, it’s fine. She’s learned that it’s not appropriate to take her clothes off at the park, even if it’s hot out and she happens to feel like it. As a result of this body positive approach, she loves her body. ‘Course she’s only 5. How long before she, too, becomes self-critical, before bad messaging seeps in to pollute her healthy self-image? Hopefully never, but at least she’s starting out shameless and that, my friend, can only be good.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In This Story, a glimpse at my idiosynchrocies. I’m Joanne Greene.
We all have idiosynchocies – things we do that are peculiar to us. My favorites, these days, are my morning rituals when, for starters, I’m thrilled to wake up Yes, of course, because I love life and am grateful to be alive once again. But, also, because I tend to torture myself in my dreams. Go figure. My lifelong anxiety is nearly gone from my waking hours but, at night, it percolates, poking at me with recurring themes. Last night, I was in endless lines, crowded spaces, and didn’t have the item I was in line to return. Often, it’s that I’ve overcommitted and then gotten distracted so that when it comes time to perform, I’m not prepared. The most frequent version is the dead air dream, unique to radio people. The song is ending, and I can’t reach the mic to start the newscast. I flip the mic switch to start speaking and I have no voice. While my dreams are challenging, I’m abundantly kind to myself upon waking up. First, I snuggle with Moxie, the goldendoodle and any other dog that happens to be visiting. Then, I might luxuriate in the hot tub, listening to the birds, inhaling the scent of jasmine, an embarrassment of riches.
And before you label me a hedonist, let me share that it’s taken me decades to indulge without guilt. Accomplish, produce, get stuff done. Those were my mantras. I’ve silenced the inner voice that said, “you don’t need a massage”; “you can get a new outfit if it’s on the sales rack” and “why do you indulge in Nespresso pods when you could easily just brew yourself a cup of coffee?”
Now…somewhat retired…and a survivor of loss, cancer, & being hit by a car, I’m giving in to pleasure. In the mornings, I try very hard not to rush. I make myself a very indulgent latte and get back in bed to do NY time crossword puzzles -wordle, connections and Spelling Bee. I share my scores with a couple of friends and text back and forth about whatever’s going on in our lives. I check my email, read a few articles, and maybe meditate before even contemplating the kind of exercise I’m going to get. The coffee is less an addiction than a ritual – a sweet, frothy, soothing balm that energizes me as I slowly ease into the day.
Mornings are glorious - filled with possibilities, a blank slate, moments of gratitude, …perhaps some writing and definitely a walk with the dog… Had anyone told me decades ago that this is how I’d be choosing to spend my time, I may not have believed them. But it’s sure working for me!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this Story, I Look At Contradictions.We’re lined up on the couch in a little row. Our micro-mini golden doodle granddog, curled up, eyes closed; our three-month old grandson fast asleep in his dock-a-tot; and me. We’re in Culver City, California, on a Thursday afternoon in June, in a friendly Los Angeles neighborhood, filled with retirees and young families, hipsters and screenwriters, dogs and more dogs. As I gaze out the front window, I see a large Palestinian flag waving in the breeze. It belongs to the Syrian man who owns Jackson’s Market and Café. I get it. He’s collecting funds for Gazans. My son asked how I feel about the flag.

I shrug.“And how would you feel if it was a MAGA flag?” he asks with a hint of a grin.“Worse,” I say.“Yeah, that would bother me far more,” he acknowledges.He and I are both solidly rooted in our Jewish identity…Jewish and liberal.In a city where it’s cool to be Jewish (so I’m told), stars of David are worn proudly and this merchant gets to freely fly the Palestinian flag. In my mind, supporting the Palestinian people does not equate to being anti-Semitic. I’m aware that not everyone agrees.

We live in strange times. Israelis, those with whom I relate, want the hostages returned and a new government put in place. The most right-wing members of Netanyahu’s inner circle threaten to leave the coalition if the war ends too soon, which will mean new elections and possible indictments for the prime minister. I know I’m not alone in my utter horror over what happened on October 7th, in my pride over the Israeli people’s response in caring for one another when the government and military were on a coffee break. I also know that despite the fact that Hamas was democratically elected and that most Palestinians poled supported the unprecedented barbaric invasion, no civilian population deserves to be bombed and starved. Of course, Hamas embedded itself in and above schools and hospitals. We know that. But there’s a lot more to know and far too few of those who protested in university encampments were able to identify which river and which sea they were chanting about. History isn’t monolithic or absolute and the Israeli narrative of what’s occurred over the past 75 years is quite different from the story a Palestinian will share. Yet both people lay claim to the land. And there have been decades of attempts at peace treaties, but it hasn’t been possible to make peace with an enemy that doesn’t recognize your statehood. And no more children, no more people, should be killed. All of it is true in my limited perspective.

Like so many other things we try to categorize and label, there are no absolutes. War is brutal and rarely leads to equitable outcomes. Violence and hatred are part of the human condition. Because I happen to be a Jewish American, I’m committed to the safety and self-determination of Israelis, my people. Because the man who owns the market and café is a Syrian American, he’s supporting Palestine.

And so, dog on leash, baby in stroller, I order a Fatoush salad at the Jackson Market, honoring the owner’s roots and mine. We can peacefully co-exist, at least here in Culver City, for the moment.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, I embrace aging.
We had just shared Muir Woods with our grandchildren, ages 3 and 5. They seemed to appreciate the silence of walking through the Cathedral Grove, the majesty of being surrounded by redwood trees many hundreds of years old. Walking to the parking lot, en route to the next activity, we passed an abandoned phone booth, stripped of all equipment, but still standing as though in tribute to another dimension.
“What’s that?” asked my granddaughter, and I promptly realized that I, too, was from another time.
“Years ago,” I began, “people didn’t have cell phones. If you wanted to make a call when you weren’t at home, you had to look around for one of these. Phone booths, they were called. Some had doors on them; others were open like this one. Then you had to have the right number of coins to insert in a slot so that you could make a phone call.”
I was pleased with myself for explaining the concept in so few words, but she looked right through me, as though I’d been speaking a foreign language. To her, I was.
She can’t imagine life without a smartphone, the internet, a microwave, and Alexa. Why would she?
It’s a slow descent that happens if you continue living. In fact, it’s probably happening to you right now, accelerating to the point where you might find yourself saying “When I was your age, I had to walk across the room to change the channel…..to one of the two other channels.”
One minute, you’re rolling your eyes at your parents’ habit of clipping coupons; next thing you know, your kid is dumping expired condiments that have been in your refrigerator for years. “You don’t have to be so frugal,” I told my mom when she couldn’t break her old habit of making do to avoid spending money because, heaven forbid, it might run out. Now, my son questions why we fly coach, check the sale rack first, and get so much pleasure from following American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.
Growing older, I’m beginning to understand, means being outraged at how much things cost nowadays, at being asked to give a 20% tip when you ordered your food at the counter, at being charged a convenience fee to order your ticket online when there’s no one in the box office to sell it to you any other way. To appear “with it”, we accept these changes as though they’re technological advances. How the hell am I supposed to remember every password? Have any idea where I parked my car in the garage that’s the size of six malls? Not wear the same thing to an event with the same group of people again and again? Either there’s an app for that or you just take a photo. I know; it’s easy.
“Count your blessings” seemed like the corniest possible phrase when my mother said it. Now, I realize how well it works to counter self-pity and keep you from falling into despair. I’m healthy. My husband’s healthy. Our kids and grandchildren are healthy. I am so grateful. Now wasn’t that easy?

