2022: The People and Moments I Choose to Remember

Shayna in Kitchen
Shayna, my sweet companion

Welcome to 2023! I hope you had a great New Year’s Eve. I did. I spent it, and the two weeks before it, at home in the Poconos, writing, with Shayna by my side. (See photo) Then again, that has become our default mode ever since March 2020.

Shayna and I spent the many months of the quarantine, right here, in this house, about two and a half hours from Philadelphia, and a world away. I’m not sure how long we remained isolated. Time became so amorphous that I’m still shocked that March 2020 is almost three years ago.

During our pandemic seclusion, I spent hours trying to imagine what the future might hold. I’m not sure what Shayna dreamed about, perhaps city squirrels teasing her from low branches just beyond her highest leap. On my part, I struggled to dream up feasible solutions for the increasingly dangerous world beyond our mailbox. That lead to me writing up a storm, channeling my dark reflections about the world “out there” into my new novel-in-progress. But when I tired of traveling down the twisting corridors of hate politics, racism, antisemitism, and such, I imagined what I’d want my personal life to be beyond the pandemic. That’s when I pictured hugging loved ones, long lunches and meandering conversations with friends, and tapping into a wider world of creative thinking and writing and being. (And that, too, was channeled into my novel.)

At some point in the portion of the time continuum that is behind us, I started to see some family and friends, even though I was worried that both Shayna and I might have become a bit feral during our long isolation. It may have been in early 2022, or a few months before that. Forget about traditional new years’ celebrations; I felt like I had awakened to a new world with such wondrous creatures in it. [Apologies to Huxley.]

Then, little by little, I started to reach for the creatively energizing life I had imagined. One of my first “outside” excursions was to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. With its high ceilings and large rooms, I felt as safe as I would in one of the empty fields in Fairmont Park. I basked in the warm auras of old friends (like Van Gogh and Rembrandt and Brancusi) all of whom had new things to tell me. How I’d missed our intimate friendship and the stream of feelings and ideas that they inspire in me.

Going further afield, I braved participating in Worldcon, ICFA, and Philcon this year, and what a joy it was to once again share the fellowship of such creative communities. On a smaller, more intimate scale, I participated once again in events at The Rosenbach, Philadelphia’s famed rare book library, and one of my favorite gathering places in the city. (After all, how could I not enjoy being with people who love books as much as I do?) This summer, I attended a “Behind the Bookcase” tour during which Judy Guston, the Rosenbach’s curator and senior director of collections, showed participants (and allowed us to touch!) some of the library’s incunabula (books printed within 50 years of the introduction of the Guttenberg printing press). My essay about that evening, Judaic Incunabula: An Evening’s Encounter With Survivors From My Distant Past, is HERE, on the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent’s website.

Maggie & Shayna - "cousin dogs"
“Cousin dogs” Maggie & Shayna

Two other Rosenbach highlights of my year were when they asked me to be the “interlocutor” for a couple of “In Conversation” programs with authors Samuel R. Delany and Stephanie Feldman. Talk about creative stimulation! As a result, Galactic Philadelphia (the author reading series Lawrence Schoen and I curate) will have its first salon since the pandemic started, and I’m delighted that it will be at The Rosenbach on January 18th.

But when I look back on 2022, it’s the people who shine in my memory. Just being with my sister Amy, talking about everything and anything over a long lunch. Laughing with Lee (my sister by marriage) over Shayna and Maggie’s antics. (See photo). Getting together with a group of Philadelphia writers at Little Pete’s “diner,” talking about writing and concerts and people we’ve known. Visiting my niece Elizabeth and her family, learning so much from my young great-nephews Nate and Evan, and then having Evan come visit me for a weekend in Philly, where Shayna won out over all the animals in the Zoo in his estimation.

No, I still haven’t had my fill of hugs. And I fear that I may have to keep my distance once again if the current spike in infections continues. In the meantime, just being near the people I love has made me realize how much I depend on a physical presence that no digital screen will ever be able to replicate, and not even Shayna can replace. I believe that human connection, that awareness of each other even when we can’t touch, is one ingredient we’ll need if we’re ever going to come up with feasible solutions to the dangers that threaten our country and our world.

Discovering Myself in Arcane Talmudic Arguments

Bookcase of Jewish books

I subscribe to a number of email lists whose content challenge my mind and set me thinking in directions I might never have traveled without their stimulation. For instance, I enjoy receiving twice weekly emails of Maria Popova’s The Marginalian (formerly called BrainPickings) essays for their poetic and insightful curation of the writings of great thinkers, writers and artists.

