“…for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”—Oliver Sacks Small red marks like infected mosquito bites cover my chest in surprising fury, their rash-like presence upsets and… Continue Reading
Author Archives: Sidney Stark
On Becoming “Remusicked”
‘Can we review the future?’ What a question. How can you re-view something you can’t see in the first place? Oh, I know there are people who plan their lives around it and wallow in angst or triumph over what they think is coming, but most of us know that’s a waste of time. Being… Continue Reading
An Imminent Death
“I want to report an imminent death”, I said, controlling my voice to cover the strain. It still didn’t sound right, in particular to my writer’s ear. How could one report something that hasn’t happened yet when the event itself weighs heavy with finality? All the tenses were wrong, while the verbs, adjectives and nouns… Continue Reading
Ice-cream in Chinatown
I wrote a blog post in January called Something the Social Worker Said. Essentially, it explored the issue of self-knowledge, but I remember the discussion I had that prompted the piece in the first place; starting with my question about the importance of hope to an ailing patient and ending someplace so different, as the… Continue Reading
Molto Agitato
Words are important to me. It’s part of my love of communication, mostly magnified by my ever-increasing commitment to writing. Writing and editing have demonstrated up-close and personal how crucial the right word is, and how words have the power to convey certain feelings, carry with them an aura of mood that is more precise… Continue Reading
Something the Social Worker Said…
Stamina; courage; there are so many words whose meanings I know, until I start to think about them three dimensionally. Then I find there’s much more to them than I ever realized. And just when I need them most, they float around in a taunting limbo. Language astronauts in a weightless environment, they won’t let… Continue Reading