Opinions

It is a frightening time to be from Israel. It is even scarier to be in Israel. The nation, the only one in the Middle East whose government is a democracy, like the United States of America, are surrounded by Muslim countries. And they do not like Jewish people, nor do they want them in their neighborhood.

I miss light bulbs… When I recently paid $8.79 for a four-pack of light bulbs, I decided the world was coming to an end. At one time, that purchase might have been a dollar.

It’s time to be honest with you.

My husband, Peter, and I spend the winters in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The center of the town is a designated World Heritage Site, which means the facades of the buildings must remain as they were in the mid-1700s. The streets are made of round and sometimes slippery cobblestones. The doors are stout and covered with hundreds of coats of paint, and on the top of every building is a rooftop terrace where people can watch the fireworks that go off for no reason that anyone has ever been able to figure out. It is wonderful.

In a hospital emergency room or a retailer’s dressing room, you are at least separated from the rest of humanity by a curtain. A thin, gauzy curtain, but a curtain nonetheless.

I was lying in bed the other night in the little apartment my husband, Peter, and I rent in Mexico, and thinking that things were perfect. Then I wondered what that meant. Because, without trying very hard at all, I could come up with things that were far from perfect -- in the world, in the neighborhood, even in my body if I really started digging. But it did not prevent me from feeling that -- at that moment, lying in bed, listening to the distant cacophony of noises outside my window things were, in fact, perfect. I thought about my day and decided it had to do with imperfection.

It’s not often the moon gets this much attention, yet here we are, a day before he throws shade on the sun during a diagonal trip from the southwest to the northeastern United States.

When James announced that we only had one delivery for the day, I called to him from my office, “Come in and let me interview you.” I do believe all the color drained from his face.

When I was a child, I placed my six baby dolls in six shoebox beds and declared myself nurse, doctor and administrator of my own hospital. Each patient had a chart, a diagnosis and excellent medical care. I administered Sweet Tarts at intervals to cure whatever ailed them.