In this story, I share a childhood fear that I outgrew.
Admittedly and with only minor apology do I share the truth that I’m obsessed with dogs. The apology is to those with whom I walk as the canine imperative forces me to stop and pet any pup in my path. I love almost every dog I meet and communicate with them in a way that makes me, dare I say, gifted? It IS a gift to be able to look into a doggie’s eyes and let him or her know that they’re safe with me, that I understand how hard it is to wait to be fed, to stare at the back door when you just have to pee, to have to be leashed, outdoors, like a wild animal. This makes it all the more difficult for those who know me, even for me, to understand that at one point in my way distant past, I was actually afraid of….cats.
I tried connecting in the way that I did with dogs, but they always walked away, unimpressed. Sometimes they hissed. Or swatted a paw at me. So rude. Two women – Ceil and Barbara, lived together across the street from us with their two cats: Penny and Kitty. – My mom said that Ceil and Barbara were old maids, like they didn’t luck out when husband shopping. I pointed out that they were a happy lesbian couple – it was obvious. They drove to their jobs at Polaroid together every morning and, in the evening, they called “Penny, Penny, Penny, Penny….here Penny, Penny, Penny” and “Kitty, Kitty, Kitty…… here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.” It was the soundtrack of my childhood, punctuated by an occasional piercing cat cry that left me glad there was a solid door keeping me safe inside and them outside in the dark. I’d be walking down the street to school and one of them would dart out from behind a bush, scaring the bejesus out of me. (I looked it up. It’s a word…Irish in origin…small J so I’m assuming not disrespectful….) For years I would cower if a cat was anywhere in the vicinity. Cower. It’s true.
And then there was that one long night the summer after I graduated from high school, when I might have ingested a hallucinogenic substance. After listening to Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd on some guy’s waterbed – he was elsewhere - I wandered up to the apartment roof to gaze at the stars. It was so peaceful, and I was perfectly relaxed, lying on my back, when seemingly out of nowhere a cat sauntered up to me. She walked toward me slowly, looked me right in the eye with what I interpreted as kindness, and lied down next to me. For the first time, I wasn’t afraid of a cat. It was like someone flipped a switch and we were two beings, basking together in the warm summer night under the stars. I gently pet her coat and she purred in bliss.
Was it a magical roof? Do I attribute the sudden cessation of my fear to the fact that it was 4am, that she was a particularly docile cat? Or should hallucinogenic substances be investigated as a tool for ridding people of phobias? I don’t know…nor really care. While for the decades since, I haven’t been drawn to felines the way some people are, I can’t say that I’ve ever felt afraid again. Except for that one time when I was bitten by an adolescent tiger in a Mexican zoo….but that’s a different story.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

On vacation, we travel for rest, relaxation & adventure. Other times, we brace ourselves and head out into a great unknown to bear witness, to expose ourselves to the horrors of history, to learn about people and actions that have impacted countless others, for generations, so we don’t let it happen again.
Visiting the Theresienstadt and Auschwitz concentration camps years ago was like that for me. Seeing where the horrors took place and hearing from people who lived it made history come alive in a very different way. Yes, it was painful, but unlike so many Jews, including my great uncles, I got to walk out and reboard the bus.
In many ways, my recent civil rights trip to Georgia and Alabama was like that. When you’re face to face with people who were there, on the very ground where atrocities were committed, you can’t pretend it didn’t happen. And knowing can lead to action.
As a child, outside of Boston in the early 1960’s, I heard about the civil rights movement. Of course, everyone is created equal, I thought, no matter their skin color. Why then could Hattie, our cleaning woman’s daughter, come and play at my house but I wasn’t allowed to visit her? If her neighborhood was dangerous, as my father warned, why did she live there?
The more I’ve learned about our country’s history, from slavery, through Jim Crow, the great migration, the fight for voting rights, police brutality to young black men, and mass incarceration, the more curious I’ve been to hear personal stories, especially from those who were on the front lines. As with Holocaust survivors, time is running out to hear first person testimonies from Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and from the park in Birmingham where vicious dogs and high-power water hoses were set on Black children.
Reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching films about the arc of African American history is powerful and, I believe, essential. To understand race relations in the U.S. requires an understanding of what’s taken place for hundreds of years and what is taking place today. But sitting with people – face to face – and hearing how their lives have been defined by the civil rights movement provides a deeper level of impact.
“I don’t know what it’s gonna take to make the world right. I do know that you should not be sitting, waiting for it to happen, for somebody else to do it.”
That’s the voice of Joanne Bland, a wise, passionate, straight talking, 70-year-old Black woman from Selma who vividly recalls staring into the window of the local drugstore where only the white kids could order sodas and sit at the counter. We met her in a large, dark space filled with artifacts and memorabilia from her life of activism. As a child, she told us, the women of her church were organizing to be able to vote in the upcoming elections. Then Reverend Martin Luther King Jr came to town and organized a Sunday protest march across the Edmond Pettus bridge. Joanne was 11 and she went with her then 15 year old sister, Lynda. When they came up over the high point on the bridge, they saw sheriff’s deputies, mounted on horseback, blocking their path. Within minutes, they were being chased and beaten. Lynda sustained serious head injuries but a few days later, stitched up and ready for more, Joanne’s sister went on to be the youngest person to march all the way from Selma to Montgomery.
Joanne Bland is among many featured in an excellent NPR podcast series entitled “White Lies” from which this audio was taken.
“When you talk about reconciliation, you have to talk about a way to distribute the power and nobody wants to give up any power. Any time there’s a minute shift in power, from the people who are holding the power, a battle ensues. I can give you a perfect example: the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Tell me one year it has not been under attack. C’mon, I’m listening. So, if voting’s not important, why would you try to keep it away from me and why would you try to stop people from voting after they get the right to vote if it wasn’t important?”
Joanne Bland co-founded the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma. Her sister Lynda Blackmon Lowery’s book “Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom – My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March” is appropriate for young readers and is available on Amazon. In Birmingham, Alabama, we had the privilege of spending an hour with the Bishop Calvin Wallace Woods Senior, perhaps the feistiest, most passionate 90 year old I’ll ever meet. He told us about the March on Washington in ’63, what it was like the day the 16th Street Baptist church was bombed and those four young girls were killed. Hearing his voice crack as he shared the pain he and others endured at the hands of Bull Connor, then commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, was so powerful.
“During the movement, the Lord brought different songs to us. Sometimes, we didn’t know what people were going to sing but he always taught us to join in with those songs of heaven that he gave us. And let’s begin with one we used to sing, “I ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around. I’m gonna keep on a walkin’, I’m gonna keep on a talkin’, marching up to freedom land.”
Our group of 26 was both white and Jewish and it was evident that each of us felt the pain and applauded the courage of these civil rights heroes. We returned to our homes, changed and resolved to do more, as the battle for voting rights continues. White Lies on NPR npr.org/whitelies
See the full video of Bishop Calvin Wallace Woods Snr. speaks to our Etgar 36 group at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yxAMUh4i6c
To purchase "Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March" on Amazon go to https://www.amazon.com/Turning-15-Road-Freedom-Voting-ebook/dp/B00KWG9J3Q/ref=sr_1_1?crid=L8MY8HX4IZ5V&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.6_xxEGWushkq6o17Ten5jyg9aPx4ziePIZ08MZ57Ajf1auRQ4oO5XHxHnlVrB9VU0XIxSC5pWQga-xRWxeBzoRaGAWGS2v6Mjabtk1VnEsgIBgJjA4r3yNKPUZnvlTJ0_8TWgm7IAuoeF-U0ILxeRuvePxpNVeBGxCkQzUn_lwuWV2mJOHdW3WLmiCgeQUNbdQ-P0yxel-b3AygRvCcsJAHGwSiwjU0y0MrHMd6U_8Q.N3FXXt_IdmUa21l_6ZfTMA-wu6qn8s4x804Q_ESqRdI&dib_tag=se&keywords=turning+15+on+the+road+to+freedom&qid=1714076701&sprefix=Turning+15%2Caps%2C202&sr=8-1

