From my retirement diary   Once a week, we deliver meals to the elderly who are homebound. My husband drives, and I knock on doors and wait for the person on the other side to shuffle their way to the door. Some let me in, and we talk for a few minutes. Others open a narrow […]

A few minutes into the journey when the train makes a sharp turn and enters the mountain ravine, I am ready. My face pressed to the window, I follow the brook running from one side of the tracks to the other. Maybe, this time, I will see them. Emek Refaim. The valley of the giants. […]

Ever since I read Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar as a young child, I have always found the idea of long train travel appealing. I was drawn in by the relatively slow opening up of new vistas, as well as the option to stroll the train and sleep in a sleeping compartment. The only […]

I stand by my parents’ graves, as I do every year around the week of Hanukkah. It is a cool winter day; the skies are grey except for a pink cloud hanging on the horizon beyond the two cedar trees that were planted next to the graves twenty years ago. The trees are slightly crooked […]

At the age of 73, after much resistance, my father finally decided to retire. He tried everything to keep his job as a school principal, including a four-year assignment in South America. Finally, he succumbed to the understanding that he needed to accept his fate. I’ve followed him as he transitioned through several phases of […]

Just put one foot in front of the other and don’t worry about the length of the path. Martina Navratilova   On Saturday, October 15th, we finished packing and, with our loaded cars, drove away from our motel for the last time. This is now the date I look upon as the start of my […]