This old house feels so new. ‘Born’ in the 1800’s, two years after the end of the civil war, to be precise, it nonetheless has the fresh energy and hopeful lift of youth. Of course, identifying when an historic house was built always raises more questions than it answers. What signified the start of its… Continue Reading
Author Archives: Sidney Stark
Recovery Room
Walking up the block away from the East River, it’s hard to see through the soup…fog drifting in and out, clinging to things invisible with wispy wet tendrils. It reminds me of my husband’s brain tumor, and also the endless days of gray near the shore at certain times of the year. You just start to… Continue Reading
This Is My Husband
“…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
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