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, a nearly extinct private language. I’m Joanne Greene.
Every family has its special phrases. You know, the ones that crack you up while everyone outside of the immediate circle tilts their heads like a dog saying “huh”? 
Can you ever agree on whether it’s mischievous or mischeivious? (The former.) Is it “on accident” or “by accident”? Clearly, the latter.
In 2002, years before my sister Rayna was too sick to laugh, her husband created a lengthy document entitled The Joys of Raynglish, “the language of Rayna Gay Rosenzweig Rodvien.” 
To begin, everyone in Rayna’s life had a series of nicknames. Our mother, Irene, was also known as beans, ahrene, beans a roo, beans terrific, and of course ahrennee gabeenee. 
I was affectionately referred to as jo, Jo Mamma, josphesus , Mademoyzel, Josephine,  and simply, the plumber (with a Boston accent, plumah). (Some of you might remember Josephine the plumber.)
Phrases like “What’s your story, morning glory?” What’s your matter? And How are you this very morning?” were her frequent salutations.
If you were running late, and God help you, she’d say “Yo! Move it or lose it!” “We’re late, for a very important date!” “Get crackin’” or “Hoof it to poof it”
When her memory failed her in the moment, she’d refer to nouns as whootsa matootsies, thingamajiggy, whatchama call its, whoozie whatsits and the ever populular whatcha ma floozy.
Other notable Raynglish words and phrases: Correctamundo! Hold your pants! Whoop de do!” Don’t staht with me Busteroo!”, You ain’t whistling dixiola and Let’s blow this pop stand; we’re outa here.
And if you think I’m running out, perish the thought. From my big sister I learned 
“What part of the word NO don’t you understand?
“I’m not deaf, I’m just ignoring you”
And “Any port in a storm”…that one is so useful.
I miss all the Yiddish we used to share – chatchkees, fapootsed, shilpkes, ungapachkeyed, mishegass and Shayna panemal…madela, punim or tatela.  
Chocolate – milk, never dark – was Rayna’s love language. She proudly described herself as a tootsaholic – someone who would start popping tootsie rolls before 10am. Here motto: chocolate: It’s not just for breakfast anymore. Once her cancer was stage four, she’d order hot fudge sundaes as her main course for lunch. And heaven help the waiter who didn’t bring it with everyone else’s salad, or worse, tried to pass off chocolate syrup as hot fudge. 
Children were Rayna’s favorite people – Most were munchkins; all were cutesy tootsy.
And when her children mispronounced or misused a word, that’s it. It was now part of the lexicon. Thus, United Market became Mynited. Grandma Essie didn’t live in Miami; she lived in her ami. If more than one phone call came in for someone, they were POPLEAR. A homerun or extra credit was FABLEEOS.
So many words and phrases acquired their own suffixes. For instance, if someone said the word Life, Rayna would add “to life, to life, l’chayim!” If she heard someone referred to as rude, she’d respond by saying “rude, crude, and socially unacceptable.”  To “you got it”, she’d add “Totoya”… Progress would then necessitate her adding “is our most important product.” And “I don’t know” would elicit “That makes two of us.”
And finally, her verbal love language…
Topogeege….(you might remember the mouse on the Ed Sullivan show)
Mista Pista
Swootzie
And Tootsie me doots.

I’ve got places to go, people to see, she’d say…. F you and the horse you rode in on! And her signature display of gratitude, THANKING YOOM!
Thanks to Bob for gathering all of this and so much more in one place. Here’s hoping that your private language brings you joy.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

SCRIPT:
In June of 1990, in a Wellesley College commencement speech, former first lady Barbara Bush said, “At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend, or a parent.” I’ve held on to that piece of wisdom, knowing deep in my soul that what matters most to me is my relationships, how I give, receive, and grow as a person, not what I accomplish externally.
Recently, for my seventieth birthday, my children created a list of 70 tips for life that they’ve learned from me. What a gift. It’s my values, my truth, my quirks, and my legacy all in one document.
I’ve apparently shown them that being in nature, hiking and reading, dancing and celebrating, maintaining strong friendships, and showing up for people when they’re hurting or facing a challenge are key to a meaningful life. Keeping promises, maintaining open, welcoming arms to new family members, working on yourself at every stage of life, believing in magic and exploring spirituality in whatever way works for you are all things I strive to do, and it fills my heart that they noticed. Apparently, I taught them to try to be humble, to live life fully, to be generous, and know when to laugh at your own expense, to be a hugger, to never miss a chance at a sales rack, and to love every dog. (The canine imperative was repeated in various forms. I guess I really made the point.)
After continually overbooking yourself, they wrote, just learn to lay low. Go to the spa and get massages, invest in your own rejuvenation. Material things don’t bring happiness, spend your money on health and education, travel – there is so much to discover in the world, and always remember where you came from, honoring generations past by sharing their stories and traditions with the next generations. Never doubt the worth of a good therapist, never turn down the opportunity for adventure, be spontaneous, smile, and give, give, give. The best gift is a lasting memory, consume the news even though it’s painful, cherish and foster your community, they show up for you when you need them. Learn to cook healthy food to feed yourself and your family and to bring people together. Never miss a Stevie Wonder concert, check in on people regularly, try not to put a picture of a naked guy riding a bike as your social media cover photo, but if you accidentally do, as admittedly I did, know that you will never live it down.
To be a grandparent is to give, encourage your kids to actually take a break by being a genuine caregiver to your grandkids, be your grandchildren’s safe space and also their most fun playmate.
Do fashion shows of your latest purchases and dramatically explain the discount, pick a partner who makes you laugh and holds you when you cry, light the Shabbat candles, take a hot tub under a starry night sky, journal regularly, and understand the other side, regardless of the context.
Letting go, I believe and now they do too, is a lifelong process and age is only a number. Disabilities are nothing to be afraid of. Treat everyone with respect and love. That one just tells me that they were watching. And Be Extra. Life is too precious to play small.
If this is what I’ve shown them….if this is how I’m remembered…I’ve accomplished enough.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In This Story... I pack my suitcase.

You’d think the more one travels, the simpler it would be to pack. But packing defies logic. The litany of “what ifs” that inevitably course through my mind when staring at an empty suitcase seems to grow. Do I start with the shoes and work my up or pick a color palette? Who will I see on the trip and what will they be wearing? Will I encounter self-appointed fashion police, i.e. women who eye your outfit and promptly place you in a category. She shops at Marshall’s. That might be said about me.  I might want to look edgy but appropriate – funky, yet classy. Clothing should flatter one’s figure and must take age into consideration. No puffy sleeves, crop tops, or short skirts for me. Not anymore.  
Packing should be easier as dress codes have been replaced by the ubiquitous yoga pants and oversized sweater ….jeans with a solid colored top and a light jacket. But which jeans? And which yoga pants? And can jeans and yoga pants really take you anywhere in the country, much less the world, as long as you have the right shoes? I’m exhausted already.  
Let’s start with the givens, where I limit myself to a carry-on and maybean oversized purse-type thing for the flight. That is unless the trip is at least two weeks or involves multiple climates. Wear the clunkiest shoes – certainly boots if they’re coming on the trip –to conserve precious luggage space. Condense the toiletries when staying in hotels that likely offer free shampoo, conditioner, body lotion & a hair dryer. Fussy about your products? Then just bring enough for the trip. And remember your pills. That one is critical. Stuff happens so prepare for the unexpected and bring extras in case you’re snowed in, the flight gets cancelled, or, God forbid, you break a bone and end up in a hospital.
Essentials, these days, include charging devices, above all, an iPad, a Kindle, iphone and Apple watch. I mean, what if there’s a moment without entertainment or stimulation? I admit it, I’m hooked on the gear. ‘Course the most valuable function of my Apple watch is finding the iPhone that I misplace multiple times per day.  
At this very moment, I’m writing about packing instead of packing. We're leaving on another trip the day after tomorrow and once again I will obsess about outfits and weather and, above all shoes. Comfort must be the determining factor but we're going to LA where style matters. I'm 70 but I'm still very much alive. It shouldn't matter what I wear, right? But it does and I still have to deceide. Scratch that. I GET to decide. 

