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Joanne Greene shares her flash nonfiction, each essay with custom music, showcasing tales and observations from her animated life. Her book, "By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go" is now...
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Joanne Greene shares her flash nonfiction, each essay with custom music, showcasing tales and observations from her animated life. Her book, "By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go" is now available as a paperback, e-book, and audiobook from Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent book seller.
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8 NOV 2024 · It’s the day after and I’m numb, crumbling under the weight of knowing that we are not what I thought we were….what I was raised to believe…what I hoped and trusted would win out in the end. It’s a feeling of mourning, of deep loss, not of shock but of resignation, the horror of evil going unpunished, of otherwise decent people looking the other way, an awareness of what it must have been for Germans in the 30’s to witness a collective loss of conscience.
Would I feel better if I had gone door to door in Arizona or Nevada? Would I feel even more like a fool if I’d filled out five hundred more postcards? My contributions of time and money didn’t matter in the end, but they were expressions of hope, of belief in the overall goodness of human beings, of truth to win out in the end. I know that life isn’t black and white, that binaries only serve to divide, but where in a nation run by a convicted felon who cares not about policy or any of the values on which this nation was founded and built, will I find my place?
I will find it here in my community where we treat each other with kindness…I will find it in the woods where politics do not reside, where I can focus, instead, on the interconnectedness of living things.
I fear for my grandchildren who, I can only hope, will spend decades trying to undo the damage that will be unleashed. There’s a deadly virus in our judicial system that will continue to metastasize before our eyes. The future feels bleak and yet there’s plenty that we can do, today, tomorrow, and beyond, to strengthen whatever is left of our safeguards, to build stronger communities based on mutual respect, to extend a hand to those in need, to build institutions and alliances that take care of those in need of protection, that serve those willing to work, to care for their young and their elderly, to engage in acts of kindness.
Germany reemerged from the darkness and so will we. Dictators die, pendulums swing. We know what to do.
19 OCT 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
I know they’re not kosher, but I didn’t know that as a kid. Lobster isn’t kosher either; go figure. Some Jewish people in New England make exceptions; that’s all I can say on the subject. Fried clams are deep fried, which means they might clog my arteries, and perhaps even give me indigestion, given that once I get started, I can’t stop until every last clam is dipped in tartar sauce..or perhaps cocktail sauce if it’s provided as a second option, and ingested, eyes closed, in a state of bliss that can only be described as foodgasmic. A soft moan might be heard emanating from deep inside my memory banks as I’m drawn into the best of my childhood by the smell of salt water and the warm recollection of tiptoeing between rocks on Nantasket, Crane’s, or Wingaersheek Beach during hot, humid Boston summers. When a grain of sand lodges in my back teeth, I smile, knowing that these clams are authentic. As if there was any other kind. Ew, even the thought of a faux clam is chilling.
Clam bellies were an acquired taste I developed post childhood as I’d only eaten clam strips – the neck of the clam – up until then. For many Wednesday suppers, as we called them, my parents took me to the All You Can Eat Fish Fry at Howard Johnson’s. My mom would chide my dad for ordering a second helping, which was perplexing as isn’t that the point of the All You Can Eat Fish Fry? While they were grousing about French fries and fried fish, such alliteration, I would chow down on clam strips, fries and cole slaw. Now that I know that “whole bellies” as these soft- shelled clams are known, include the clam’s gastrointestinal tract, I understand why they’re so tasty. I also can’t unknow that and the image is somewhat disturbing.
Fried clams, for the uninitiated, are Ipswich clams soaked in evaporated milk, dipped in some combination of regular, corn and pastry flour, and then deep-fried in canola oil, soybean oil, or lard. They’re as iconic to New Englanders as barbeque is to Texas, Poutine is to Montreal, and tacos are to Mexico. The earliest mention of fried clams on a menu can be traced back to 1865. It was the menu of the Parker House hotel, now the pet-friendly Omni Parker House on School Street in Boston. The hotel and dining hall opened in 1855 and on that very first menu was an original creation – the Parker House Chocolate Cream Pie, now known as Boston Cream Pie. And, while I’m digressing from the topic of clams, allow me to share that in 1958 –I was just four – Boston Cream Pie became a Betty Crocker boxed mix. In 1996, longer after I’d abandoned my state roots, Boston Cream Pie was proclaimed the official Massachusetts State Dessert. And it wasn’t a slam dunk with competition from the Toll House Cookie, the Fig Newton, and Indian Pudding. You’ve never heard of Indian Pudding? It's a centuries old dessert, perhaps our nation’s very first, made by colonists with cornmeal they’d been gifted by Native Americans and molasses.
