Letters from Rona / Defining moments / Sort by date

Somewhere on the downward slope of my 50s, I wandered into a boutique much beloved by the fashion crowd, and was talked into buying my first halter top. I found it on the bargain rack, where clothes end up that you have to be mad or a model to wear. The plunging neckline said "Cher on a bad night." The fabric, white eyelet, said, "Eight-year-old's birthday party." [more]

Every child needs a wise adult friend who knows how to listen--and when to speak up. I learned that a lifetime ago, hanging out in the pokiest of basement apartments with my mother's straight-talking tenant. [more]

I had just put in my request for a table at the Penny Cluse Cafe, which serves the best breakfast in Burlington, Vt. and among the best we've enjoyed in more than 30 years of travel, when I looked at my right wrist and saw that my bracelet was missing. Not just any bracelet but a gift from my husband---a wide yet nearly weightless band of linked chrome beads that draped like silk on my skin. [more]

Among the kids in my high school it was generally agreed that a certain English teacher made a fitting target for the casual cruelty that so often passes for teenage humour. We made fun of her hair, a frizzy cloud of indeterminate colour. We rolled our eyes at her makeup, a clownish blob of rouge on each thickly powdered cheek and a slash of too-bright lipstick that she seemed to have applied in the dark. We wondered where on earth she got those tubular knit dresses she favoured---and was known to put on backwards, as if she'd been distracted mid-toilette by an insight into Hamlet that she couldn't wait to share with her equally distractible students, dreaming of love, sex and beer. What defied mockery was our teacher's love for her subject and for us. [more]

I dismissed Earth Hour as an empty symbolic gesture. Why sit for an hour in the dark when the real challenge is breaking wasteful habits like running the washer for a single pair of jeans? I figured I would break those habits---someday. Then my home lost power for more than 15 hours. And I learned how emotionally dependent I've become on electricity at my command. [more]

My husband was perusing these virtual letters when he told me, not for the first time, "You need a good copy editor." These would once have been fighting words. Unlike my husband, I was once a copy editor. The craft requires unflinching devotion to the minute, eye-glazing details that no one ever notices except when they've been bungled. [more]

A friend is just back from spending several days with her sister. Why am I telling you this? Isn't hanging out together just part of being sisters? Not for these two. They had barely spoken for 15 years. when my friend told me she was making this journey, she looked both resolute and anxious. Now she says her visit was "wonderful." Her eyes glisten. She means "full of wonder." [more]

We had just settled into our airy retreat at a Sarasota B&B (think antiques, hardwood and a prime view of sailboats skimming the bay) when I realized it had happened again. I had arrived somewhere lovely minus something essential. My favourite jeans, which fit me like no other jeans on earth. [more]

I wasn't ticking her name off a list, expressing my knowledge of red-carpet trends or flaunting my generosity with that famous little blue box. I was just an eight-year-old with saved-up allowance in the palm of my mitten. And what I chose to buy was as fine a gift as any I have given. [more]

The best part of being a journalist is interviewing people who have led extraordinary lives. I look back on some of them as mentors. For instance, the vital and exuberant woman who pursued her dream despite ovarian cancer---and whose victory gave me hope as I struggled with depression, the life-threatening cancer of the soul. [more]

Although I've never Twittered or even texted and am rapidly acquiring the knees of a nonagerian, I share a bond with kids who have yet to take a legal drink. Some lowlife has stolen my iPod. [more]

The more I learn about Sarah Palin, the less I trust her. But I'm not here to tell you why I've hardened my heart. I'm actually rushing to Sarah's defense. Remember that dishy story about her thinking Africa is a country? Turns out it's a fiction planted on the blogosphere by a fake policy wonk named Martin Eisenstadt. [more]