I have become like one of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters trying valiantly to slip an outsized foot into a glass slipper. Read More

In a village near the Zuider Zee we visited a tulip farm where acres of cut tulips were piled in heaps — luminous purple, blue, orange, crimson, yellow, green–like splendid dead parrots. Read More

What happened to my father when he was a kid scared me, and it made me angry….What do you do with all that fear and anger? Revenge is nice but change is better. Read More

Not long after, I trained as a Laughter Yoga leader. I became an expert extolling laughter’s virtue to anyone who’d listen. That was until a distinctly un-funny time in my life—a bowel cancer diagnosis at age forty-two. Despite there being nothing humorous about cancer, I knew deep within that laughter was inextricably bound to my experience. The moment had arrived to practice what I preached. I just needed time (and a couple of major operations) to connect the dots. Read More

All the former Soviet Union ladies wore shoes like hers. Each one wobbled, but no one turned their ankle. No one fell.  Read More

One of the questions often asked by readers of Les Parisiennes, is: was it justifiable for mothers working for the Resistance to compromise the safety of their children by using them as decoys in their missions? As one of those children, my emphatic answer is yes. Read More