à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Sensitivity
Convoluted Kaddish for a Complicated Relation
[note: this post is 2-3 times longer than usual] “Oy, es iz shver tsu zayn a Yid!” — Oy, it’s hard to be a Jew The world changed in large and subtle ways in early November. The day before the U.S. election I received a short e-mail from a distant cousin in Munich. She told me that her … Continue reading
Oh, the Places You’ll Go! HuffPo?!
As some of you know, my recent piece, An Open Letter to Ivanka Trump from One Daughter to Another, was published on The Huffington Post. It first appeared in the unindexed, unsearchable contributors’ section, sort of a virtual slush pile. Then an editor highlighted some quotes and posted it on the political blog, a place I never expected to see … Continue reading
Veni, Vidi, Edi Prosciutti
At the end of a recent post,”Is Yoga My New Pork?!“, I mused about my longtime curiosity about prosciutto. When I visited Italy in 2007, I didn’t partake but had a close encounter with it: while sitting at a restaurant’s bar, I looked up and found myself staring at a pig’s dark hoof. My eyes followed the … Continue reading
Of this Daughter and “Son of Saul”
I am beginning to conclude that the past is always present. On January 11th I received a Facebook message from the mother of the Hungarian family that hosted me as a college student. “If possible,” she wrote in Hungarian, “go see ‘Son of Saul’. It just won a Golden Globe.” I Googled it. Learning that the film takes place at Auschwitz, … Continue reading
Facing a Frantic Bird, Facing Fear
I love being in nature and observing wildlife; that helps me feel centered and connected to the cosmos. When wildlife comes indoors, however, inner peace flies out the window. I morph from a quiet, harmony seeking human to a frantic, freaking-out idiot. To wit: years ago a bat entered my third floor apartment when I lived in Somerville, … Continue reading
à la carte spirit by ilona fried 
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