In the late spring of 1989, on a Friday night at a trendy restaurant in downtown Toronto, I stood up (with several drinks in me) and announced to a gathering of girlfriends that I wanted to become an actor. For context, I was there celebrating my upcoming nuptials, and, no, I’d never recited a line of dialogue or stood on a stage in my life. My admission was spontaneous and...
Six months ago I started this blog. The inspiration came in the days following a friend’s death and a profound moment I witnessed when her 89-year-old mother pointed out that her dying body did not define her; that her spirit was ageless. It was one of those life-lesson movie moments that rarely come around. A moment so timely and exact that it caused me to stop and acknowledge the low-boil...
When I was 22 I won the lottery. Not the California Power Ball or Mega Millions, but the U.S. Green Card Lottery, circa 1989, awarded by the State Department to 50,000 American wannabes from around the globe in an effort to promote diversity amongst its immigrants. My fiancé at the time (a very white Canadian man) had thrown his name into the hat, and when we arrived home from our...
I’ve been thinking a lot about my twenties. In particular, the drama. All those insatiable and untamable emotions hovering just beneath my skin, instantly accessible at the slightest provocation. Emotions that fueled over-the-top meltdowns filled with gut-wrenching pain and minute-long rants strung together with ingenious expletives. The meltdowns, in turn, producing crying so intense that my abs hurt for the next three days and I was forced to wear sunglasses...
The first time that I ever lied about my age was a couple of years ago. Up until that point–excluding my underage attempts to get into R-rated movies and be served alcoholic beverages– I’d been truthful about my years. The indiscretion in question happened when at my writing group. By the way, I love my writing group. I’ve been in this one, the Tuesday nighters, for about five years. The...
I love my first cup of coffee in the morning. I love it like I love my children—deeply and completely. Brewed in a French press, I drink it black, 190 degrees, from a white porcelain mug that I’ve had forever. I drink it in the dark, or the pre-dawn shadows, or at daybreak (depending on the time of year) quietly sipping my sacred java while contemplating the day ahead, grateful...
I lost a friend of almost 30 years just a few weeks ago. She suffered from Crohn’s disease her entire adult life, and cancer these last seven years. She was a fighter in all respects, and one of those people who told doctors just how things were going to go down. When hospitalized 18 months ago from a complication we all thought would end her life, she repeatedly told her...
There’s so much noise around turning 50. Does one deny being a half-century old? Embrace the achievement? Fight like the devil to turn back the clock? Without question, this age instigates a new chapter with bigger stakes and a growing sense of urgency. Given our youth-obsessed culture and my own compulsion to stay young, I wondered how honestly I could write about this milestone. Fifty on Fifty is my experiment.
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