There must be an angel on my shoulder. How else can I account for the fact that

• a) My hair didn’t go up in flames the morning I lit the firepit with the gas up too high

• b) I wasn’t hit by the silent hybrid lexus on Birdie Drive while walking the dog

• c) I didn’t trip over the crack in the sidewalk while walking too fast after almost being hit by the hybrid Lexus

And then, of course, there are the other notable facts. I wasn’t killed in the accident...the colon cancer was only stage one...the lung resection showed no cancer at all. Some might say that I’ve been lucky. Others call me unlucky, to lose both parents and both siblings before reaching 60. But I choose, instead, in my wiser, more evolved moments, to focus on the fact that I had them in my life for as long as I did. Counting blessings can work when one is not depressed. I’m proof!

And that is why I’m not letting all of those pesky aging things get me down. Nope. Not me. Sure there’s a benign brain tumor that has to be checked each year; the TMJ disorder that makes me wear an ugly mouthguard and has me eating mush whenever it flares; there’s eczema in my ear; GERD & Barret’s Esophagus which requires daily medication and a periodic edoscopy; I had my cataracts removed and take eye vitamins twice daily to slow down the macular degeneration and then there’s oh so commonplace, wait, why did I walk into this room?. But all of this is manageable. Really manageable. In fact, there’s humor if you’re willing to go there.

I celebrated my 70th birthday with a gaggle of friends in Costa Rica, dear friends, friends who were always positive, never complaining, always on time, who stood up after falling saying “I’m fine!” (OKAY, I was one of those people. What’s a bruise anyway?) We hiked through rainforests and cloud forests, found the elusive sloth, the quetzel, a brightly colored tree frog, and even a taranchula with the help of Stiven, our exceptional guide,.We laughed hysterically as white faced capuchin monkeys hopped onto our table and stole the pineapple slices out of our pina coladas. We swam in the warmest Pacific ocean we’d ever encountered and zip lined in Monteverde, even taking on the Tarzan swing. If this is 70, I’m all in. And then….on the last day of the trip…Fred and I had the biggest thrill of all – the healthy birth of our grandson, Luca Samuel Greene.

So what do I think of aging? So far so good. Yes there are wrinkles and crepey skin, yes I need periodic naps and am told that I sometimes repeat myself. But, hey, I’m not going to stop pushing the envelope, taking reasonable risks, and surrounding myself with loving, authentic, smart, honest people because that’s what makes the journey rich and meaningful. ##
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Women on the radio receive letters from prisoners. It's a given. I only responded once and it was when I was contacted by Bill Harris, of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the small band of revolutionaries who had kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in 1974. Hear the full story of my experience with a man the FBI called one of the first terrorists to emerge from the American left.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

What does it mean to spread love everywhere you go, to make those who cross your path happier for having done so. Balancing open heartedness with cynicism can be tricky but in a world where hate pervades, we could a lot more love.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Many, if not most, of us love the beach. Some of the best memories of my childhood are of the timelessness, the smell of the ocean, the sound of the waves crashing, and the warmth of the sand and the air at Nantasket Beach, near Boston. Our childhood "happy places" are good to return to in our minds when we're feeling unhappy, unsaafe, or unmoored. Try it!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Often, we hold two truths simultaneously. It's a skill that humans develop, an art form for some of us. In this episode of "In This Story," Joanne Greene speaks about dualities - about the messages we tell ourselves and how we're always balancing an inclination toward goodness and getting away with something. Here's an example of a duality: religion is the source of much conflict; religion is also what helps people to forgive, self-reflect, and rise about our instinct to get revenge.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Some us have internal thermostats that reliably work. We overheat when everyone around us feels more. Some of us, though, women of a certain age, have heating and cooling systems with minds of their own. In this episode, Joanne speaks of the unspeakable...as least as far as her mother taught her. You don't discuss periods, or private parts, or anything to do with the reproductive system. You're probably not surprised that Joanne dismissed that instruction.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

The world of "What If?" is compelling and potentially dangerous. In this episode of "In This Story", Joanne explores the roads not traveled. What if she'd gone to Woodstock? Taken the job on Madison Avenue post college at the ad agency? Stayed with her first boyfriend in San Francisco? Had a third child? It's fun to imagine but, really, what's the point? After touring around in imaginary pasts, Joanne concludes that it makes more sense to consider the choices still available and to choose wisely.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Is home where you live now or where you grew up? Is it the home you created for your children or the home of your fantasies? Home might also be wherever you feel free enough to be your true self - could be surfing a wave, shopping at an outlet mall, or anywhere you can cuddle up with a good book. In this episode of "In This Story," Joanne shares what home means to her.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, sleep interruptus. I’m Joanne Greene.
When I opened my eyes, I noticed that I was in a very comfortable bed, my son’s bed, that is my son and his wife’s bed, the fourth bed I’d slept in that night. This nighttime bed hopping is part of my role as grandma. Yoyo, they call me. It’s a moniker first shared by my great nephew, now 25 years old. 
The night began with a reading of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, a classic story that teaches acceptance of differences, kindness, tolerance, and flexibility, with a healthy dose of humor. Axel was a very tired four-year old, after a day at the STEAM festival, operating a flight simulator, drilling with safety goggles, building a small wiggle bott, assembling a light switch, reading books at the library, and completing a transportation puzzle. I lied next to him in his bed until his steady breathing let me know that he was, in fact, asleep. Then I snuck out of the room for a break until I would be inevitably called to do the same with his older sister, Lisette, once her aunt said goodnight after listening to her read Shel Silverstein poems. Predictably, she requested that Yoyo come up and stay with her for a while.
After watching the final quarter in which the Warriors won their playoff game, I got into bed to read. Ten minutes later, I was fast asleep. And it’s a good thing because, an hour later, Axel arrived to join me in bed. He fell back to sleep; I did not. When Fred arrived, he was shocked to see a sleeping child and kindly agreed to carry him back up to his own bed. Finally, sleep returned for me. But not for long. When Lisette arrived and shook my arm, I startled. 
“Why do you always jump when I wake you up?” she asked. Apparently, her parents are so accustomed to being awakened this way that they just open their eyes. She crawled into bed between us but then reported that she felt squished. And so, I walked her back upstairs and, in hopes of returning to sleep as quickly as possible, I got into her bed. But she was coughing intermittently, and squirming around, and it was both too light in her room due to the projected stars on the walls and ceiling, and too warm for me. And so, when she calmed down enough for me to escape, I did.
Returning to my original bed felt great, until Fred started snoring, and then cracked his knuckles. I hate the sound of cracking knuckles. And then I felt sorry for myself, wanting only some peace and quiet. I tapped him on the arm and said that I was going up to our son’s room and hoped to sleep in. And, by that I meant that I’d like not to be disturbed, at least for the first morning shift.
About an hour later, I heard the pitter pat of little feet. The door to my son’s bedroom, my temporary sanctuary, was opened and closed. Loudly. Axel then went downstairs to sleep with Grandpa, after hearing why Yoyo wasn’t in the bed.
I awoke at 6:58am, which may sound early but, in fact, was a relatively civilized time to arise when in charge of the littles. I stumbled downstairs in search of coffee, a veritable lifeline, and began making their breakfasts. How is it that I love everything about this so much. I can sleep next week when we’re home. Or maybe even here tonight, when their parents will be the first line of defense. Sleep, for the most part, is overrated.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

At this horrific moment in Jewish history, I reflect on how this feels different, more personal. While my grandparents lived through pogroms and I lost family members in the Holocaust, the recent attack on Israel by Hamas and the response of much of the world feels threatening in a new way. I share feeling abandoned by the left with which I've identified due to the calous acceptance of the Hamas response to occupation.


Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

If life is a journey then at one time or another we each make a pilgrimage. It might be to an ancestral home or a religious site. It also might be the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in south western Uganda to see mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. In this episode of "In This Story", Joanne shares the tale of a pilgrimage that left her breathless and in tears.

- - Videos about this 2014 adventure - -
Chimpanzee Habituation Experience - Kibale, Uganda

https://youtu.be/3ApXf-oXGic?si=E12N6vYYE6bvfQLC
Trekking with Mountain Gorillas in Uganda
https://youtu.be/K1ZjcaXeJYM?si=UxFWZoUrRRmKvPDW
A Snapshot of the Abayudaya - The Jews of Uganda
https://youtu.be/hh_s3G5g0eI?si=HDMNugviP8zy4Hhh

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In This Story, I share the key ingredients for successfully relating to adult children.
When they were young, I was their manager.
Did you finish your homework?
Remember the “P” word, PLEASE.
You can’t have dessert if you don’t eat your dinner.
There are two choices – come to temple with us or we’ll drop you off at Grandma’s.
When they were teens, I fired myself as manager and took on the new role of consultant. This concept was from Michael Riera’s book, Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers.
Why do you think the teacher accused you of cheating? I’d be happy to help you set up a system for getting your applications done if you like. You seem a little down. Want to talk? It might make sense to get a jump on the competition by starting to look for a summer job before school lets out.
With adult children, it’s a very different ballgame. If they want your input or advice, they’ll ask for it. I know. The temptation to help your son or daughter avoid an emotional sinkhole, not to mention a car accident, is great. You’ve lived longer. You KNOW, from experience, that leaving a job before you’ve landed the next one is probably not the best idea, that something could go wrong if one leaves on a road trip in a blizzard, that someone who struggles with substance abuse probably shouldn’t date a person who smokes dope all day. But should you say something in any of these instances? Absolutely not. Why? Because you will not get the desired result. Instead, bite the inside of your cheek. Make a quick detour to the bathroom before you open your mouth. Pull out your phone and do Wordle, for God’s sake, but do not give your adult child more motivation to make a bad decision. We only learn from our own mistakes and even our children are entitled to make theirs.
You’re happily married, and you want the same for them. Great. Don’t tell them. Asking if there’s someone special that they’re dating is invasive. They’ll share if, and when, they’re good and ready. Thinking of offering a little advice on how to put the baby go to sleep? Don’t do it. Whatever you learned thirty years ago is out of date. There’s a maximum of two people who get a vote on how the child is reared and you’re not one of them.
Should you jump in to clean up their messes? No freakin’ way. You shouldn’t be serving them every meal and cleaning up after adult children who visit nor should you be finding an attorney, a mechanic, or a therapist for your adult child, unless he or she asks for your help.
Key to having a strong and satisfying relationship with adult children is remembering that they are adults. Yes, they’re still your children, and they may even behave like children, but your job in molding them is over. Now, it’s about respecting their choices, or pretending to. You are no longer their most important person, and you shouldn’t be, so don’t make them choose between you and their partner, lover, or even their friend. When visiting, keep your stuff in one place, be as helpful as you can, leave the room if you sense tension that doesn’t involve you , and don’t overstay your welcome.
I’m sure I blow it at least once during each visit with my adult children but I’m trying. I’m listening when they tell me that I shouldn’t try to influence the outcome or expect that they’re going to call me as often as I would like. Of course, I think about them more than they think about me. I’m way more interested in their day, their job, their relationships, than they are in mine. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Above all, and I can say this with certainty, keeping my suggestions, opinions, and judgements to myself is paying dividends.
Don’t believe me? Good luck!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In This Story, I Revisit the School Lunch of my childhood. I’m Joanne Greene
The bell rings and there’s a mad dash for the classroom door.
“Slow down!” the teacher implores, whichever teacher of whatever grade I happened to be in. The boys are pushing and shoving, and we make faces at them as we run to the cafeteria to compete for the best spot in line.
The acrid smell of heated, canned green beans blends with pungent steam from the hotdogs. If it’s Friday, you can count on fish sticks with tartar sauce (had to rock the Boston accent there) and mashed p’daydas as the server called them. Unsmiling workers in white uniforms and hairnets slop goopy, wet blobs of food onto a pile of peach plastic plates. All I ever get is milk, essential, we’ve been told, for growing children at every meal, a small carton of which costs three subsidized cents.
A full lunch costs a quarter. Sounds like a deal, right? But my mother either didn’t think so or didn’t trust what they might serve. Sometimes it was Turkey Fricassee, in salty, creamy white sauce, with carrots and peas for color on white rice. It might be American chop suey, elbow macaroni with ground hamburger meat and chunks of canned tomatoes. There’s parmesan cheese that smells so bad I could puke. But, even so, I envy the kids whose parents let them buy lunch – the kids whose moms work or sleep in, who think twenty-five cents is a good price for a hot meal, who can’t be bothered chopping up tiny pieces of celery to add crunch and a vegetable to the tuna fish sandwich I will trade for bologna, if someone is willing. I love sandwich meats which Mom says aren’t meat. She also said McDonald’s can’t possibly be selling real hamburgers for fifteen cents each. It must be horsemeat. My lunches come in brown bags and do not include baggies filled with Fritos or little surprises. At Passover, it’s the worst. A smelly hard-boiled egg, celery with peanut butter, an apple, and dry matzah. Just because the Jews were slaves in Egypt, why do I have to be tortured? School lunches always come with dessert, which are often little pieces of cake, sometimes with chocolate frosting. Trading my lunch for bologna and mustard makes me feel just a tiny bit guilty, so I eat at least part of the Macintosh apple (Mom thinks fruit is a dessert and also an apple a day keeps the doctor away) and vow not to trade away my other sandwiches – the ones with Skippy peanut butter and Welches grape jelly on Wonder Bread, which builds healthy bodies twelve ways, but sticks in my teeth and makes me thirsty.
We shove some food in our mouths while discussing the latest Beatles album, who has a crush on the cute boy in class this week, and how Miss Mellus, the math teacher, has legs that look just like piano legs. For real. Then, somehow, before we get to the really juicy stuff, it’s time to bus our trays, toss our garbage, and head back to class.

excerpts from "It Happens Every Noon - School Lunch in the 1960s" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxcGWOWYw6M

