GREETINGS A LA MODE
As I write these words, Rosh Hashana is almost here – which accounts for the deluge of emails and texts with a routine message: health, happiness, peace, etc. This is only the beginning of a long season of greetings from Christmas to New Year’s, usually sent digitally. I fear that paper greeting cards may become obsolete.
I guess I belong in an earlier era because I miss sending and receiving cards with familiar handwriting on them. I miss scanning racks of cards in a store and choosing different ones for friends and family, geared to individual tastes. I especially enjoyed buying comical ones for friends who still had a sense of humor. I remember searching years ago for a Mother’s Day card that wouldn’t drip with sentimentality. I found one that read, Mother you made me what I am today… , NEUROTIC. I didn’t think my mother would appreciate this, but I bought it for myself.
The history buff in me decided to research how greeting cards began. Actually they owe their origin to postcards. In the mid-19th century an Austrian economics professor named Emmanuel Herman suggested that brief letters could be sent thriftily on cards. A major newspaper published this idea and it rapidly spread throughout Europe and the United States. Millions of. korrespondencekartes were sold the first months and by the end of the 1890’s they were featuring pictures on one side.
Polish artist Haim Goldberg became the principal designer of these cards, with the aid of paint and graphics. He also used actors dressed in traditional clothes, and had them model Jewish scenes such as weddings, family portraits, and so on. Goldberg even composed rhymed greetings in Yiddish. Greeting cards had been born. (Their popularity long outlived their creator, for Goldberg was murdered by the Nazis in 1943.)
Despite my nostalgia, I’m well aware that typing words on a keyboard or finding messages pre-selected by the Internet, is a lot more convenient than having to shop, address envelopes, get to the post office, and whatnot. But as with so much in life, convenience isn’t everything.
Website: annehosansky.com

ANNE-OTATIONS.ah              No. 1 Sept.2024
You are looking at the first issue of a new connection: a monthly newsletter that will alternate with my blogs but differ in a major way, featuring thoughts you -the readers -want to share. The newsletter will also include messages and news items from me, plus profiles of people who are doing unusual things. What the newsletter won’t include are the foibles of the royal rivals, details of costumes worn (barely) on red carpets, or the nerve-wracking electoral scene – with the exception of my enthusiasm for what women are achieving in that difficult arena.
For years I’ve wanted to share the inspiring responses to my blogs. My recent one about the challenge of finding private time for yourself struck a common nerve, for it reaped more comments than any other message.  So a prime feature of the newsletter will be your reactions to the blogs, plus other issues you want to share (posted with your permission). I invite you to let me know what additional topics you would like to see. Send to ahosansky@gmail.com.
Sharing our hopes and fears can bridge distances these isolating times. As E.M. Forster wrote, “Only connect the prose and the passion….”
Anne
Website: annehosansky.com
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Decades ago I decided to write my first book, a memoir about my late husband and our futile battle to save him. To write something so personal I needed not only privacy, but to disconnect from distractions. By luck I came across a 1930’s book that told me how to create this space. It was “Becoming A Writer” by Dorothea Brande.
Brande believed that creativity demanded time reserved for it, and that it was necessary to get to the typewriter(!) as early as you can, before the everyday clutters your mind. This currently means no radio, TV, phone calls, visits, or Internet browsing – and to stay with this regimen for as many uninterrupted hours as possible ( Those employed in hybrid schedules may need similar discipline.) Inspired, I announced to friends and family that from then on I would be off-limits each day until 3:00.
Naively I thought this was a simple request and it did draw puzzled agreement from almost everyone. The sole exception was a friend who said I should go to a “shrink” to find out why I couldn’t answer phone calls while I was writing. Ironically, she was a therapist herself! I valued our friendship, but I was finding that my hours of privacy with my embryonic book were the most fruitful I had ever known.
The problem is, how convince someone else to accept this? My request became a bone of contention between us, with me either hanging up on her or trying to ignore distracting ringing. These days we can let cellphones take messages, but park the phone in a distant room. Taking the phone off the hook made me anxious about being unreachable by my school-age children. Ultimately I found courage to tell my friend ,“You don’t have to understand what I need, you just have to respect it.” This only worked for a brief time and the friendship has long since died. But I still believe my answer is the best response.
Of course, the need for protected time isn’t limited to creative endeavors. It can be for hours to fortify ourselves by reading or listening to music or simply communing with our thoughts. But this requires not being afraid of anyone’s opinion of our “selfish” behavior. A new neighbor who had a day job in an office asked me if I’d be available for some deliveries, since I “didn’t work.” I hesitated, reluctant to offend a potential friend , before saying I was sorry, but I couldn’t help her since even though I was home I was working.
The reality is that the world often doesn’t recognize being at home as important time. Women, especially, are expected to be available for gossiping, baby sitting, whatever, whenever. It’s easier for the ‘hybrids,” who can cite a company they’re employed by as contrasted with ‘just for me” time.
I have kept close to my writing schedule for 30 years. I tell people, I know I’m being rigid but….And I always make time for my children, family occasions, and for any friend in emotional need. Still, prioritizing my work has cost me other things, like hours of socializing that I would have enjoyed. But it has also enabled me to give birth to six books and dozens of stories. More important, it has helped me know who I am and can be.
We all need to respect everyone’s time but be just as vigilant about protecting our own!

