In this story, sleep interruptus. I’m Joanne Greene.
When I opened my eyes, I noticed that I was in a very comfortable bed, my son’s bed, that is my son and his wife’s bed, the fourth bed I’d slept in that night. This nighttime bed hopping is part of my role as grandma. Yoyo, they call me. It’s a moniker first shared by my great nephew, now 25 years old. 
The night began with a reading of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, a classic story that teaches acceptance of differences, kindness, tolerance, and flexibility, with a healthy dose of humor. Axel was a very tired four-year old, after a day at the STEAM festival, operating a flight simulator, drilling with safety goggles, building a small wiggle bott, assembling a light switch, reading books at the library, and completing a transportation puzzle. I lied next to him in his bed until his steady breathing let me know that he was, in fact, asleep. Then I snuck out of the room for a break until I would be inevitably called to do the same with his older sister, Lisette, once her aunt said goodnight after listening to her read Shel Silverstein poems. Predictably, she requested that Yoyo come up and stay with her for a while.
After watching the final quarter in which the Warriors won their playoff game, I got into bed to read. Ten minutes later, I was fast asleep. And it’s a good thing because, an hour later, Axel arrived to join me in bed. He fell back to sleep; I did not. When Fred arrived, he was shocked to see a sleeping child and kindly agreed to carry him back up to his own bed. Finally, sleep returned for me. But not for long. When Lisette arrived and shook my arm, I startled. 
“Why do you always jump when I wake you up?” she asked. Apparently, her parents are so accustomed to being awakened this way that they just open their eyes. She crawled into bed between us but then reported that she felt squished. And so, I walked her back upstairs and, in hopes of returning to sleep as quickly as possible, I got into her bed. But she was coughing intermittently, and squirming around, and it was both too light in her room due to the projected stars on the walls and ceiling, and too warm for me. And so, when she calmed down enough for me to escape, I did.
Returning to my original bed felt great, until Fred started snoring, and then cracked his knuckles. I hate the sound of cracking knuckles. And then I felt sorry for myself, wanting only some peace and quiet. I tapped him on the arm and said that I was going up to our son’s room and hoped to sleep in. And, by that I meant that I’d like not to be disturbed, at least for the first morning shift.
About an hour later, I heard the pitter pat of little feet. The door to my son’s bedroom, my temporary sanctuary, was opened and closed. Loudly. Axel then went downstairs to sleep with Grandpa, after hearing why Yoyo wasn’t in the bed.
I awoke at 6:58am, which may sound early but, in fact, was a relatively civilized time to arise when in charge of the littles. I stumbled downstairs in search of coffee, a veritable lifeline, and began making their breakfasts. How is it that I love everything about this so much. I can sleep next week when we’re home. Or maybe even here tonight, when their parents will be the first line of defense. Sleep, for the most part, is overrated.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, there’s more than one Boston accent. I’m Joanne Greene.
For many, if not most of you, the words “merry”, “marry” and “Mary” are all pronounced the same way. Merry, merry, merry. But for me, born and raised just outside of Boston, they are three distinct words…Listen closely.
“Merry” is generally associated with Christmas, as in MERRY Christmas.
“Marry” is what happens at a wedding. She will MARRY her partner.
And “Mary” is a name. Mary J Blige…Mary Oliver…Mary Quite Contrary.
There’s nothing that gives me the heeby jeebies more than someone trying and failing to deliver an authentic Boston accent. And people do it all the time, in person and – worse – in movies.
Insert example of bad Boston accent
It’s a litmus test. Actors can master a British accent, a southern drawl, or Brooklyn speak with minimal effort but the real sound of any number of Boston accents must be and rarely is right on the money. Either the person is from Boston, has at least lived in Boston, or they haven’t. Case closed. Mark Wahlberg , Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, …..these actors can pull it off, precisely because they were, at one pivotal, formative time in their lives, proper Bostonians.
Boston accents can be funny…or erudite…They can make one sound as dumb as rocks or as smaaaht as a very smaaat Hahvad educated cah.
Insert excerpt of Smaht Cah commercial
The subtleties are worth noting. 
Take the word horse, for example, HORSE.
It’s “HAHSS”, if you come from, say, most of Boston proper
In Southie, South Boston to the uninitiated, it might sound more like “HAWSS”
Where I grew up, in Brookline, the mounted police (mounties, of course) rode a “HOOAS”.
One common thread in all Boston accents is the dropping of the “r” sound…but don’t get too carried away with this rule as Bostonians also add an “r” sound, when it’s not there, to separate two vowels. For instance, “Rayna and Bob” in a standard American accent becomes “RayneranBob” in the mouth of a Bostonian. The nuances abound, which is why the accent is so tough to get right.
When I first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and applied for an on-air job in radio, I was told that I had to lose the regionalism. What regionalism I questioned? Californians often mistook me for a New Yorker, but I assured them that what they were picking up was East Coast, possibly Jewish, energy and speech patterns. I went to a voice coach and worked on it, which is why I eventually did get hired to speak on the radio and why, today, only the most sophisticated accent detectors can pin me down as a gal from Brookline. 
I share all of this in the hopes of saving you the trouble, and avoiding the inevitable humiliation, of trying & failing to imitate a Boston accent. Maybe, just maybe, you can say “pahk the cah in Hahvad yad” but that’s it. Promise? 