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, I light candles. I’m Joanne Greene.
There are candles and then there are candles.
I suppose it would work to light a candle for light with a lighter, say in a blackout. But a candle lit for romance…or to remember a lost loved one…or on Friday night to punctuate the week and usher in the Sabbath….Well, those candles require a match.
The striking of a match is the start of the ritual. I rip the match from its little book and position it with certainty, optimistic that my first strike will be a winner. If it isn’t, there’s generally another match and the knowledge that it was probably moisture, or a life lived too long in the junk drawer that caused it to fail. When it works, it’s an old familiar scraping sound followed by a tiny burst of flame – the promise of connection to come. I turn the match slightly so that the flame won’t extinguish prematurely and then wait for the zing, when the fire’s been transferred from cardboard to rope and the relief that this one took. And, then perhaps my favorite moment, I or someone in the room being honored, maybe a child or a visitor, blows out the match. I bring the match to my nose and inhale the sulpher. It’s an ancient deep in my soul memory of earth and life itself, a harbinger of timelessness, of the paise between words, between doing and being. It brings on Shabbat, a break in the action, permission to check out, to breathe, to drink wine, to let go of obligation and performance. “A palace in time,” said Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in which all is suspended. It’s a gift we’re too distracted and caught up with ourselves to unwrap.
Lighting candles is the start. I usher in the quiet, the warmth, the memory, the pause with three strokes of my hands, ceremonially drawing in the light. Everything is different once the candles are lit. But, just in case, we take a few more moments to sip some wine, think about creation, and express gratitude for bread – a true partnership between what we’ve been given and what we can create. On a perfect Friday night, there’s honest conversation, reflection, laughter, and connection. There’s food and more wine and far too infrequently an awareness of separation from the mundane or unholy from the sacred. And that’s just the weekly candle lighting. There are others.
There’s a yahrzeit or memorial candle that I light on the anniversary of a family member’s death. Four times a year I strike that particular match and say a prayer, often pulling out a letter or a pair of socks, a photo, or his silly Hawaiian shirt…to surround myself with the closest bit of essence I can find. I inhale and try to summon in a piece of presence, a whiff of what once lived, a hint of what I miss.
Not all candle lighting is sacred. Sometimes, it’s just to set the frame, establishing a mood for doing yoga, of calming down for the night, or elevating a particular dinner with special ambiance. In those cases, any match will do. I may not even take time for a sniff once the match is blown out. It’s not the act, I guess, but the intention. We imbue our actions with meaning and lighting candles has the potential to transform.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

They must have loved their tea.
They probably couldn’t risk life without it. What if the new world didn’t have samovars? Their heavy, brass samovar, or self-brewer as it translates, is Russian tea kettle that was used by everyone from royalty to the peasant class in the 18th and 19th centuries. And not just in Russia. My maternal grandparents shlepped this bulky item, engraved with Russian writing that I can’t decipher, across the sea, when they emigrated from a village outside of Kiev in the Ukraine to Ellis Island and then on to Providence, Rhode Island in the first decade of the twentieth century. One can only assume that making and drinking tea was too much a part of daily life to leave to chance. What if there were no tea making devices in America? How would they make it through the day? I get it. That first cup of coffee in the morning is like air to me. And I’m fussy. Each time we travel, I consider packing my Nespresso Virtuo machine along with the milk frother. But since I try my best not to check luggage, I leave my coffee to chance.
Imagine what it meant to board a ship for the chance at building a brighter future. Sure, they’d survived the pogroms, where vicious mobs of Russian soldiers came barreling through on horseback, burning Jewish homes and raping women. But it was economic opportunity that drew my ancestors to pack up and leave. My grandfather and his two brothers were all kosher butchers, and they couldn’t all make a living in their little village. In Providence, Rhode Island, America, they’d heard, there were enough hungry Jews to support three kosher butchers. And, sure enough, all three opened butcher shops and each made a decent living.
The samovar was a fixture in my home growing up. We never actually used it; it was more of a yiddishe objet d’art. A modern American family of the fifties and then sixties, we used tea bags – such a luxury - from Swee-Touch-Nee. When the big black tin of tea bags with the gold lettering was finally emptied, my mom used it as a sugar container. She was practical. Tea was a drink for when our tummies were upset. Instant Maxwell House –decaf Sanka later in the day – were the adult beverages of choice in our home. The percolator was brought out for company, along with the matching sugar and creamer dispensers.
My grandparents’ samovar holds a place of honor in our home, more than one hundred years after and thousands of miles from where it arrived on American soil. The question remains, where will it find its next home?

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

The moments before, during, and after a baby is born are as holy as the moments leading up to and immediately following death. There’s a hush, a stillness, a suspension, or alteration, of time. If you’re lucky enough to be present, you might tune in to this sacred liminal space – a precarious precipice on the threshold of life.
Late one afternoon in 2013, I got the call that told me my beloved Aunt Dora had been rushed to the hospital after gracefully collapsing over a display of fresh peaches she was feeling for optimal ripeness in the local market. Without thinking, I booked a flight to Boston – my hometown - where she, two sons, and one granddaughter were living. At one hundred one and a half – yes, those six months matter – Dora was living alone in her stunning Chestnut Hill apartment, unassisted, still visiting museums and attending luncheons with friends. She was my mother’s older sister -formidable, self-assured, refined, well-spoken, the consummate lady.
My cousin Herb, still practicing law well into his eighties, graciously offered to host me during my stay. When we got to the Beth Israel Hospital, we found Dora lying in bed, asleep or unconscious, hooked up to assorted medical equipment. Her French manicure was flawless.
Dora’s other son, Staff, a retired cardiologist known to all at the hospital, shared that the stroke had removed her ability to speak or to swallow, that they were monitoring her heart and giving her IV fluids.
As she’d always recovered in the past, from two cancers and so much more, there was hope, if not an unstated assumption, that this would be no different. But I, the youngest cousin by a mile, who had recently been present at the deaths of my mother, my sister, and my brother, understood that this was, in fact, the end.
Over the next few days, I sat with Dora, telling her about each member of her family and how well they were doing. I felt my mother and sister on either side of me as I sang to her in Hebrew and vowed always to be close to Kathryn, her beloved granddaughter. I spoke about her grandsons, each successful men, happily married and fathers to two children each. And in quiet moments, when I was the only other person in the room, I told her that it was okay to let go…that everyone would be fine…that her work here was done…and that my mom and sister would welcome her with open arms.
Did she hear any of what I said? Perhaps. On a late afternoon when both her sons were at her bedside, her breathing changed. Staff came out into the hall to tell Kathryn and me that the end was drawing near.
“Is there something Jewish that you can do or say?” he asked me, knowing that I was comfortable leading Jewish rituals. Deeply honored, I took a deep breath and sat on the edge of my aunt’s bed…the aunt who bought 8 year-old me white leather gloves on a trip to Italy, who gave me sterling silver serving pieces that I keep wrapped in saran wrap and never remember to use, who told me stories of her childhood that I made into a book for her ninety-fifth birthday. I held her hand, looked deeply into her sky-blue eyes and sang the Shema. And, peacefully, after a life well-lived, she stopped breathing.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this Story, poetry saved my sanity.
Some, I suppose, might find comfort in simple, repetitive tasks. While entering the results of French fry surveys, into a database back in 1975, for instance, I may have allowed my mind to wander playfully through verdant landscapes. I may have quietly hummed show tunes or made up stories in my head about the other recent college grads who’d taken a temp job at the American Potato Company while sending out resumes in hopes of landing that first, amazing opportunity that would both utilize my talents and give me unlimited growth potential.
Instead, I did something I’d never done before or since. I wrote poetry.
Perkin’s Beef and Ale House sells french-fries
It’s not a surprise
Slingback calculators beat time on the clock
That announces our break from backspace, idle talk 3M, I be M, and she is one too?
Across the divider without city view.
Twin Peaks in the closet for buds and home fries
Umbrellas & briefcases, Xeroxed 9 to 5s.
11:17 on Tuesday. Wow, I remembered.
On day two, it occurred to me that I was not cut out for the corporate world.
Click, ditty, click
Padded footsteps unheard
While chamomile thoughts blow air conditioned smoke I astrally travel through frozen statistics Soft brown body
Owls and Monkeys
Writing genuine copy
White bathroom
Sedan
Six hours – no stab in my folders piled high Run on broadloom does not sooth my neck. High class slavery on the 46th floor.
And an hour later, this tumbled out of my IBM Selectric typewriter in Courier typeface.
Brass Rails in the market dole out quality fruit
Some frozen, prepared, dry and frenchy, to boot
The approximate price, brand, size, syle and type
Oh tell me, great secretary in the sky,
“Do you have automatic lifts on your deep-fat fryers?”
Finally…there was the poem that captured my percolating hysteria
No longer can I take it, take it, fake it, fake it, fake it
I don’t wanna peer and sneak over my carpeted divider
I am achy in the neck and back and sick of margin, tab, and back (space)
A yoga stretch, my journal calls. I’ve paced all up and down the halls.
The Girls Room sterile, scrubbed and clean, is boring just as this machine
Thank God it’s almost 4:15, but shit tomorrow’s Wednesday.
And then, as one would, I lit a cigarette and wondered what it would take to correct-type myself right out of there, onto a waterbed.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or her website at https://joanne-greene.com to see if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. Make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