COMING SOON: YOUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!

I must have watched the airport scene in CASABLANCA a dozen times. It’s the one where Humphrey Bogart nobly sends Ingrid Bergman away. (She leaves with Paul Henreid which isn’t so bad.) But there’s a famous line in that scene I found hard to accept. It’s when Bogart assures a tearful Bergman, “We’ll always have Paris.” He’s referring to the idyllic time when they were lovers. But there’s no possibility of going back to the past, so I thought it was just a screenwriter’s unrealistic verbiage. And doesn’t remembering lost times just depress us?

The realitv is that memories are two-sided. As a candid example, I’m estranged from a friend I was once close to. For a variety of reasons, she chose to end our relationship and has no desire to revisit the past. So I’ve put a lot of energy into trying to avoid anything that brings reminders of her. I even attempted to keep memories off limits. But this week, perhaps because her birthday’s coming up, the memory of one of our last days together insisted on intruding. We had met for lunch in one of our favorite places, a restaurant in Springfield, Massachusetts. I tried to shut off the memory , but I found myself reliving the hours of sharing and laughter, and our hugs when we parted. But remembering felt different this time. Instead of the usual pain and anger, I was surprised by joy With apologies to Bogart , I’ll always have Springfield – provided that I’m willing to welcome the memory instead of trying to banish it.

Estrangement is another form of loss and deserves to be mourned.. We also have to get past guilt and anger .But what are we to do with the embers? Trying to fence off part of an experience can mean losing all of it, including moments we could cherish. This isn’t just true of estrangement, of course. I’m writing this on my late husband’s birthday. I used to try to shield myself from grief by ignoring the day. But as I’m discovering, fear keeps us hostage to the past. Doesn’t strength mean owning what we choose to keep – and letting the rest go?

Website: www.annehosansky.com

CURRENT BOoK: ARISING:  available in print and E -version at BookBaby.com and Amazon.com.