You’re welcome for the suggestion of a great Thanksgiving dessert!
But back to my beloved fried clams. It’s sad yet quite special that they are both seasonal and regional. Wanting what we cannot have on the west coast… and, everywhere, throughout the winter months….makes the fried Ipswich clam taste even sweeter.
11 OCT 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
In this story I zoom in on things that fascinate me. I’m Joanne Greene.
Walking slowly, or standing still, in a forest allows me to see, hear and feel things I miss when hiking, chatting with a friend, focusing on where I’m going rather than where I am. There’s movement, even in the absence of wind. Leaves drifting and silently falling from branches; insects building, feeding, mating; birds planning for their future, hiding acorns in tree trunks.
Dried leaves remind me of the aging process. Like aging leaves, human skin and hair dry out, skin wrinkles and sags, joints stiffen, and then we fall to the ground. I feel for the leaves; we are all alive and in some phase of deterioration. Nothing living lasts forever. Even the Redwoods.
Yet we can connect with the living through invisible dotted lines, by absorbing chemicals from the trees, gazing into the eyes of any animal, communicating more deeply over time with our pets. When my dog does exactly what I ask her to do is she learning English words or is she learning to read me? Is our growing codependence and interspecies love a good thing? Is this even a question worth asking?
She loves cheese and bread like every dog, and so do I. My childhood featured cream cheese (for shmearing on bagels), cottage cheese (that only my mother liked) and American cheese, individually wrapped, for cutting in fourths and placing on Ritz crackers for an afternoon snack with tomato, or possibly, V8 juice. The smell of Kraft Parmesan cheese made me gag, yet today I inhale the fragrance of Parmesano Reggiano and my mouth waters. I discovered the seeming endless world of cheese while working at Papillon, a wine and cheese café one summer during college - Port Salut, Camembert, Burrata, Emmentaler. In Amsterdam, I learned that Gouda is pronounced Gouda (Chouda.) And my education is just beginning.
Some of us love the cuisine with which we were raised- comfort food, a taste of home. Others of us moved on, in my case from iceberg lettuce, canned vegetables, London Broil, and chopped liver. I’m fascinated by Ethnic foods of all varieties and even though the grandfather for whom I’m named was a kosher butcher, I can live without meat. Give me spices like zaatar, garam masala, curry and ramen and pho. I’m always game to try a new place, eat with my hands, sit on the floor.
And while on the floor, I might turn upside down or sit in a lotus position. Yoga has been my savior since 1974 when I sang “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine” at the Theosophical Society in Boston and calmed the f down. Slowing down my breathing is at the center of the miracle. Over the years I’ve learned to count my inhalations and exhalations, to focus on one Drishti or point at which to stare, to send blessings to my loved ones, my neighbors, the guy who annoyingly beeped his horn at me when I didn’t leave the intersection fast enough for him. I’m captivated by the ancient knowledge that stretching and strengthening our bodies in certain ways would improve our health – both physical and mental. And they weren’t necessarily overstimulated by cell phones and social media, traffic and multiple competing demands on their time and thoughts. Technology has so many answers, making our lives easier and more efficient, but ancient wisdom, like mother, often knows best. It’s the emphasis on balance, on interconnectedness, that I need, now more than ever, that I believe our world needs now. We have so much to learn from simply observing nature.
Take the spider, for instance. Can you even imagine what it takes to design and create a web that is not only magnificent in its structure but durable, flexible, and can trap live prey? It’s an engineering feat beyond comprehension. As a young girl I knew that I was supposed to fear spiders but, after reading Charlotte’s Web, I simply saw these inventive, delicate, yet dogged creatures as my friends. I’ll coax an indoor spider onto a piece of paper and gently place her outside, rather than squish her like a bug as, admittedly, I’ll do to flies, ants, and other uninvited guests. To me spiders are royalty…and I will remain in awe of their artistry and practicality, the way a lack of light hides their webbing and a beam of sunshine reveals their glistening, symmetrical creativity.
I am endlessly fascinated by the worlds I’ve yet to uncover….
