♦ Cleaning my desk ♦ Checking Facebook ♦ Ordering stuff ♦ Editing other people’s writing ♦ Signing up for Obamacare ♦ Giving writing advice . . . Marion Roach Smith, the master memoirist, teacher, and mentor, kindly invited me to contribute to Writing Lessons, her series of writing advice columns. Check out the post here and then… Continue reading Things That Are Easier Than Writing
Author: Kate Cohen
Letter from Santa
Lena wanted me to send this photo to Santa to let him know that she received his letter and was honored to fulfill his request. Also, she would be happy to help him again in the future. Below you will find Santa′s letter, which Lena discovered on a box in her room when we returned… Continue reading Letter from Santa
Rites of Passage
A little over thirteen years ago, my first child was born. We named him Noah Cohen-Greenberg, which maybe could have sounded more Jewish if we’d tried harder (middle name “Moses”?), but maybe not. Shortly thereafter, he was circumcised in the hospital by a sardonic Korean obstetrician. If you are Jewish, you may have already read… Continue reading Rites of Passage
Missing the Magic
She asked again yesterday, when we came home from “The Magic of Christmas,” the Albany Symphony Orchestra’s annual spectacle of red, white, and sparkly. “Why can’t we do Christmas?” Lena’s my third child, but strangely the first to ask. My eldest accepted our Santa-lessness as a given, the way eldest children do; he wanted to… Continue reading Missing the Magic
The Perfect Biscuit
I have been learning to bake biscuits for years. And from the first, mediocre batch, those biscuits have made my children happy. They are not picky children, and they are not fools: biscuits are warm, salty, and full of fat, and you can even add butter before that first eager bite. What’s not to like?… Continue reading The Perfect Biscuit
A Thanksgiving Paradox
Two ways to enjoy this light Thanksgiving dish, which aired yesterday on WAMC’s The Roundtable: read it below or listen to it here. ♦ ♦ ♦ It’s the week before Thanksgiving, and I am in heaven. More specifically I am in the Food Lion in Harrisonburg, Virginia, examining a truly pathetic produce aisle. Seriously, you call these brussels… Continue reading A Thanksgiving Paradox
Five Things I Learned When I Started to Take Piano Lessons at Age 40
It’s OK to Be Bad at Something. I stink at playing the piano. I can give you reasons: I’m new to it; I’m too old to be new; I have these tiny useless pinkies that . . . Whatever. The reasons don’t change the fact that I stink, and I don’t like to stink. I… Continue reading Five Things I Learned When I Started to Take Piano Lessons at Age 40
An Ode to Creamed Spinach
The words “creamed spinach” do not, I have been informed, elicit the same emotions in every reader. No words do, I suppose, but “warm chocolate cake” probably come pretty close. The Adkins adherent may feel fear and the diabetic a pang of melancholy, but these barely register compared to the collective mouth-water of desire that… Continue reading An Ode to Creamed Spinach
Spoiler Alert
This is the piece I read last night for one of the Bookmarks series of readings at The Arts Center of the Capital Region. The theme: Family at the Holidays. The reading was curated by the magnificent Marion Roach Smith, and it was a blast. ♦ ♦ ♦ A few days after Christmas, we were in line… Continue reading Spoiler Alert
Timing Chain
Do you ever forget how old your children are? Last night, returning from four days in New York City, I was greeted by a Lena much older than the one I had in my head. I picked her up, she wrapped her lanky legs around me, and I tried to squeeze THIS Lena, Lena-almost-eight, into… Continue reading Timing Chain