There are few things as lonely as a world without the person we loved. Our only solace is that grief is so universal we have plenty of company. This week I watched a podcast featuring Anderson Cooper. I knew he had lost his father and brother years ago, and more recently his mother, but I didn’t expect his reaction to so starkly reflect my own; Like me, he’s the only surviving member of his birth family and he described this as “incredible loneliness,” for there’s nobody who knew him as a child. As Cooper would probably agree, fame and wealth can’t barricade against loneliness. But empathic voices can help bridge that emptiness.
I have learned that help is available and that reaching for it isn’t a sign of weakness but of strength. No wonder there’s such a profusion of support groups. But if you’re the type who shuns groups, there are also counselors you can talk to privately. Years ago I had my first major loss when my husband died. I felt totally alone, until I discovered that Cancer Care offered free counseling. I began weekly sessions that led to a transforming moment. I was talking about my husband and our futile struggle to keep him alive, when my counselor interrupted me. “I just had an image of you writing about this,” he said. That stunning remark planted the seeds for my memoir “Widow’s Walk” and two other books about coping with grief. From then on I was no longer alone because I’d found a way to share my feelings and also hear from hundreds of strangers struggling with the same challenges. I still treasure the brief note from a Wisconsin widow: “Thank you for giving my grief a voice.”
Of course, you don’t have to write a book to express your feelings. I urge my memoir writing students to use a journal. Looking through an old one of my own I see a tear-smudged reminder of a terrible evening during my husband’s illness. In a desperate attempt for normalcy, I had made a dinner with his favorite foods. He tried to eat, but was so nauseated he could only stumble upstairs to throw up and go to bed. I sat alone in the darkening room, desperate for someone to talk to but whom could I trust? Reaching for some paper and a pen, I began to write about feelings I’d kept hidden – anger at my husband for “abandoning” me and guilt about this shameful feeling. Surprisingly I felt better after confiding in this paper “friend” who wouldn’t betray me.
It reminds me of a widow I interviewed for my second book. She said, “My mother was horrified when she heard me cursing God for my husband’s death. So I bought a notebook and each morning I write the thoughts that would shock my mother and the priest. Then I hide the diary and can go about my day.”
If we’re able to, we can also keep the words of our loved one. When my father-in-law was dying, my daughter visited him with a tape recorder. She wanted him to tell her about his life as a young man she had never known, and he was happy to do this. Like many other people who have recorded, she’s still able to hear that beloved voice . I interviewed a man who said he had never had a good relationship with his mother. But in her last months he visited her often and recorded her memories. “She’s gone now,” he said. “But I feel close to her for the first time.”
Still, there’s nothing like being able to share with friends – as long as we choose ones who will listen without lecturing! “You’ll get over it, ”is profane and should never be uttered. The same for the cliché, “I know how you feel.” I’m ashamed that when I saw my widowed sister cry at a wedding, I told her I knew how she felt. “The hell you do,” she shot back. Rude, but right. None of us can fully know what’s inside someone else. As Willa Cather wrote, “The heart of another person is a dark forest.”
A friend who was widowed after forty years of a loving marriage, told me she was being criticized because she couldn’t cry. “Is something wrong with me?” she asked. The only wrong is heeding the judgments of those who think they have a right to tell us how to grieve. The most important voice is the one that speaks from our own heart.
Website: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: Widow’s Walk, Turning Toward Tomorrow, Ten Women of Valor available through Amazon.com. Role Play , Come And Go, Arising –also available through BookBaby.com..

