“Be kind to yourself.” That’s the advice that’s given. Given by whom? Well, by wherever or whomever you have turned to with a complaint, a lament, a dilemma. And what does it mean, really? I think not to feel guilty.…

When my friend Kari moved to Paris to study mime (she was already a street mime in San Francisco, where we met) with Jean Louis Barrault, she knew very little French. I visited her when she had been there eight…

“It’s the same when love comes an end.” He stopped digging and looked up. “What? What’s the same?” “The tomatoes wilting.” “Tomatoes?” He leaned back on his haunches, the dirty spade clutched in his hand. He gestured with it. “End…

It's the same glowing satisfaction when love arrives at its desired end, yet I'll never get tired of love, my blood calls for it again & again, thought Vince. In Art class, he'd started a vivid red canvas meant to…

[continuing story] I don't know why emergency rooms have such ugly, bright lights. It's not like they're operating in the waiting room. Jana does the check in and I sit next to my guy who they've given a doggie gurney,…

It’s a complex thing, this love notion. It revises us, both coming and going…..changes us with the power of its unmatched energy, waves of such electric momentum, it can upset our stomach and rattle our heart, it can make us…

The Buddha made it simple to understand, like those yellow-colored, thick paperbacks stacked on the bottom shelf, in all the sections of bookstores, Suffering for Dummies. My copy’s pages are dog-eared, yellow-highlighted and coffee stained. The first chapter starts something…

When I was in college I forced myself to read Martin Buber’s “I and Thou”, mostly because I liked the title. I also struggled through Benedetto Croce’s and Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling.” And then I went to France and was…

Performing a speech from QUILTERS, a show I was performing at the Pittsburgh Public Theater before its Broadway debut back in the late '80's, I was portraying "Margaret" a 19th century spinster school teacher who was sharing her personal tragedy…

“The most beautiful thing” is a phrase from Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Forgive my “insulting” those who know the line immediately by explaining it. To Nora, the most beautiful thing would be recognition for her sacrifice for her husband…

Business was good. Dexter answered his tenth text in a row. "Meet me behind the dumpster at nutrition break. Beautiful quality weed. Matchbooks=$40 each. Cash only." Nutrition break took only ten minutes, but by the time Dexter arrived tardy and…

I was once on an audition/interview for a role in a new sit-com. A kind of hybrid second call back. I always flubbed these and I went on to flub this one, too because I am shy and one of…