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Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 6, 20243 min read
Aging Isn't What You Expect: Everyday Magic, Day 1,113
"How are we? How do we think we are? We are just waiting to die," Nanny (my grandmother) would tell me when I asked how she and Papa (my...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Apr 30, 20244 min read
Five Years Later: A Cancer Story: Everyday Magic, Day 1098
"It's either an ocular melanoma or a brain tumor," the doctor told me five years ago. Ken, my brother Ravi, and I all gasped in unison....
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 29, 20233 min read
The Older I Get, the More I Flirt With Dogs: Everyday Magic, Day 1087
I don't mean this metaphorically. I flirt with real dogs everywhere who, as I mosey on toward my mid-60s, turn out to be so much better...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Aug 17, 20232 min read
Things Come in Waves: Everyday Magic, Day 1086
The weather, for instance: it’s everything lovely at once, then the opposite. I know yet again after looking at the forecast for highs in...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 4, 20224 min read
For the Love of Aunt Jill: Everyday Magic, Day 1072
“I’m not going to leave a message,” my sister Lauren said when she left a message Friday. I was standing in the corner of an ebullient...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 24, 20212 min read
On the Edge of the Holidays: Everyday Magic, Day 1043
There’s something both stark and magical about the time right before the holiday season opens wide and emcompasses us in a whole lot of...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Sep 11, 20215 min read
9/11 From the Vantage Point of a Subway Dweller: Everyday Magic, Day 1058
Twenty years ago it happened. Ten years ago I wrote this post. So much of it is still true, and there’s so much more to say about the...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Aug 15, 20213 min read
When Everything’s Coming Up Roses: Everyday Magic, Day 1044
Kansas roses struggle once summer gets its heat on, but I have found a land where everything is coming up roses: the Pacific Northwest....
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jun 25, 20213 min read
Loving Aunt Rhoda: Everyday Magic, Day 1039
All my life, I heard the old folk song “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” as “Go Tell Aunt Rhoda,” and since I had an Aunt Rhoda, this seemed very...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
May 30, 20214 min read
Loving Aunt Wilma: Everyday Magic, Day 1038
Sunday evening, we sat on our back deck around an outdoor table and a wedding gift from Aunt Wilma and Uncle Ron 36-plus years ago, a...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jan 31, 20192 min read
There But for Grace: Everyday Magic, Day 963
Eighteen years ago, we almost lost our youngest son Forest in a car accident involving black ice, three kids and me in a van, and the...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 18, 20182 min read
Alice: Praising My Mother-in-Law: Everyday Magic, Day 957
After crowd-sourcing some of the details for this poem from her children (including my husband), here’s what I wrote for the woman who...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jan 8, 20182 min read
I Had No Idea! — Some of What Being a Mother Showed Me: Everyday Magic, Day 924
I had no idea how how much unconditional love I was capable, and before becoming a mother, I only had a glance of this light I’ve now...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 18, 20173 min read
In Gratitude for Neil: Everyday Magic, Day 917
We sat at a small table in La Prima Tassa on a spring day filtering sunshine across our table, sipping tea and updating each other on our...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 3, 20174 min read
Loving Uncle Ron: Everyday Magic, Day 914
It started with gerunds, a grammatical term for verbs that end in “ing.” To write directly and precisely, writers are supposed to avoid...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jul 1, 20173 min read
The Everyday Miracle of Rainbows: Everyday Magic, Day 904
Why I didn’t see a rainbow until I was 12 was because I wasn’t looking, not having imagined rainbows were possible in real life. Growing...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
May 14, 20174 min read
Mothering Hacks Picked Up Along the Way: Everyday Magic, Day 898
We were exhausted and exuberant when we brought Daniel home from the hospital intensive care following some complications in his birthing...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Mar 3, 20172 min read
The Patron Saint of Just-Being Returns the Music: Everyday Magic, Day 892
In the two-plus years since our dear friend Jerry died, I’ve occasionally resumed my search for my Ipod mini, a little music player I...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 26, 20162 min read
The Day After Christmas: Everyday Magic, Day 883
The day after Christmas is a clearing and arrival at once on the other side of what too often has felt like a great divide for me (check...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 3, 20161 min read
Birthdays, Graduations and Charmed Lives: Everyday Magic, Day 880
I’ve come across this bracelet before, like a treasure lost in a pond that comes ashore haphazardly, and put it away again as a relic of...