20 SEP 2024 · Early the morning of October 7th, 2023, I took a call from my daughter in law Marie who, unbeknownst to me, was in the process of becoming Jewish.
She said, “My mom called to tell me how upset she was about the attack on Israel.” I held my breath. Her mom lives in France. I’d been awake for all of 20 minutes, blissfully unaware. When we hung up, I turned on CNN and began to grasp the magnitude of the still unfolding catastrophe. In the moments and weeks that followed, I understood that Hamas had unleashed the worst assault against the Jewish people that had taken place in my lifetime. The pain and confusion were just beginning.
I felt personally attacked – the first time I’d questioned my safety as a proud Jewish American. From the start, people on the left, my people, or so I’d always thought, were justifying Hamas’s actions, couching the unbelievably gruesome assault in the larger context of the occupation, as though there was any way to justify the slaughter of peace loving concert goers, as if there could be an excuse for attacking the very Israelis who lived close to Gaza in hopes of building bridges, of helping people whose own government put them in danger.
I read a post that my young Muslim friend posted - the friend who, on behalf of her mosque, sent flowers to the JCC after a bomb threat forced our evacuation. She’s the partner with whom I planned interfaith activities to bring Muslims and Jews together – an Iftar, an art exhibit – as part of the Salaam, Shalom, Speaking of Peace initiative. Her post, like so many, condemned the actions of the Israeli military, the killing of innocent Palestinians. Her tone stung and I reached out, asking if we could meet to discuss our collective pain. She responded with an emoji – a tiny symbol that may have meant we were okay, the two of us, but that was it. Our people, I feared, were no longer okay with one another.
I felt betrayed by the left, by the very people with whom I’d spend decades marching for justice, reproductive rights, voting rights, affordable housing, against racism and Islamophobia. I watched what was happening on college campuses, wondering where I would have stood as an eighteen-year-old. Would I, too, have seen Israel as the all-powerful occupier, the military giant, a puppet of the United States? Would my sympathies have gone to the thousands of Palestinians abandoned by their leaders yet killed by Jewish bombs? Why is no one on the left talking about the Israeli women who were raped, whose bodies were mutilated?
During the first intifada, as a radio talk show host, I felt pressure from the Jewish community to speak out publicly. “You have a platform,” they said. But I was a journalist. I hosted debates giving both sides a chance to make their case. I asked questions, like my people have done for centuries. We learn by asking questions. With age comes perspective and, knowing so much more now about the history, it’s hard to listen to people who haven’t taken the time to learn. “From the river to sea,” they’re chanting but, when asked, too few knew which river and which sea were being referenced, not to mention the fact that their chant was calling for the end of Israel. Too few of those sacrificing sleep in encampments, feeling solidarity with the oppressed, had knowledge of all the attempts that have been made to make peace with Palestinians while ensuring the security of Israelis. As Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said, “You cannot negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.” On October 7th, 2023, Hamas came to kill, rape, torture, and kidnap Jews, as many as they possibly could. Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist, therefore a peace treaty with Hamas will never be attainable.
It’s human nature to try to fix things, to come up with solutions, to reduce conflict to good and evil, us and them, the occupiers and the occupied. But most conflict is filled with complexity and nuance and, as such, demands empathy. We are meant to struggle. We make a grave mistake when we tell ourselves that we are totally in the right and not at fault at all. Our tradition offers us an opportunity to make teshuvah, to accept our human frailty, to look, to see, to acknowledge, to turn, and to try harder next time.
My heart feels the pain of the hostages and their families, the displacement of families from Israel’s northern border, the trauma of Israeli soldiers who put themselves at risk every day, and the worry that plagues all Israelis and all people who fear for their safety. And my heart cannot grow cold to the suffering of innocent Palestinians, people displaced from their homes time and again, people used as human shields by their terrorist government. They didn’t ask for this and the hatred they’ve come to feel for Israelis, for Jews, for me, is understandable. May this war end. May something good come from all this horror and loss. May there be answers.
13 SEP 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
In this story, I board a cruise ship.
For decades, my image of a cruise featured loud, gluttonous fressers (that’s Yiddish for people who stuff their faces with abandon at the all-you-can-eat buffet.) I envisioned tiny airless rooms with, at best, a porthole; smoke-filled casinos with spilled drinks due to sea turbulence; and long lines of parents with screaming children waiting to board and disembark at every port. Unappealing? Ya think?….
