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Hometown

New York City

Joie de VIVre

Writing, hanging out with my husband, laughing with my daughter and my son, dancing and swimming.

VIV Moment

I was on the boardwalk of the beach town where I spent my summers as a child. I was standing there watching my own daughter as she was swinging on a swing set in the sand and laughing with her father.

Higher and higher she flew, and my mind wandered to all the times over the years I’d stood on this boardwalk, looking out at the ocean, dazed by its beauty and power, marking different milestones of my life: my first kiss, the first time I wrote a story, the first time I lost somebody I cared for deeply, the first time I fell in love, then back to the first time I could remember, when I’d run away from home.

I was probably 4 or 5 years old, and had run the two blocks to the beach, feeling very serious and mature — and alone — and suddenly felt a hand reach out and hold mine. “Mama!” and there my 2-year-old girl was running toward me, pulling me out onto the beach. Her hand felt warm and perfect in mine, and a shiver ran through me as I felt how all those moments were linked together as if on a shimmering chain.

And I understood fully that time passes, that I’m alive on this earth for only a brief time, that my love for my family is something I’ve longed for all my life.

And when my daughter laughed, and my husband picked her up in his arms and made her laugh louder, I felt the closest I’d ever come to bliss.

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