"In this story, I pay tribute to my Dad. I’m Joanne Greene.
Let’s travel back to April 16th, 1981. In celebration of our great new ratings, the KFRC air staff, of which I was a part, and the radio station’s top sponsors, were flown to Las Vegas in a private jet for a one-night, blow-out party. Had I known that it was my Dad’s last day, I would have passed on the the jumbo shrimp, the open bar, and the exclusive performance by Mac Davis. Who the hell was Mac Davis? Country music was never my jam.
It was just another day in the life my dad had been living since I was six years old when he was hospitalized for ten days to determine the cause of his partial paralysis and cognitive and emotional decline. If he had a brain tumor, they might be able to remove it. In one test, the pneumoencephalogram, not performed since the late 1970’s, a lumbar puncture drained most of his cerebrospinal fluid and replaced it with oxygen and helium to allow radiologists to see his brain more clearly on an x-ray. The test was extremely painful and often resulted in severe headaches and vomiting long after the procedure. The tests proved nothing, and he continued to live with the diagnosis “degenerative neurological disorder.”
Our home was filled with palpable anxiety. What if he couldn’t work? How would we survive much less pay for college? Mom did the books for the window cleaning business he purchased from his father.
Popsie, as I called him in my preteen years, left the house at 5am to wash the windows of stores before they opened, stopping for coffee and a donut with the cops on the beat. Those cops got bottles of booze from my Dad at Christmastime and, somehow, our car with the license plate 39187 never got a parking ticket. One day he found a small faux silver bracelet with a little dangling heart charm in the gutter on Beacon Street and brought it home for me, his Valentine baby. That bracelet means as much to me as his hundred-year-old violin.
My father had been a concert violinist as a young adult but gave up his dream to help clean windows after my grandfather suffered a stroke. I never heard him play, just watched him cry each time he heard the sound of a violin. My dad loved classical music, betting on horse races, Tabasco sauce, baked Alaska and the Jackie Gleason show.
I wish that I had spent that last night telling him I would have loved to have known him in his prime. How I would have gone to the track with him, that we would have sat together on the banks of the Charles River enthralled by the Boston Pops at the esplanade. That even though we never discussed it, I knew deep inside that my wild appreciation of nature and music, of spicy food and humor, that my feeling too much and having to hide the emotional waves that crashed unexpectedly, that my love of dogs and Judaism, of children and fried food all came from him and that I treasure all of it. I would have thanked my father for being there – even in a compromised state- for the first 26 years of my life and I would let him know that I will proudly uphold his traditions and pass them on to our descendants because that twinkle in his eye, that mischievous lopsided grin, the crazy nicknames and made up songs, that loving so hard that it hurts, are deeply precious gifts that must be shared.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, I consider the Fairy tales. I’m Joanne Greene.
I never quite saw myself as a princess. If I squinted enough, I might see myself in Orphan Annie – that orphanage looked like a blast. And I had a thing for Shirley Temple, with her cute little dances and conversations with grown men, though I definitely didn’t envy her curls. And then there was Dorothy. Yes, I would be Dorothy especially if I could carry Toto or, really, any dog in a wicker basket and travel around with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man. Organizing three friendly but needy men and helping them get their shit straight. Yup, that’d be a job for me.
Fairy tales never quite connected. Take Humpty Dumpty, for instance. Why was a fragile, pale faced, underdressed, egg sitting way high up on a wall? To give the king’s men and even their horses a good laugh when they found him crumpled into a million pieces on the ground? Not funny. No inspiration.
And take Little Miss Muffet. Have you ever sat on a tuffet? As a young kid I thought it was made-up word because nothing else rhymed with Muffet, but in fact it’s a small grassy mound or clump of grass. Precisely the kind of place where you’d find an insect or an arachnid. And a picnic of curds and whey? Really? Disgusting! And this was before refrigeration, much less the little pre-packaged, hermetically sealed containers that lunch parts for kids come in today. Mainly, though, who sits outside on the ground in a forest when they’re afraid of spiders? It’s asking for trouble. Miss Muffet should have read Charlotte’s Web like I did. Then, she’d love spiders.
Now, who could relate to Cinderella? A victim with unrealistic fantasies, that’s who. Yes, I empathized with the part about missing out, again and again, as the youngest member of the family. But Cindy, get a little self-respect. Poor me, mopping the floors. My stepsisters are so mean. Why do they get all the fun? Self-pity, my friend, will get you nowhere. Dream on about your magical prince…like some man who hasn’t done a day of work in his life is going to save you from your pathetic little life. Grow a spine. Go on strike. Get back at your sisters. Do something other than whine and feel sorry for yourself. Snap out of it!
And, finally, there’s the Gingerbread Man. Who, in their right mind, would tell this story to a child? The woman bakes the gingerbread man and when she takes him out of the oven, he’s alive. And pissed. He runs for his life – faster than the woman, and the man who starts to chase him from the garden, and the pig and the cow and the horse, all of whom want to eat him and can’t catch up. So he comes to the river and, since he doesn’t know how to swim (what gingerbread man would?) he hitches a ride on the back of a fox because, right, they’re notoriously trustworthy. When the fox tells him his back is aching and he should move up to his nose, the gingerbread man does and the fox promptly eats him. The moral of the story? Eventually, something’s going to get you but if you like running, go for it.

In this story, there’s more than one Boston accent. I’m Joanne Greene.
For many, if not most of you, the words “merry”, “marry” and “Mary” are all pronounced the same way. Merry, merry, merry. But for me, born and raised just outside of Boston, they are three distinct words…Listen closely.
“Merry” is generally associated with Christmas, as in MERRY Christmas.
“Marry” is what happens at a wedding. She will MARRY her partner.
And “Mary” is a name. Mary J Blige…Mary Oliver…Mary Quite Contrary.
There’s nothing that gives me the heeby jeebies more than someone trying and failing to deliver an authentic Boston accent. And people do it all the time, in person and – worse – in movies.
Insert example of bad Boston accent
It’s a litmus test. Actors can master a British accent, a southern drawl, or Brooklyn speak with minimal effort but the real sound of any number of Boston accents must be and rarely is right on the money. Either the person is from Boston, has at least lived in Boston, or they haven’t. Case closed. Mark Wahlberg , Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, …..these actors can pull it off, precisely because they were, at one pivotal, formative time in their lives, proper Bostonians.
Boston accents can be funny…or erudite…They can make one sound as dumb as rocks or as smaaaht as a very smaaat Hahvad educated cah.
Insert excerpt of Smaht Cah commercial
The subtleties are worth noting. 
Take the word horse, for example, HORSE.
It’s “HAHSS”, if you come from, say, most of Boston proper
In Southie, South Boston to the uninitiated, it might sound more like “HAWSS”
Where I grew up, in Brookline, the mounted police (mounties, of course) rode a “HOOAS”.
One common thread in all Boston accents is the dropping of the “r” sound…but don’t get too carried away with this rule as Bostonians also add an “r” sound, when it’s not there, to separate two vowels. For instance, “Rayna and Bob” in a standard American accent becomes “RayneranBob” in the mouth of a Bostonian. The nuances abound, which is why the accent is so tough to get right.
When I first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and applied for an on-air job in radio, I was told that I had to lose the regionalism. What regionalism I questioned? Californians often mistook me for a New Yorker, but I assured them that what they were picking up was East Coast, possibly Jewish, energy and speech patterns. I went to a voice coach and worked on it, which is why I eventually did get hired to speak on the radio and why, today, only the most sophisticated accent detectors can pin me down as a gal from Brookline. 
I share all of this in the hopes of saving you the trouble, and avoiding the inevitable humiliation, of trying & failing to imitate a Boston accent. Maybe, just maybe, you can say “pahk the cah in Hahvad yad” but that’s it. Promise? 