But then, in the 1990’s, we bought a timeshare that came with a free Royal Caribbean cruise for two. The inside passage of ALASKA, we agreed, would be our destination. Hoping an Alaskan cruise would attract nature lovers and not be the cruise of choice for dedicated party animals, we signed up for a weeklong adventure, starting and ending in Vancouver, British Columbia, that would include stops in Juno, Sitka, and Ketchikan.
Ever the optimist, I focused on not having to unpack and repack every couple of days – a big plus – and on the fact that the ship we’d chosen featured a spa area with healthy food choices and numerous exercise opportunities and options for pampering. We reserved an upgraded cabin with a door leading out to a small private deck. Our bases were covered.
Eyeing our fellow travelers as we boarded the floating city that would be our home for a week, our minds began to settle. There were people who looked enough like us, smiling, chatting, anticipating a good time. When asked on the guest form if we were celebrating anything that week, we shared that it was our wedding anniversary, figuring telling them might mean a bottle of champagne or some chocolate covered strawberries. What we didn’t anticipate was that it would peg us for participation in the Very Wed and Newlywed Game two nights later.
What the heck? we thought when invited to be on stage to compete against other couples. Then they plied us with margaritas. Oh boy. Joined at the hip and hardly shy in front of a crowd, we answered their outrageous questions, winning nearly every round. The competition wasn’t stiff, of course, and we were letting loose. And then they asked the final question: “What is something your spouse continues to do that you find REALLY annoying?”
Hmmmm…how should I answer this, I wondered? The first thing that popped into my mind is how Fred disappears, quite suddenly. When I say he gets lost, he tells me that he knew exactly where he was the whole time. We’ll be walking down a street together, for instance, and I turn to say something to him and he’s not there. Could have been a store that wooed him in. More likely, he stopped to take a photograph and either forgot to tell me or mentioned that he was doing so in a voice that I couldn’t hear.
“I have a pet peeve,” I said to the game show host, convinced that none of the other spouses would share my answer. “My husband sometimes disappears. We’ll be together at an event or walking somewhere and ……
At that precise moment, Fred left the stage. The audience went wild. I had to admit that he stole the show.
But that wasn’t the end of the game.
Two days later, people all over the ship were recognizing us. “Weren’t you the couple from the Newlywed game? You were so funny!” We nodded and smiled awkwardly.
Back in our room, we turned on the television and there we were, a bit tipsy, sharing oddly compromising secrets on the television show no one mentioned they were producing of our Very Wed and Newlywed game. They were running it over and over again, 24 hours a day, in every room on the ship.
We tried to be incognito…eating our meals in the spa section….keeping to ourselves as best we could, but it was not to be. Unwittingly, we’d gained our ten minutes of fame on a cruise ship named what was it…. Lengend of the Seas? Splendor of the Sea? Splendor in the Grass? Chicken of the Sea?
30 AUG 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
Whiskers on kittens are okay but dogs’ ears really do it for me. Basset hounds take the cake, but I’ll stroke a spaniel’s ear, a lab’s, a shepherd’s, and, of course, any part of a doodle, anytime. Speaking of taking the cake…feel free. In my estimation cake is grossly overrated. With the exception of a really moist carrot cake, my mothers’ spice cake, or a flourless chocolate cake, I’d choose am oatmeal or chocolate chip cookie nine times out of ten. After my summer working at Household Finance Loan Corporation, above a donut shop, when I inhaled an ice-cold lemonade and a glazed honey dipped donut every morning at 10:30, I hate the smell of donuts. Pie is rarely worth the calories but a solid fruit crisp or crumble or Apple Betty gets the salivary glands going every time.
Life is filled with food and chores.
Why is ironing so satisfying? I assume because one sliding motion and a little heat eliminates the crease and thereby solves the problem. With that framing, I should enjoy vacuuming, which I don’t. But folding laundry? Oddly relaxing. While I enjoy the look of a well-made bed, I don’t relish the walking back and forth, straightening the sheets, pulling up the duvet and making sure what’s inside isn’t bunched up in one corner. Bed-making sucks. We’re living in the guest room temporarily, due to a little construction, and- don’t tell anyone but I’ve just been pulling up the top sheet. I tell myself it’s a summer look. But really, I’m just cutting corners.