I initially subscribed to MyJewishLearning‘s daily Talmudic interpretations as part of my research for a current work-in-progress, a new novel (Women of a New Moon). As a secular Jew, I’ve never really studied Torah or Talmud or any of the sacred texts beyond the cursory attention I gave to lessons at Sunday school. (Nor do I remember much Hebrew from then.) But I find myself intrigued by these emails, not necessarily for the Talmudic interpretations (which I often find irrelevant and boring). but more for the thought processes behind them. Those processes — the instinct to question and probe rather than just accept whatever is stated — is key to what I cherish about my Jewish heritage, and what has defined my life of intellectual and creative restlessness.Read More

My Day of Awe: Dressing the Torah for the High Holy Days

Torah scroll open on a golden background

All my life, the turning of the year has seemed to be something that would sneak up on me. Existing outside of everyday, it was beyond the reality that shaped my life, a pause imposed on the “real” world. One day I’d be playing with other kids on the jungle gym, or studying for an exam, or working on a story deadline. Then suddenly, the new year would appear on the calendar, and the clock reset to the beginning. Incrementally, life changed over time, almost unnoticed, unmarked except by momentous highlights: weddings and births, bar/bat mitzvahs and anniversaries, deadlines and book launches, and deaths.

This year is different.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holy Days, time seems to be slowing down, giving me the luxury to wonder and wander, touching places in my mind and heart that I haven’t visited before.

That isn’t to say that deadlines aren’t looming, laying on the pressure professionally. Nor is the world any less hectic or demanding. But something in me was broken this past year of isolation and fear. Broken then healed, broken and healed… over and over again. In some ways, I feel like a piece of Kintsugi, a Japanese work of art created by using gold dust to rejoin the pieces of something that’s been damaged, creating beauty out of pain. But instead of gold, it’s light and lightness that is shining through the cracks in my universe. Shining on the stories within me, because stories are the gold, the light that keeps me together, and creates a new me with each character born and plot woven.Read More

Welcome to the (soon to be) New Roaring Twenties

Flapper dancing at 1920s party100 years ago, the world erupted into the mayhem and creative verve of The Roaring Twenties. Given the popularity of gangster and jazz movies, we’re all familiar with the frenzied world of 1920s wild parties and speakeasies. Liberated from the horrors of World War I and the terror of the Spanish flu pandemic, the world went crazy. The sexually charged sights and sounds of what F. Scott Fitzgerald called ‘The Jazz Age” were emblematic of a sense of pure abandon. Social relationships, personal constructs, public behavior and political philosophy became fair game, as people broke through at traditional boundaries and constraints.

The 1920s were also a time of great art adventures and experimentation that altered the nature of creativity not just Read More

Renewing My Creativity with a Little Help from My Friends: Van Gogh, Cezanne, Bob Dylan… and You

Please click this image to read the full newsletter.

I was very gratified how many folks sent me emails and notes in response to my most recent newsletter, in which I invited people to share what inspires their creativity. I’m reprinting the cover letter below and providing a link to the full newsletter (please click the image to the left), in the hopes that even more of you will share the experiences that helped you “reach deeper and wider” within yourself.

“A couple of weeks ago, I spent Wednesday evening wandering around the Philadelphia Museum of Art with a new friend, sharing some of our favorite works of art as a way to get to know each other. So we visited a few of my old “pals” — Cezanne’s Bathers, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Duchamp’s Nude Descending Staircase, the chapel-like room of Brancusi’s sculptures, and other works of art that are my current points of reference. These are among the artists whose pieces I visit when I need to be pulled outside myself, to find new paths into my own creativity.

“I crave the fellowship of artists, writers and all kinds of creative thinkers, the many who came before, as well as those who “walk” beside me. I need them almost as much as I need air and water and chocolate. Read More

The Creative Magic of a Darkened Theater

"Girl from the North Country" at the Belasco Theater, New YO
Girl from the North Country at the Belasco Theater, New York City

Is it un-American of me to admit that spectator sports leave me cold? Sure, I can get a contact high from my young nephews’ excitement when one of their heroes sinks a perfect 3 point shot into the basket. And I used to enjoy sitting with my father while he watched an intense rally between tennis champions. But that has more to do with being with the people I love when they’re happy. 