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, my relationship with words. I’m Joanne Greene.
When I was 2 years old, they couldn’t shut me up. I babbled with unintelligible sounds until I landed a few words and, from then on, it was Chatty Cathy. Continuous communication. By the way, Chatty Cathy was a doll in the late 50s early 60s who spoke when you pulled her string, a doll my parents would not let me have, for obvious reasons. They didn’t need more words. To save their sanity, they sent me to preschool at age 2 which, in 1956, was damn near revolutionary. 
Words have always been my jam. Numbers were taken by my math majoring siblings and bookkeeping mother. I, on the other hand, was excited to discover that bookkeeping has three double letters in a row (two o’s, two k’s, two e’s.) And that’s where my fascination with bookkeeping ended. I passed notes to my friends to get through long afternoons at Hebrew School, sent letters all summer to anyone whose address I’d snagged, and kept diaries from the time I could hold a pen. Words have always served me. I could turn them inside out, make them rhyme, and express my deep inner thoughts even when alone in my room. I fancied myself a writer, which was why, in high school, when I was NOT accepted into theAdvanced Placement Creative Writing class, I thought my future was shattered.
The hopefuls were gathered into a classroom, after school, and given 20 minutes to write an essay, a poem, or whatever else based on a one-word prompt: CRYSTAL. That’s it? I gulped. Crystal? And then I got to work.
Somehow, the lined notebook paper on which I wrote has survived all these years. At the very top, under my name, is the date: March 26, 1969. At the risk of hopelessly embarrassing myself and in the hope of giving the rest of you a good laugh, here goes:
My Crystal.
My crystal: a multitude of purpose   
A many-sided reflection
A king of schizophrenic hypocracy   (misspelled) of a cut up being
An ice cube melts to droplets and, like my crystal, reveals transparency.
I see the reverberating pierces of ambiguity (did I mean pierces or pieces?) and vision….through reality unto my dreams.  
Me as a whole is many times duplicated, and I begin to interpret…a bit.
But then I re-look…re-see…and reconsider. (re-look is not a thing)
Ah, it isn’t solely me who is cut up…and reappearingly formulated  (also, incorrect)
It is also my eyes.
And since my tools of vision are reflected also, then I can’t see through to the end.
My crystal is useless, for there is no meaning.

You can see why I was rejected. Undaunted, I kept writing…and also correcting people who made glaring verbal grammatical errors. What’s worse, nails on a chalkboard, or having to grit your teeth when someone says “her and I went to the movies”?  EEEEEE There’s a difference between your sandwich and you’re like a sandwich. A lot is not one four letter word. Than and then are not one and the same. You get the point. My nieces and nephew called me a grammar nazi. Thankfully, I was able to make the point with my two sons that incorrect grammar can lead to (obviously incorrect) assumptions about your intelligence, your education, your knowledge base. Their grammar, I breathe a sigh of relief, is not a problem. 
The thing about words…as wonderful as they are for expressing our thoughts, creating beauty and meaning, addressing societal needs, helping people to cope and move through challenging times, is that they, words, can heal and they can hurt. I’ve learned, over the decades, that sometimes…every now and then…it’s best if I just listen and keep my words to myself.  


Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, I escape some flames. I’m Joanne Greene.
It was 1979 in San Francisco, and I was flying high as a news anchor at the legendary FM radio station, K-S-A-N, affectionately called KSAN. I was in love with Fred Greene, morning show producer and part time jock, and my career was the envy of aspiring radio journalists. Metromedia, KSAN’s parent company, had brought in a new General Manager from Los Angeles to “right the ship.” He’d successfully turned big profits at KMET in LA and the suits in NY thought his approach would work in SF. However then, as now, LA and SF are very different beasts.
It took one, maybe two, officious memos from the new GM, for the staff to start revolting, some more dramatically than others. On one particular day Thom O’Hair, longtime San Francisco air personality, had taken a tab or two of acid. He and my news partner Chris Stanley were on a tear about the new GM whom they’d renamed from L. David Morehead to El Nuclear Warhead. Taking their loud protestation outside the station, they quickly found themselves pounding shots at the Financial Corner, the bar on the next block.
The combination of LSD and alcohol wasn’t new to O’Hair, but I was concerned that the results would be unpredictable at best, particularly since I was to anchor the news in his afternoon air-shift. They returned from the bar at 2:55 and Tom went directly into the studio to cue up his first record.  As I walked into the studio to deliver the 3pm newscast, I saw something different in O’Hair’s eyes. He’d often displayed a mischievous glint, but this was something else - something maniacal, diabolical. Oh no. What’s he going to do? I held my breath, and my stack of papers. Would he turn on my microphone and let me do the newscast? Would I be able to do my job and leave the studio without incident? Instead, as the song was ending and I was gathering my stack of notes and miscellaneous wire copy from which I would tell rather than read the news as was our signature KSAN style, O’Hair grabbed my papers, flipped a Bic lighter which he pulled out of nowhere, it seemed, and set my news copy on fire. 
Oh. My. God. I was holding a torch. News flambe. My eyes doubled in size as my jaw dropped in shock. In a nanosecond, I started blowing and by some stroke of luck, I apparently had enough air in my lungs to turn my news copy into charred ashes just as the record ended. Tom opened my microphone and walked out of the studio chuckling. Somehow, somewhere, I found my voice.
“It’s 3 o’clock and this is KSAN, San Francisco,” I heard myself say. And then I went on to ad lib a newscast. It wasn’t pretty, but I made it out of the studio five minutes later with a shred of dignity, a healthy dose of anger, and the knowledge that, like my ancestors fleeing persecution in Europe, I was a survivor. 



Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In October of 1991, we lived in the Oakland Hills…the area in which the tunnel fire, also known as the Oakland Firestorm, killed 25 people, injured 150 others, and devoured 2,843 single-family dwellings and 437 apartments. Thankfully, our home was unharmed but the same could not be said for many of our friends. Before the fire was controlled, we were briefly allowed into our home to salvage precious belongings. We took videotapes, photo albums, and journals – irreplacables. We thought about taking the bird but concurred that having our family and dog at my sister’s house was enough of an imposition. We loaded up Birdy’s food dishes and wished her the best.  I thought of that day recently as the Palisades and Altadena fires raged in Los Angeles. What would I take today if we were evacuated?
Most of our photos and videos reside in the cloud; most, though not all, of my writing is safe in Dropbox. I would still grab my oldest journals, the small books that recorded my eighth-grade thoughts on racism, the agonizing wait for my high school boyfriend to call, the fear of losing my identity during my first pregnancy (how, I couldn’t imagine, would I still be me and be a mother?), and the anticipatory grief as my mother and sister simultaneously moved closer to death. These are bits and pieces of me, glimpses into my unfiltered musings, that occasionally ground me and remind me that at my core, I’m still that adventurous, imaginative, outraged, loving, anxious, creative little girl.
I wear the jewelry that carries meaning – my wedding ring, an identical twin to Fred’s, that was created from gold from our previous lives and shaped into interconnecting infinity signs; my mother’s engagement and wedding rings, soldered together to give them added strength having been worn by her, or me, for nearly 100 years. I would grab my earliest photo albums, with pictures of my parents on their honeymoon, of my siblings and cousins before I was born, of my 9th grade classmates, of my bunkmates in pajamas, of my dorm room at Northwestern.
I would bring my dog, Moxie, of course, because the thought of life without her unconditional love and big brown eyes, her annoyingly endless licking of my face, would be impossibly challenging if we were in exile. I would grab enough pills to get me through a week, maybe some fruit and nuts, and as much water as I could manage, and a first aid kit. I’d wear low rise hiking boots to keep my feet dry and my body safer if falling on uneven terrain, plus layers of clothing and a waterproof outer layer.
I understand that my clothing, as well as my new Vince sneakers and comfy navy boots, can all be replaced…..that books, while incredibly meaningful, don’t need to be owned….and that art, while unique and inspirational, can be made again.
All of what I’ll bring will fit easily into either of our cars. But what will Fred bring and how in hell will I convince him to leave the bulk of his precious possessions behind? I console myself with the thought that each of us gets to choose what to bring, even if we can’t come up with a reason. And if I didn’t have even a moment to gather the items that cannot be replaced, I would assure myself that surviving a disaster with my family intact is really all that would truly matter.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, we take our temperature. I’m Joanne Greene.
Now I understand why the elderly have always worn cardigans. They’re easier to put on and take off when our collective thermostats die.
Case in point. This morning. There was frost on the ground, so I bundled up before taking my dog and grand dog for a forest therapy walk in the woods. Gloves, a beanie, and a parka seemed about right. And it was. For about 10 minutes. Then, off came the hat; I’ve never liked things on my head. Fifteen minutes later, the gloves came off…and I don’t mean that metaphorically. It was actually warm, in the way that California sun can trick you into believing that summer is approaching, even when plants are frozen. Eventually, dogs bounding around, in and out of mud puddles, off leash, it occurred to me that I had to keep track of all the items I was holding….gloves, hat, leashes, phone, headphones. You get the picture.
It made me think of yesterday, when the family room felt so cold that I pulled a big cushion up to the fireplace and flipped the switch to get the fire going. I know…is it really a fire when you don’t need kindling? Answer: yes. We live in fire country. Case closed.
I warmed up in minutes and, soon, was losing layers. Too hot. Too cold. Why can’t I seem to get it right? Did I worry about any of this when I was younger? Absolutely not. I grew up in freezing conditions and we wore knee socks and skirts walking to school in the winter. Did we talk about frigid thighs? Never. We just took it for granted that that’s how we were supposed to feel in winter. And then there was summer, which brought not just heat but stifling humidity…the kind that has you showering multiple times a day because as soon as you dry off, you’re bathed in perspiration again. Boys sweat; girls perspire. What?
My husband’s hands and feet are always cold. It’s the price he pays for low blood pressure which, on balance, is a good tradeoff. But the downside is that we’re regularly negotiating about room temperature, when to turn the fire on and off, whether to leave the glass door in our bedroom open – just a sliver – when he says it’s unacceptably cold. Some couples have issues over money. Not us. We see eye to eye on just about everything, except for the damn temperature. “Is it hot in here?” I ask. Again. And again. And again. He arrives in the kitchen, having crossed the garage from his office to get there, and 9 times out of 10, he’s shivering. Are we going to have to heat the garage? Buy tiny heating pads for his feet? Install fans on every side table so that I don’t have to run out into the backyard mid-streaming show to feel a breeze? I don’t think so. Instead, maybe we just stock up on cardigans.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

Safe to say, we all want the same for our children – that they feel loved and valued, that they respect themselves and others, and that they be resilient. If you’re lucky enough to see your child become a parent, you’re in for a treat. You get to watch from the sidelines as they learn what it means to give selflessly, to love from the very deepest place in their hearts, and to hopefully practice the best of what you strove to impart.
My older son spent a month at his in-laws home in San Malo, France recently, and toward the end of the month, he wrote his ten month old son a letter. He was kind enough to let me share it with you here:

Luca my boy. 
What a wonderful trip we just had together. You were a bit sick when it started. You had an ear infection and lots of wax in your ears. Your teeth have been coming in. You have two top and two bottom now. Changing timezones is never easy and it took you a while to adjust. But when all of that was over, you again shone as your happy self. We got to spend a lot of time together, especially in the mornings before the rest of the house was awake. Your mother needs her sleep. When I would hear you whimper or cry, sometimes waking me up, I would come into your room and pick you up out of your crib, still in your sleep sac, and you would nuzzle against me, happy that I was the one to get you and confident that a bottle was near. Well, sometimes not so patient if you were really hungry. But more often I recall you giggling as I made the bottle. After some milk, I would change your diaper and dress you, we’d go back into the kitchen where I’d put you on the floor to crawl a bit and say hi to your stuffed animal friends. The bear. The otter. The lamb. But you were more interested in the wicker baskets with the chestnuts, turning them this way and that as you lay on your back. You have a strong grip. One day you reached for a weight used for an old scale that I hadn’t even noticed. You pulled it off the shelf, allowing it to fall the 4 or 5 inches to the ground, thankfully not onto your hand or fingers. It was surprisingly heavy and would have undoubtedly broken some bones. Was another lesson for me in paying attention to your new abilities and wide-eyed curiosity. But on an average morning, I would make the coffee, maybe sweep the floor, put away the dishes… I would pick you up and we would open the curtains as the darkness outside began to turn to light. One day I explained the passage of days and years by circumnavigating the dinning table with you in my arms, spinning around and around. We’re the earth and every time we see the table it’s like the sun coming up and night turning to day. You liked the spinning, or maybe just being in my arms. I loved spending the mornings with you. Eventually it was time to wake up mommy. We would go into the bedroom and I’d put you in bed next to her and you would reach out to touch her face, never gently. Doucement, doucement, comme ça, she would say as she took your hand and stroked her face with it. If I remember nothing else from this trip, may it be these mornings. 