I love checking in with friends and family members but hate it when I’m ready to hang up and move on and the other person just keeps talking. Y’can’t just say, okay, I’m done. You’re starting to bore me. So, usually, I say something stupid like – I have to go to the bathroom or file my receipts so take care and have a great day! I also squirm when people tell me about people I don’t know and won’t ever meet. Who cares? Stop wasting my time.
Strangely, I never get sick of listening to my kids and my heart skips a beat, like a teenage girl hearing from her new boyfriend, every time caller ID shows it’s one of them reaching out. Like every stereotype of a doting grandma, my face lights up and my smile is so wide it hurts when any of my three littles appear on FaceTime.
The first bite of a perfectly ripe nectarine, bouquets of dahlias, the smell of a Eucalyptus tree and the majesty of a redwood. These make my heart sing and activate the gratitude which I continue to express for the feel of clean sheets, being able to walk for hours without pain, for my cancer being stage one, for sunshine and beaches, to Biden for finally stepping down, for age old friendships and the memories of laughing so hard we peed, for Motown and margaritas, for unbuttered popcorn and kettle brand sea salt chips, for vape pens and firepits, hot tubs and massages. I am ever so grateful for my husband and family…for good health and anti-depressants…for treasuring my Jewish heritage…and for finally having ….and being enough.
16 AUG 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
My family of origin never took a single vacation. I didn’t feel denied; didn’t know anything different. My father worked seven days a week and we had neither the money nor the template for how to vacation. I remember my mother saying that some people needed to vacation, as though they were somehow weaker. She, by contrast, did not. Married and with my own children, I made family vacations a priority. Did it matter that one of our kids was both anxious and hyperactive? It should have. But instead, we just kept right on planning and moving through the meltdowns.
But there was that first memorable trip when we took the family to Italy in 2002. Our high school wrestler tried to lift a SmartCar and we have the photo to prove it. We had our first round of beers together in Rome, eating filetto di baccala. At the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, the four of us watched Andrea Bocelli, blind since birth, carry Madame Butterfly offstage. The opera didn’t start until 10pm, which meant that at least two of us nodded off during the performance. On our bike tour through Tuscany, we ate epic caprese salads and stopped for photos at the site of a famous scene from the film Gladiator. The boys bonded on the day we went to Cinque Terra, preferring to remain on the beach in front of our hotel that featured topless young women; they wore mirrored sunglasses to shield their staring eyes.
Family travel can be tricky, particularly when one’s family is filled with strong willed and opinionated people. Someone wants to just sit and read while someone else is up for major adventure. But this trip hit the absolute right note – a blend of group and solo activity, exceptional food, short visits to museums, and a private tour of the Vatican. I can still hear the voice of the guard in the Sistine Chapel crying “Silencio!”
Perhaps the quintessential moment of the trip took place in our rented apartment in Sienna. As older siblings do, Danny played a trick on his younger brother, hiding amidst the blankets in an old wooden chest that stood in the hallway outside our bedroom. We told him it could take a while, so better get comfortable in there and be sure you’re getting enough oxygen.
“Mikey, see if you can find any board games, or anything we can do together after dinner tonight,” I called out from the kitchen.
“Where am I supposed to look?” he asked, mildly annoyed that I was assigning him a task. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Check the drawers, cupboards, that old chest in the hallway.”
Fred and I could hear the opening and closing of cabinets and held our collective breath as Mike approached the hall that held the chest that held Danny. And then we heard the piercing screams – Danny jumping out of the chest loudly yelling “BOO” and Mike’s blood curdling terror response. Somehow, we managed to hold Mike back; by then, he’d acquired both the skills and the incentive to cause major hurt to his brother.
Neither Fred nor I had a reference point for what a family vacation should look like. I guess not having expectations set us up to accept when things didn’t go well. Our two weeks in Italy, when Mike was a sophomore in high school and Danny a freshman in college, was filled with all the right ingredients for a great vacation – phenomenal food, the right amount of touring, and a ton of laughs.
19 JUL 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
In This Story…I steal a pair of gloves.
We were young enough to need a ride to the shopping center but old enough to tool around by ourselves for a couple of hours before meeting up with the mom-in-charge. It was 1968 and despite all that was going on in the world, and there was a lot, I was bored and in search of cheap thrills.
