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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
Nov 20, 20244 min read
The Unbearable Vulnerability of Now: Everyday Magic, Day 1,112
Just about everyone I know is carrying a backpack full of anxiety, dread, despair, or anger, sometimes weighing into terror or rage. We...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 10, 20242 min read
"Seeing in the Dark": Everyday Magic, Day 1,111
On Friday night, I shared this poem at Shabbat services at my synagogue. As I read it, I remembered how, when I wrote this some years...

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Oct 6, 20243 min read
"I'm Trying Not To Be Such a Maniac": Everyday Magic, Day 1,016
That's what I say to my friend Joy on the phone while we each surveyed our overflowing calendars for open spaces to meet. Over the last...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Aug 14, 20244 min read
The Land is Still the Land: Everyday Magic, Day 1,103
Last week, we signed a pile of papers -- the last of three closings to save the land where we live. The first closing -- Dec. 15, 2020 --...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
May 26, 20244 min read
Where's Beauty?: Everyday Magic, Day 1099
I've increasingly realized how I'm on the lookout for beauty most of the time -- the gaze of my dog Moxie when she raises her head from a...


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
Apr 15, 20246 min read
In Love and Sorrow For Goddard College: Everyday Magic, Day 1097
Right before I was hired to teach at Goddard College in 1996, the then-president, who many believed was set to shut down the college,...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Mar 14, 20243 min read
Birds! Music! And Why is Everyone Yelling at Me?: Everyday Magic, Day 1095
I finally got hearing aids after several years of Ken and my kids repeating things to me loudly and often with a...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 19, 20237 min read
How to Build a Life: Everyday Magic, Day 1089
How to build a life is really up to the person living that life, but after carrying this topic around in my head for a while, I realized...

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
Jan 21, 20233 min read
Defining Moments in the Dark: Everyday Magic, Day 1075
I was fifteen years ago and miserable when I first went to a youth group Havdalah service one winter evening. I was living with my very...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jan 8, 20232 min read
Juxtapositions Make Life Interesting: Everyday Magic, Day 1074
Juxtapositions — putting like with non-like — add zip, surprise, sometimes anxiety, and often uncertainty to our lives. They’re also at...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 12, 20223 min read
Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?: Everyday Magic, Day 1070
Time continually befuddles me, so much so that my last book of poetry was called How Time Moves, and I’m still deep in the muck of...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Aug 23, 20222 min read
Reversal of Fortune and the Wonder Wheel of Life: Everyday Magic, Day 1065
In mid-July, everything fell apart from air-conditioners to phones to cars and more. A growing river of money and time surged out to...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jul 20, 20222 min read
We’re Positively (or Negatively) Electrical: Everyday Magic, Day 1063
Yesterday my phone blew a microchip hissy fit and lost it ability to dial out or answer calls a few hours before the air-conditioning in...

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Mar 7, 20223 min read
What’s Wrong With Humans (and Some Birds): Everyday Magic, Day 1052
An hour ago, a mourning dove crashed so hard against our living room window that Ken and I both jumped. The dove attacked his reflection...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Oct 4, 20211 min read
The Changing of the Light: Everyday Magic, Day 1059
Beyond the lower temperatures and chigger count, there’s something else that truly distinguishes this time of year: the changing of the...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jan 24, 20213 min read
The Ones Who Don’t Go Forth With Us: Everyday Magic, Day 1026
For many of us, it’s been a Wednesday onward of seemingly infinite relief as we’ve watched a new president and glass-ceiling-breaking...


Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 31, 20204 min read
What is a Bad Year? What is a Good Year? Everyday Magic, Day 1024
A friend told me that during her Christmas Zoom with family scattered far and wide, she realized how lucky they were: no one had Covid,...