What seemingly benign holiday brings a confusion of emotions, ranging friom joyous to sorrow? Even the title is confusing, for the apostrophe after Mother’s signifies one mother, rather than all. Yet that modest mark punctuates a truth: not all women welcome this annual holiday. True, there are fortunate mothers awardeD with candy, corsage and/or dining in an elegant restaurant.The popular image is a beaming mothe surrounded by adoring children. (Those, children may have their own conflicts about compulsory homage, but that’s another story.)
There are other women who wish they could tear that Sunday off the calendar. Women unable to conceive or who lost a child. Women grieving the death of their own mother. Women whose unborn infant never made it to birth and women whose adult children have grown distant emotionally as well as geographically. For tall these women the day is something to get through, not to enjoy.
Ironically one of the loudest voices protesting the holiday was that of the woman whi created it! In1908, Anna Reeves Jarvis, who ws mourning the death of her mother, suggested a day be set aside for everyone to pay private tribute to their mother. Her belief that it could be “private” was naïve, for the idea spread across the country. Despite Jarvis herself campaigning against it,I n1914 President Wilson designated Mother’s Day a national holiday. To the delight of merchants it quickly became the “Halmark Holiday” we know today.
Those of us who are fortunate can add meaning to our celebration by reaching out to someone who is suffering. Even a brief call to say, “I’m thinking of you,” can help bridge the loneliness. We should also be sensitive about what we say to people whose story we don’t know. A neighbor told me of buying a box of cookies to contribute to a charitable cause, only to hear the woman selling them say, “Your little ones will love the cookies.” She was unaware how painful those words were, for my neighbor had flunked her final fertility test. As she tearfully threw the cookies into the incinerator she asked: “Why can people stop to think that not everyone is as lucky as they are?
Those of us on the deprived side of the holiday don’t have to settle for s solo Pity Party. We can plan ahead to attend some event – a movie ,play,exhibit – either alone or with a friend who’s in a similar rocky boat. For years my sister had an annual date with a childless friend. “It’s our un-mothers” luncheon they announced. I make sure I give myself a special treat that day, such as sabotaging my diet with Lady Godiva chocolates. They are just as delicious no matter who buys them! Even better, I treat myself to a new book, one I can lose myself and the date in.
We can also broaden our emotional calendar. Monday is just a day away!
Website: www.annehosansky.com
Latest novel: “ARISING”- available at BookBaby.com and Amazon.com.

No matter what crises are going on in the world, the seasons reliably change more or less on schedule.. Actually, a meteorologist friend informed me that this is the earliest spring ever recorded. Early or late, it’s welcomes, for spring is reputedly a season of hope – seeds come to life, flowers bloom. But hope feels increasingly difficult these days when war ravages so much of the world and in our own divided country hatred has a megaphone. For those who have lost a loved one, the beauty of spring can be even more difficult. My husband died in the gray starkness of winter, which matched the grayness within those of us who had lost him. It felt especially cruel to me that my sister died on an April day that was filled with nature coming back to life.
So how do we manage to feel hopeful? I once read an anecdote about a man stumbling in a dark room, crying that he had nothing left. “Turn on the light,” a voice said. When he did, he was amazed to see that the room was filled with jewels. They didn’t suddenly materialize, they had been there all along – but he had to be able to see them.
We have to recognize the hopeful things we’re often blind to. Yesterday I was struggling to push my overloaded shopping cart up the muddy slope outside my house, exertion made worse by my being in a “nobody cares” syndrome. Then a neighbor I’ve barely ever spoken to asked if I wanted help. I suddenly felt a surge of hope that I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought. The moment might have slipped by and an hour later I might have felt hopeless about something else .But I’m learning to recognize when something positive happens. We tend to tell ourselves anything good was a fluke, an aberration, and far too small to compensate for a feeling of loneliness. But hope doesn’t usually come in large packages. If may be moments, acts, words so slight we ignore then or disregard their value.
So we have to take time to notice– and to say, okay maybe most of the week was bad but this hopeful thing happened. Maybe the friend we’d given up on calls us, or a holiday recipe we’ve never had success with turns into our most popular dish. We also tend to dismiss the good with a cynical ”so what, it won’t happen again.” But ”never again” is a sure recipe for despair!
Each night I challenge myself to find three things in the day that I can give thanks for. Admittedly it’s sometimes a struggle to find even one, but there’s usually something if we look for it. A friend once complained that the only thing she could think of was that she’d had a good breakfast. (When so many are starving, breakfast is no small blessing.)
“Hope is the thing with feathers,” Emily Dickinson famously wrote. But our feathered friends fly past swiftly. The ability to recognize even fleeting hope is the light we turn on for ourselves.

Website: annehosansky.com
Current book: ARISING -available in print and E versions, at BookBaby.com and Amazon.com.