My girlfriend and I were in an Ann Taylor store where there was nothing in my price range. But purchasing wasn’t on my agenda that day. It was the “five finger discount” I was after. See an item, look around, shove it up the sleeve. I didn’t want a pair of fine leather gloves. Would never have worn the gloves – they were far too sophisticated. But they were flat enough to fit under my sleeve so in they went. My friend wasn’t looking – she was certainly not an accomplice – and would never have known of my bad behavior had the store manager not swiftly escorted me upstairs to her office. Clearly, I had no game. None.
As I followed her up the stairs, feeling like I was walking the gang plank, I wondered if my friend – not to mention her mother – would be worried about me. ‘Course this concern distracted me from whatever real consequences I would face.
“Please hand over the gloves and write your telephone number down on this pad of paper,” the lady said in a mildly annoyed voice, as though this exercise was pro forma, part of her job description. Silently, I obliged.
I squirmed hearing the familiar ring and pictured the black rotary phone with the twisted cord on the telephone table in the hallway at the top of the stairs of our two-family house. My mother answered.
“I’m calling from Ann Taylor at the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center. Are you the mother of Joanne….” and here she stopped, unsure of how to pronounce my last name. Rosenzweig. Tough on the first go-around.
“Yes, I’m Joanne’s mother, is she alright?” my mom jumped in, worried that I’d been hurt, never suspecting that her daughter was capable of committing a crime.
“She appears to be just fine but I’m calling to let you know that we apprehended her stealing a pair of gloves.”
A moment of uncharacteristic silence followed. Then my shocked and humiliated mother spoke.
“Do you need us to come and get her or will you release her to her friend’s mother who brought the girls there today?”
“That’s fine,” the store employee said. “I’ll bring her back down to the store and hopefully her chaperone will be waiting.”
My chaperone? More importantly, it sounded like I wasn’t being sent to jail. The crisis was thereby downgraded to having to face my friend, her mom, and then my mom. Descending the stairs, I tried to weigh which I dreaded more.
Our car ride home was silent. Mrs. Sherman didn’t ask me a single question. Every time we stopped at a red light, I knew that I’d have to endure this shame spiral for a little bit longer. Finally, she pulled up in front of my house and I quietly thanked her for taking me shopping and driving me home.
“Also,” I said while closing the car door, “I’m sorry.” Mrs. Sherman might have heard me.
Deep breath. Two down. One more to go.
I entered the house as quietly as I could. My mom both heard and saw me walk up the stairs, but she didn’t say a word. Unusual even if she hadn’t been called by a store manager to say that her child had stolen a pair of leather gloves. I stood there, waiting for the hatchet to fall, for the speech to begin, for something to free me from my self-imposed torture chamber. Her silent treatment was excruciating. I went up to my room and wallowed in shame, rolled around on the green shag rug in ugly humiliation, promised myself and anyone who might be listening that I would never steal again, and went deep into self-loathing. What’s wrong with me? Why would I do such a thing. Quickly, I shifted to when is she going to tell me my punishment? Yell at me. Ground me. Do something.
I marched downstairs and took a seat in the dinette. Wearing an apron, she was cutting carrots into small pieces when I asked, “Aren’t you going to say something? Tell me how ashamed you are of me?”
Without looking up from her cutting board my mom said, “I assume that you’re already punishing yourself enough. There’s nothing for me to say.”
I was stunned. She was right. Giving me a punishment would have let me off the hook, changed the subject, allowed me to focus on the punishment instead of my crime. I went back up to my room and considered why I wanted so badly to get away with something. What was the feeling I was seeking? I didn’t know about dopamine but, apparently, that rush was very appealing. My very wise mother made me think and dwell on what I’d done. Her approach was so effective and made such an impression on me that I used it on my son that time he…… uhhhh, wait a minute,…that’s not my story to tell.
5 JUL 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
In This Story, we take off our clothes.
I never saw either of my parents naked. Unusual? Probably not for that era. But did it sew the seeds of bodily shame for me? Perhaps. There’s a fine line between modesty and shame. Modesty, for my mom, was tied to virtue, morality. Good girls were never naked. Even the word naked made her squirm. So, imagine the awkward moment when they took me to see the play Hair when I was 15. At the end of the first act, the lights went out briefly and when they came back on, the actors were completely nude. On stage. Front and center for all to see. I thought my parents might pass out. I was tickled.