Intellectually, I can appreciate athletic virtuoso performances. It’s impressive how a well-trained mind can control every muscle, every fractional movement, how those powerful (and beautiful) bodies can do things I couldn’t even dream of achieving. However, for me, passively sitting on my duff, watching baseball, basketball, football or any similar game can be as boring as watching the minute hand on an analog clock ticking away the hours. I’d much rather be doing something… well, almost anything else. That applies not only to watching sports on TV, but also attending sporting events in person.

And yet, sports fans would probably be just as bored by one of my favorite pastimes: sitting quietly in a darkened concert hall or theater. The difference is that nothing within me is engaged by sports. On the other hand, a great play or fine piece of music fills my mind, awakens all my senses and sends my thoughts and emotions on unexpected journeys. In that darkness, fed by the creativity of others, ideas and words percolate out of me, often Read More

Thank you Toni Morrison… and Trapeta B. Mayson

Trapeta B. Mayson, Philadelphia's Poet Laureate, speaking about Toni Morrison at The Rosenbach
Trapeta B. Mayson
This past Tuesday, I attended my first Rosenbach lunchtime talk. The Rosenbach museum and library is one of Pennsylvania’s hidden treasures, though it is open to the public and is now affiliated with the Free Library of Philadelphia. The elegant Delancey Street double townhouse contains a remarkable collection of rare books and documents originally assembled by the Rosenbach brothers, famous dealers in books, manuscripts and art. It’s also the site of frequent public discussions, readings and lectures that fill the intimate rooms with interested and interesting people from near and far – such as the monthly lunchtime talks. I didn’t know what to expect, except that the topic was one of my favorite authors – Toni Morrison – and the speaker would be Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate Trapeta B. Mayson. I was sure that it would be a hour well spent. Besides, I needed to get away from my writing for a bit. I’d been struggling with the first draft of my new novel’s second chapter, and the more I fought the words – the more I wrote, edited and deleted – the more frustrated (and, yes, self-doubting) I was becoming. Perhaps, I had finally bitten off more than I could chew with this ambitious project. "I never asked Tolstoy to write for me." Toni Morrison Throughout the hour, Trapeta interspersed Morrison quotes and her own poems, a weave of words and ideas that illuminated the ideas she shared, until they shimmered with energy and life that could not be denied. She spokeRead More

Living the Creative Life: Embracing Reciprocity Failure

On the razor-edged border between the possible and the impossible, creativity flourishes.

When I was a young photographer, I enjoyed experimenting with reciprocity failure.

While it may sound like a philosophical or psychological concept, reciprocity failure relates to the chemical limitations of film. Back in the 20th century, photographers quickly learned that each type of color film (known as its emulsion) was rated for certain light parameters. Push an emulsion beyond its rating by using a longer than acceptable shutter speed (to capture a picture in low light situations), and you’d end up with false colors. Those were the barriers inherent in the technology that pro photographers just didn’t overstep.

But… well… I never did color within the lines.

When I toyed with reciprocity failure, I purposely pushed beyond what was “correct” to seek new creative visions. I remember one moonless night Read More

Gesundheit! Catching & Spreading the Creativity Bug

 

My most recent newsletter opens up a discussion about how creativity is contagious. It leaps easily from one person to the next, generating a feedback loop, as well as flows over from one area of our lives to another.

Please read the letter, then respond here on this blog or via email, sharing similar experiences that you’ve had. Once creativity is part of a single aspect of your life does it infect everything else, inspiring you to try novel solutions, or to attempt something that you might not have previously considered possible? What circumstance or person has caused you to catch a particularly fervent case of the creativity bug?

Also in this newsletter are links to an essay about how my photography and writing inform each other, a video and other information about my American Hands portrait project, and an invitation to do guest blogs/essays on this website.

What Photography Has Taught Me About Writing… and Vice Versa

Behind the Veil by Sally Wiener Grotta
Behind the Veil by Sally Wiener Grotta

I am often asked what I mean when I say that my photography and writing inform each other. Photography, storytelling, and, yes, life… it’s all about what we see, how we convey it to others and whether we can make it meaningful.

When I look at the world through the lens of my camera, I see so much more. My field of vision might be more limited, but everything becomes more focused, limned with greater clarity of shadows and light. Life resolves into aesthetic patterns and colors, giving definition and meaning, and making the ordinary everyday more noteworthy and memorable.

It’s as though my lens has the magic ability to see through to the essentials of a moment or of a personality, to tell me a story that I might have missed if it weren’t for my camera’s eye view.

I often think about my photography when I’m writing… visualizing what I want my readers to see, focusing my words as I would my camera lens. To go even further,Read More