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Back to the Pool, Whining All the Way: Everyday Magic, Day 837
I wanted to go. I didn’t want to go. I figured I might, but probably wouldn’t, yet just in case, I tossed the bathing suit and towel in...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Feb 1, 20152 min read


Celebrate This Kansas on Happy Kansas Day: Everyday Magic, Day 836
Celebrate this sky, this land beyond measured time that tilts the seasonal light. Dream the return of the stars, the searing rise of...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jan 29, 20151 min read


In Praise of Tea: Everyday Magic, Day 835
By the time my grandfather was gone, and I was scrambling through the thorny brush of my teen years, it was my own cup of tea. Tea with...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jan 27, 20152 min read


Getting Some New Blood In My Life: Everyday Magic, Day 834
I feel as if I just returned from a trip that entailed sheer cliffs, hair-pin turns, long treks through the desert without enough water,...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Jan 19, 20153 min read


What Is a Year?: Everyday Magic, Day 833
If 2014 was a mouse, I’d let my cats kill it, and then I would, like I do with all their usual triumphs, pick it up by the tip of its...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 31, 20143 min read


Making Peace with Christmas: Everyday Magic, Day 832
Growing up Jewish, I remember cleaning my closet on Christmas, passing the day feeling left out of the party, and of course, going out...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 24, 20143 min read


The Things of a Life: Everyday Magic, Day 831
One of the photos his daughters found The shortest day of the year included taking apart, packing, hauling away and other redistributing...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 21, 20143 min read


A Little More Light, Please, Oh, Hanukkah: Everyday Magic, Day 830
The nights get longer, snow I seem to have gotten through the day of constant crying, followed by the day of crazy anger, all punctuated...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 17, 20141 min read


Jerry: Everyday Magic, Day 829
Jerry with me shortly after I finished chemo in 2002 When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, I discovered what many already know...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 14, 20144 min read


Carry On, My Wayward Son (and Daughter): Everyday Magic, Day 828
Kansas was singing “Carry On, My Wayward Son” with all their heart on my car radio as I stood outside the car, having accidentally locked...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 12, 20142 min read


“Listen, This Day is MAGIC,” She Said: Everyday Magic, Day 827
“Listen, this day is MAGIC and I’m not kidding,” Kelley Hunt wrote today on Facebook, and I knew at once the truth of such moments. It...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 3, 20142 min read


Why It’s Better to Talk to Yourself Than to Listen to the Common Thinking of the Day: Everyday
“They told us that in the 90s that thousands of professors would be retiring, so anthropology would be a good field,” Ken told me the...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Dec 1, 20144 min read


What Can a White Person Do?: Everyday Magic, Day 825
Ferguson, Missouri is about a four-hour drive east of where I live, and yet it seems a world apart. In my town, which is far more white,...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 26, 20144 min read


The Astonishing Beauty of the Last Drop of Autumn: Everyday Magic, Day 824
There's something about this afternoon: the autumn colors still brilliant, maybe even more brilliant than usual against the backdrop of...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 10, 20142 min read


The Tender Side of Loss: Everyday Magic, Day 824
Ken in the deep woods In the past two weeks, the Royals lost the World Series, my favored candidate for governor (when the stakes were...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 7, 20142 min read


Kansas, I Love You, But Your Broke My Heart Again: Everyday Magic, Day 823
Last night’s election sent me to bed with a tremor of despair and a dull ache in my head and heart. Once again, the people of my beloved...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Nov 5, 20143 min read


A Moment of Stillness in Grief: Everyday Magic, Day 822
It has been a week for the record books in my life. Monday, my aunt, who I loved but barely saw in the last four decades, died after a...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Oct 25, 20142 min read


Loving Rachel Rolfs: Everyday Magic, Day 821
Rachel, her brother Micah and mom LaVetta in 1983 This was a girl who grew up in the background, preferring to help others shine and...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Oct 22, 20142 min read


No More Waiting on Weight-Loss: Everyday Magic, Day 820
“Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?” William Stafford asks in one of my poems, and for me, when it comes to...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Oct 4, 20142 min read


The Storm Before the Storm, and the Actual Storm: Everyday Magic, Day 819
There’s nothing like listening to Wagner while lightning illuminates a vast, dark grey monster you’re driving right into at highway...
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Oct 2, 20142 min read