I never much liked my body… too pasty white…too chubby in the belly. The focus was on how we looked in clothing. Was the outfit (and I quote here) “flattering to the figure”? “Hold in your stomach”, my mother would say, which these days sounds more like “engage your core.” Ultimately, it was solid advice, but for all the wrong reasons.
In the 60’s and 70’s, at least in the circles in which I traveled, there was peer pressure to skinny dip, when the opportunity presented itself. While I certainly couldn’t refuse to participate and risk being called a prude, I wasn’t the least bit comfortable and ran into the lake as fast as I could, wishing I had at least two more arms to more fully hide my body. The first time, it was pitch dark out and I consoled myself that no one could see much. Years later, at a nude beach south of San Francisco, I had to talk myself into removing my swimsuit top. And, even then, I was mortified. It took far too many decades for me to feel good about my body – to appreciate its beauty without being disgusted by my pouchy belly, ashamed of the sagginess of my boobs. I never once had sexy tan lines like my flat stomached friends. They didn’t know how good they had it! How can we expect girls to love their bodies if we insist that they cover up, even at home? I don’t think I would even have been permitted to be in my own bedroom naked, alone. Of course, the thought never once occurred to me.
My granddaughter loves to be “nakie” as she calls it. At home, with the family, it’s fine. She’s learned that it’s not appropriate to take her clothes off at the park, even if it’s hot out and she happens to feel like it. As a result of this body positive approach, she loves her body. ‘Course she’s only 5. How long before she, too, becomes self-critical, before bad messaging seeps in to pollute her healthy self-image? Hopefully never, but at least she’s starting out shameless and that, my friend, can only be good.
21 JUN 2024 · Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
In This Story, a glimpse at my idiosynchrocies. I’m Joanne Greene.
We all have idiosynchocies – things we do that are peculiar to us. My favorites, these days, are my morning rituals when, for starters, I’m thrilled to wake up Yes, of course, because I love life and am grateful to be alive once again. But, also, because I tend to torture myself in my dreams. Go figure. My lifelong anxiety is nearly gone from my waking hours but, at night, it percolates, poking at me with recurring themes. Last night, I was in endless lines, crowded spaces, and didn’t have the item I was in line to return. Often, it’s that I’ve overcommitted and then gotten distracted so that when it comes time to perform, I’m not prepared. The most frequent version is the dead air dream, unique to radio people. The song is ending, and I can’t reach the mic to start the newscast. I flip the mic switch to start speaking and I have no voice. While my dreams are challenging, I’m abundantly kind to myself upon waking up. First, I snuggle with Moxie, the goldendoodle and any other dog that happens to be visiting. Then, I might luxuriate in the hot tub, listening to the birds, inhaling the scent of jasmine, an embarrassment of riches.
And before you label me a hedonist, let me share that it’s taken me decades to indulge without guilt. Accomplish, produce, get stuff done. Those were my mantras. I’ve silenced the inner voice that said, “you don’t need a massage”; “you can get a new outfit if it’s on the sales rack” and “why do you indulge in Nespresso pods when you could easily just brew yourself a cup of coffee?”
Now…somewhat retired…and a survivor of loss, cancer, & being hit by a car, I’m giving in to pleasure. In the mornings, I try very hard not to rush. I make myself a very indulgent latte and get back in bed to do NY time crossword puzzles -wordle, connections and Spelling Bee. I share my scores with a couple of friends and text back and forth about whatever’s going on in our lives. I check my email, read a few articles, and maybe meditate before even contemplating the kind of exercise I’m going to get. The coffee is less an addiction than a ritual – a sweet, frothy, soothing balm that energizes me as I slowly ease into the day.
Mornings are glorious - filled with possibilities, a blank slate, moments of gratitude, …perhaps some writing and definitely a walk with the dog… Had anyone told me decades ago that this is how I’d be choosing to spend my time, I may not have believed them. But it’s sure working for me!
Joanne Greene shares her flash nonfiction, each essay with custom music, showcasing tales and observations from her animated life. Her book, "By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go" is now...
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Joanne Greene shares her flash nonfiction, each essay with custom music, showcasing tales and observations from her animated life. Her book, "By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go" is now available as a paperback, e-book, and audiobook from Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent book seller.
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Information
| Author | Joanne Greene |
| Organization | Gabi Moskowitz & Joanne Greene |
| Categories | Personal Journals |
| Website | www.joanne-greene.com |
| joannergreene@gmail.com |
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