I went to bed last night thinking, tomorrow’s March already. Then I woke  to discover it was still February! I hadn’t even realized this is a leap year. But some things (most things) don’t reply on a calendar statistic. I used to fantasize that Leap Year Day was a gift, a special day for something we don’t ordinary do or say, like the menu item, “Specialty of the Day.” But why limit it to once a year? Why not create a personal Leap Year Day every month? What would we do with those precious uncounted hours?Maybe I won’t be solely a workaholic that day, but take time to phone the friend I never seem to have time to call. My interrupted work will still be there, but friendships don’t thrive without nourishment.
Maybe I’ll pause to watch the leaves on the tree outside my window. I never realized how they curl up as if protecting themselves from the cold. I’m inspired when I see them bravely uncurling, as if trusting the world.
Maybe I’ll make myself turn off the computer and go for a walk. If I meet that bullying neighbor I try to avoid I’ll surprise him by smiling. it won’t cost me anything and I might stop wasting energy in anger.
Maybe I’ll make a “play date” with my cat, instad of shutting the door on the lonely privacy of my “studio.” She doesn’t understand deadlines, but she does understand my affectionate rubbing of the fur by her right ear.
Maybe I’ll treat myself to the novelty of lazing on the couch,reading that book I haven’t had time to open.
Actually – what this Leap Day has done for me, was to inspire me to put aside a “must do” assignment and write this blog!
Instead , of feeling guilty if we take time off l let’s think of it as time ON – to replenish parched areas of our life.
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POETRY NOTE: My poem “Soliloquy In A Hi-Rise” has been accepted by Poemeleon Poetry Journal.
BOOK ENDS: “ARISING” and ‘ROLE PLAY” now available in E version as well as print at BookBaby.com and Amazon.com.

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February features a holiday that’s either sweet or bitter, depending where you are in your life. For those happily paired with a partner, Valentine’s Day can bring gifts that we translate into proof that we are loved. But what about those who are alone, victims of a death, divorce, or the breakup of a relationship?

The first Valentine’s Day after my husband died I told my bereavement counselor I’d never be hugged again. His response? “Put your arms around yourself.”
Cold comfort, I thought. Valentine’s Day isn’t supposed to be a game of solitaire. I had bought into the myth that being with anyone is better than being alone. I even wrote this into my novel ARISING, creating a heroine so needy she gets into two toxic affairs before discovering she has strength to stand on her own.
That first year I was advised to arrange some kind of socializing ahead of time. So I called a woman I knew who was single and  hawed dinner together. It became was a monologue of her miseries, that left me feeling even lonelier. That evening was a lesson: One plus one can add up to zero. In other words, we better choose our alternatives wisely.
I also made the myopic mistake of visualizing everyone else getting flowers or candy. Then one evening as I was trudging home from work, I stopped at a newsstand to buy a paper and noticed flowers being sold. I had never bought flowers for myself, but why not? I picked out a colorful bouquet of mixed flowers. “For your mama?” asked the newsman. “For me!” I announced – and that was the real beginning. The flowers I buy brighten my living room and my mood no matter who pays for them. I’ve also become shameless about devouring the Lady Godiva chocolates I treat myself to!
Perhaps the best antidote to loneliness is reaching beyond our self. I know a woman who makes a habit of calling one person each week who’s going through a bad time. A phone call doesn’t have to be lengthy. Just, “I’m thinking of you,” may be enough to let people know they’re not alone. Invariably we find that helping someone else boosts our spirits, too.
Valentine’s Day I will treat myself to a glass of wine and toast my ability to enjoy my own company. As the saying goes, “Alone means all-one.”
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“ARISING” available in print and E version at BoonBaby.com and Amazon.com

My hopefully balanced views of our lopsided world are now available on Substack! Thanks to those of you who have already signed on as subscribers. For those who’ve been loyal followers of my blogs, there’s no fee. You will be my guests!
The bimonthly posts will be a woman’s eye-view of the insane challenges we face every day, sprinkled with my offbeat humor. I’ll also continue to help with the unavoidable trauma of coping with loss, which I’ve written and spoken about (and lived) for years. For those of us who take refuge in books and films, I’ll include “you’ve got to read/see this.”
To join as a free subscriber to AnneH’s Substack, Email ahosansky@gmail.com.
Much to share. Stay tuned!