New York Woman
“I had a presumption: intelligent people do not fall for this stuff. Only desperate slobs of small means and low birth invest any faith in psychic power. Only stalwart relics of the Age of Aquarius—the people who still serve big bowls of tofu to guests—are into the tarot. And only people who are pathetically fatalistic pay rapt attention to the transits of the planets. I was, to put it mildly, very skeptical of the whole shooting match.”
Read MoreMademoiselle
“Being in love meant making a weekend pilgrimage. Sometimes he flew down to see me. More often—especially in the warm months—I left the steaming streets of New York City and headed for the cool brick sidewalks of Portland, Maine. After a year of flying back and forth, and a few thousand dollars spent between us on phone calls and plane fare, he decided to do what he’d been fantasizing about for ten years—and what I’d been hoping he’d do—take on the big city. From the start of our relationship, we’d always talked about living in the same city. We assumed that such proximity would solve all our problems, that everything that disturbed us about our relationship could be attributed to distance. That there were problems no related to our three-hour commute didn’t cross our minds.”
Read MoreMademoiselle
“In the old days, like last year, I would have known exactly what to do. I would have called him in a week to tell him what a pleasant time I’d had, and without hesitation, I would have asked him to join me at a movie or a play or a party or some other event. I would have expected him to be tickled. Now I’m not so sure.”
Read MoreChild
“‘My love for Zoe and Robin has a physical, tangible quality that grounds me. Their existence makes me feel connected to my mate, to the rest of the world, to the past and the future; it has nothing to do with who they are or what they do. This feeling hit me like a ton of bricks the minute I saw Zoe and has never gone away. It’s with me all the time, like some secret good news.’ These sentiments came to me last night by fax, a midnight gift from a Philadelphia friend. I had another opener ready, but I pressed the delete button on my computer and sent it reeling into oblivion. Unconditional love ought to be this simple, this instinctual, I think—a present bestowed at birth, with no dangerous pieces to swallow. Quite the opposite is often true.”
Read MoreLos Angeles Times Magazine
“Joan has never been a hesitant shopper. Everything she chooses is the biggest, and with good reason: She and her husband, Tino, have 13 children, nine of whom live at home. Out of mammoth cardboard cartons, she plucks heavy packages as if they were weightless. Although she is only 5 foot 1, she seems to have the strength of 10, the kind of muscle that comes not from Nautilus equipment, but from lifting toddlers and infants, often simultaneously, for years.”
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