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online or retail book seller. Joanne may be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, or your book club, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Most of us fall into the category of either farmer types or hunter gatherers. Farmers can think long term, they plan and then they wait. Not me. With relatively quick reaction time and a short attention span, I’m better suited to have been a hunter gatherer. As a woman living in the latter part of the 20th century, I found writing 5-minute newscasts and 60 second radio features to be a good career fit. It’s also why it’s hard for me to believe that over the past many years, with the help of writing coaches and editors, I’ve written and published a full-length book. Crazy.
By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go tells the story of how it took getting hit by a car, enduring a major hurricane, and surviving cancer for me to learn how to slow down and trust that it was okay to relinquish control. Control, I learned, is a seductive illusion, that people don’t like me because of how much I accomplish. I came to understand that while optimism has its limits, gratitude does not. You can feel through your grief and anger, and even feel sorry for yourself, as long as you keep moving forward. One foot in front of the other.
Everyone’s parent or grandparent had sayings that they’d repeat ad nauseum. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” was one that I particularly hated. It’s also fueled my recovery time and again. “Count your blessings” may win the best advice award; It’s certainly the cheapest, safest, most accessible antidote to self-pity I’ve ever encountered. And “this too shall pass”, if you really consider it, is a reminder that whatever pain you’re suffering, be it physical or emotional, is temporary. Unless of course it’s not.
What enabled me to embark upon, and ultimately complete, a long-term project? I moved beyond the perceived need to get whatever it was done, as soon as possible. I acknowledged that while I’d been paid to write things for decades, I knew virtually nothing about writing a memoir. So, I found experts to enlist and invested time and money in my own growth. And then I stuck with it. When Brooke Warner of She Writes Press told me that she’d publish my book if I agreed to hire a developmental editor, then a copy editor, and finally a proof-reader, I said “Absolutely.” All of that made my book better and now, years later, I’m proud of the work. How does it feel to have spilled my guts and shared my most vulnerable moments in both print and an audiobook? It’s a question I’m choosing not to ask myself.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is available for pre-order from your favorite online book seller. Release date is June 20, 2023. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is available for pre-order from your favorite online book seller. Release date is June 20, 2023. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

The Smell of Brut
Just a brief whiff of his neck, a tiny sniff of that soft pink skin laced with perfect platinum peach fuzz, launched a reverberating chain reaction of unprecedented sensation, an orchestra of strings swelling, chills rippling up my arms and down my legs. Is this normal? Is it merely a scent that’s hurled me into an alternate universe? Rendered me helpless, a mass of quivering flesh, on the precipice of out of control, at the mercy of who knows what? What’s happening to me? This is way more than what I felt at age ten in the Coolidge Corner movie theater watching “A Hard Day’s Night” when Paul – he who needs no last name - looked directly at me. I loved the Beatles, but Paul had stolen my heart. How in the world could his grin, the way he cocked his head to the left, make my stomach flip upside down in a way that was so much better than any roller coaster or when someone ran their nails up and down my back?
But this, these electrocuted nerve endings, this sudden I don’t know who or what I am, and I don’t care, as though someone changed the channel, took over my mind and body all at once, replaced it with what can only be described as temporary euphoria. Meadows filled with bright yellow flowers, swaying in a warm breeze. Technicolor rainbows and a million shooting stars, sunlight glinting on freshly fallen snow. How could a fragrance, an odor, a simple smell trigger such a phenomenon? Pipe down, Shakespeare. It’s just a product, for God’s sake, a liquid formula created in a laboratory and mass marketed to men and boys everywhere. Is it possible that it only has this reaction on me? Could this unique mix of chemicals somehow be awakening hidden sensory receptors in my body alone? Or perhaps I’ve discovered something. They’d have to redo their ad campaigns. But if it could do this for others, how could they sell this in stores? Its power is too great. And, if they did, how could anyone afford to buy it? No price would be too high.
And yet they named it. After a savagely violent person or animal. Yes, that’s what had me in its grip. Something fierce. Uncontrolled. Primitive. Uncivilized. Just one word. One word, minus the final letter. The culprit was BRUT.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is available for pre-order from your favorite online book seller. Release date is June 20, 2023. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, I consider An Apple Watch…. What is this tendency I have to say “I don’t need that….I’m fine with the way things are” I don’t need to redo the carpets….buy a fancy car….order what I really want on the menu. Do I even know if I’d like a spiffy car? An expensive entrée? New carpets. Instead, I’ll make do. A $30 analog watch is fine. I buy my clothes at Marshall’s or Nordstrom Rack. And then I’ll tell anyone who will listen about the bargain I got. This is not cute. Or admirable. But it’s an old trope that I can’t seem to shed. I feel like a charicature of myself sometimes. Like the Jewish mother who says, “Don’t Worry, I’ll sit in the dark.” Why can’t I shop retail? Just slide that credit card across the counter and think nothing of it. Why must I compare a menu’s prices – and, admit it, Joanne, the calorie count – when deciding what to order? Cutting meat and chicken out of my diet has made things easier. Now it’s just fish or vegetarian. Less time with the menu. Some of this is a holdover from teenage eating disorders. Some of it is that age old mentality of scarcity. What if I lose my job? What if the money runs out? What if I place more importance on possessions than on experiences? As though buying one cashmere sweater will send me down a slippery slope of chronic indulgence, conspicuous consumption, where I’m inches away from becoming shallow, materialistic and, God forbid, vain. For years I’ve said, “I like shopping at the discount stores. It’s my version of hunting where no one gets hurt.” I pick through the racks, in search of the prize – but like with a box of Cracker Jacks, the prize is generally a letdown. Don’t buy it because of the percentage markdown, I tell myself. It’ll sit in the drawer or the closet like so many shirts before it. Better, I say, to find something you love….Something that makes you feel beautiful –– maybe even sexy….. for an older woman. For years I’ve said the Apple watch is not for me. Why do I need it? I asked. My phone and my watch together do all the same things. But lately, I started to wonder. Why not? More convenience. More security (I do misplace my phone at least 5 times a day) and functionality that I’ll probably become hooked on within a matter of weeks? Tonight, when we go out to dinner, I’m going to intentionally splurge just to see how it feels. On the dollar amount of my entrée? On a second glass of wine? On dessert? (Probably not…) Any, and all of these are fine. This is the mantra now. My mom never ate dessert until she turned 90. After that, she said, who cares? Imagine what might have been if she’d started eating dessert in her sixties? I think its time to find out. PS. At dinner, I had a cup of vegetable soup, a Caesar salad and a glass of seltzer…with lime. Epic fail.