---My recollections are fuzzy—the dreams of an alien long ago. The 1950’s—McCarthyism, The Smith Act, the McCall’s Magazine notions of togetherness and conventionality. A collage of context—Germantown Avenue, the Farmer’s Market, Philadelphia public transportation. Worlds of social assumptions I didn’t understand but thought everyone else did. Blue gym suits. Social stratification. Academic erratic performance. Feeling smart and dumb at the same time. Full of longing, poetry, curiosity, drama, political passion, a sense of social justice. A red diaper baby in a conventional world; a chubby girl in a thin world; a child of immigrants who never learned the culture—the music, the language of teendom—an ADD bright under-achiever. Angry. Lonely. A voracious reader. My life, my belonging and my friends were not centered in school, but in my political and family circles. I knew intimacy, I had my people, but only a few landed in school with me. Some were in my class, some behind. Roy, Sheila, Matey, Bobby, Alix.

---Most of my teachers are now a blur. The best remembered—Rose Glassberg, who SAW and responded to me with caring, nurturing and respect. Blessings to her. She was very important. Poetry and literature were a joy in her classes.

---Flunked out of Temple 3 times—A’s and F’s—a Lit. major. Angry, political, activist. Worked with disturbed children for 14 years. Lived in Maine. Married, had two daughters. Started and ran an alternative school with a collective for 5 years. Lived in Long Island. Was part of the women’s movement. Finished my BA Summa Cum Laude, Social Science, English Lit. .Published poetry. Divorced. Got my MSW at U of Penn. Became a Gestalt Therapist. Came out as a lesbian. Raised my kids, enjoyed a 12 year relationship.

---Currently: A Gestalt Therapist, mostly couples work with couples of all persuasions. On faculty at Gestalt International Study Center on Cape Cod. Past President of Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy. Nearly died last year of bacterial meningitis, but making a great recovery. Single, grandmother, happy, productive, in community near and far. Still writing. Living in a Philadelphia suburb.