It was our wedding anniversary. We were dining at a restaurant on the Brooklyn waterfront, the kind of place where everyone dresses well. A river view at sunset, beautiful flowers everywhere, a pianist playing inoffensively somewhere in back. The food was disappointing, but the evening was redeemed by a woman at a nearby table. She… Continue reading Lit from Within
Tag: Michele Berman Jewelry
Singing the Blues
In the 1970s, when I was in my twenties, I belonged to a spiritual community that, on balance, did me a lot of good. My boss was convinced it was a cult, and when 900 members of the Peoples Temple drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in Jonestown, Guyana, he begged me to leave my community before something… Continue reading Singing the Blues
That Sapphire
When I was about to turn 50, I told my husband, ‘I think I’m going to let you buy me a sapphire.’ It was one of the ridiculous pronouncements I tend to make about sapphires, as I have written here. But I did have a birthday coming up, and we were at a gem show, visiting our… Continue reading That Sapphire
Mother’s Tourmalines
It was always hard to know what Mother wanted—though in certain respects she made her wishes clear, mostly having to do with cleaning up some mess or getting the hell out of her way. When I was a child following her around the kitchen, she’d say, sharply: ‘Get out from under my feet!’ She said it so… Continue reading Mother’s Tourmalines
A Lurid Tale
These things always begin innocently, at a crafts fair. This particular fair was at Lincoln Center, where I normally wouldn’t think of buying pearls. But there was a vendor with pearls in colors I’d never seen before: iridescent purples, pinks, bronzes. I hated them. And then I loved them. “Those colors are so—so lurid!” I said, meaning it as a… Continue reading A Lurid Tale
Yet More Jewelry 