The world can be burning or flooding due to climate change, while wars and dire poverty bring undue suffering to millions…yet, sometimes, somehow…I'm lucky enough to bask in the pleasure of moments like this. 

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

The contrast between working conditions at KRE and those of the typical San Francisco radio station in the mid 1970’s was stunning. KRE’s door was never locked. Messages were written on a pad of pink “While You’re Were Out” paper and stuck on a spindle on the front desk. We replaced the typewriter ribbons ourselves and there was no hot running water in either of the bathrooms. Our General Manager and sales staff negotiated trade agreements with local restaurants - ads for food, basically - so a big perk was periodically getting to feast on the salad bar at the El Cerrito Station. 
For four years at KRE, I honed my skills and periodically interviewed for jobs in the city at radio stations that offered far more in the way of decor, professionalism, and salary but a lot less in terms of soul. And then I heard about an opening at KSAN, the legendary rock station whose claim to fame was not only the music but the news. It’s where every young person in the San Francisco Bay Area turned for the truth and the KSAN News delivered. There were no stories from the police blotter; that was better left to local television. The KSAN News team curated the news, focusing on issues that had impact, often covering only a few stories in a five minute newscast when there was a lot to say. Rather than reading from a script as was and continues to be standard practice in radio news, KSAN news people told you the news. They spoke directly to you - one on one - often bantering back and forth with a co-anchor or even the on air jock.
My first day of work on the KSAN News team was a bit traumatic. I arrived at 345 Sansome Street with some anxiety, having never anchored news before. I went directly to the newsroom and found some piles of torn wire copy from the Associated Press and Reuters news services and no sign of a human being. 
“Excuse me, I’m Joanne Rosenzweig, the new news person. Do you know where Dave McQueen is?” I asked someone who happened to be passing by in the hallway. Dave was the News Director and my co-anchor for the noon news.
The guy in the hall looked at his watch and grinned. “Oh, Dave’s probably asleep on the couch in the front office. That’s generally where he is between nine and noon.”
I gulped and slowly nodded, wondering how I was supposed to prepare the newscast without any direction. OK, I thought, I’ll just read over all of the copy that he pulled for the morning drive casts and continue to rip updates from the wires.
An hour passed and my heart rate was gradually increasing, as I ran back and forth from the newsroom to the tiny area that housed the wire machines – checking on updates from Associated Press and Reuters. What the hell? Why isn’t he here to welcome me and tell me what he expects? Isn’t there any training?
I’d been hired by Abby Melamed, the Program Director, and she was out at a meeting. I went into the Production Room and asked Rick, the Production Director, what he thought I should do.
“It’s after eleven-thirty,” Rick said, sympathetically, “I think it’s fine to go wake him up and tell him you need to figure out the noon news.”
“He won’t be angry?” I asked, hoping that Rick would offer to go wake him up and save me the awkwardness and potential humiliation.
Rick shrugged and smiled. I had the immediate sense that Rick would be a friend and ally, even though he wasn’t making the morning any easier for me.
With trepidation, I began walking toward the front office. Peeking in, I saw Dave, asleep on a couch, his long brown hair strewn across a throw pillow. 
“Dave,” I whispered. No response. “Dave,” I said, a bit louder this time. 
Still no sign of life. I held my breath for a moment, wondering what I’d done to deserve this, and said in a somewhat louder voice “David!”  That did it. He moved, opened one eye, and started to stretch. And then he continued to stretch until, gradually, he began to sit up. Then, he grabbed a hair brush from the table and began to brush his nearly waist-length brown hair, bending his head down and flipping all of his locks back over his head, brushing it from the other side. Was this his ritual upon waking up? He didn’t seem like a fastidious person and yet this hair brushing seemed to go on and on. I stared, in disbelief, and started babbling.
“I cleared the wires and read over what you’d done in the morning newscasts, but I’m not sure how you want to handle the noon. It’s 11:40 now, maybe later, and I’m starting to get concerned that we need time to prep.”
Dave continued to brush his hair, not yet responding to my semi-panicked diatribe.
When he finished stretching, yawning and brushing, he walked out of the room and down the long hall to the newsroom. I followed wondering how, in hell, we were going to properly prepare to deliver a newscast. Maybe my notion of “properly” was about to go out the window. Man, did I have a lot to learn. Upon entering his sanctuary - a small room with a couple of typewriters and an audio board - he began cutting out lines of cocaine on the countertop with a razorblade. I tried hard not to give any indication of how shocked and, frankly, pissed I was. Was this standard operating procedure here, or just his way of welcoming the newbie? “No thank you,” I said when he handed me a rolled up dollar bill, indicating that it was my turn, after snorting a fat line himself. “I’m really getting nervous about the newscast,” I said, pleadingly, “I mean, isn’t the news cast in 10 minutes?”
What a rookie, he must be thinking. Why did we hire her? 
David grabbed a pile of copy, flipping through the stories, then looked up and said, “What else you got?”
Somehow, we divvied up the piles and I stumbled through my first KSAN newscast, barely absorbing the content that I was sharing with the radio audience. David sounded as authoritative and in control as he always did. Was he always high on the air? I was in a state of shock and wondered how I was ever going to build a rapport with my News Director and co-anchor. Time heals much, and we later become good friends, spending many an evening, as couples, drinking red wine and pontificating about the state of our nation. Decades later, Dave and I co-anchored audio programs for Hewlett Packard. Rest in peace, my friend.


Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, the meaning of showing up. I’m Joanne Greene.
My eldest cousin passed away. He was 91. We knew it was coming. But that doesn’t make it any easier for his one and only daughter, who valiantly navigated caring for him from afar as his condition deteriorated and his undaunting spirit led him to continue working in his legal practice, attempting to drive, and making questionable decisions that led to numerous ER visits and hospital stays. He remained in Boston, the city in which he lived his whole life while she, her husband and identical twin 6 year old daughters were living in Bogata, Colombia. She spent countless hours online and on the phone, arranging drivers, speaking to doctors, and looking into how to help her father feel valued and of service as his health worsened. And she succeeded beyond measure.
I knew that I’d show up whenever I could be helpful. That’s what we do if we understand that giving is what makes life meaningful. It’s what I most value at this stage of my life – showing up for the people I love. Being present. Sharing both the joy and the pain that come simultaneously if we’re paying attention and living authentically. How, you might ask, could I find satisfaction in clearing out my cousin’s bathroom cabinets? That simple act, shared with his daughter’s mother in law (because she, too, shows up) afforded me some intimacy with my cousin while crossing one more item off his daughter’s to do list. My cousin and I were not close, we didn’t grow up together as we were twenty years apart. But we had shared lifelong memories of holiday celebrations – thanksgiving dinners and Passover seders….an annual tradition of checking on who won our respective neighboring high school football games. At his funeral, I relished sharing the memory of him relentlessly teasing my sister about her losing their annual bet about said football game and how was she going to repay her debt to him. 
Family holds unique importance for me, for many of us. It’s our original blueprint, the people with and from whom we form our initial view of life and what matters. I credit my aunts, uncles, and cousins with helping to form my sense of humor, my work ethic, my intellectual curiosity, and love of tradition. As an elder, now, I try to foster and model that for my siblings’ children and grandchildren, and certainly my own descendants. Our families look different today. Rather than living blocks away or in adjacent towns, we’re scattered across the state and, often, the globe. honoring different cultural traditions as well as our own. Our worlds both expand and contract as we easily Facetime bridging the distance and time difference to celebrate together, to share in joy….to join family members in pain or hardship in whatever way we can.
I received so many tender condolences over my cousin’s passing and for that I am very grateful. But the truth is, I wasn’t in pain. He had a great sendoff, honored for his countless contributions to the lives of many. It was my privilege to help however I could, to further cement the bonds of family, to catch up with the generation now in college and newly forging career paths, to share fond memories and to model the very behavior that I learned from those who came before me. We show up. We celebrate together and we grieve together. That makes life ever more precious and blesses all of us with lasting riches.

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

In this story, a look ahead to 2025. I’m Joanne Greene.Vision boards are easy. You look through magazines and find photos of places you’d like to go, outfits you’d see yourself wearing, cars you’d want to drive, vacations you’d like to take.

When creating a verbal vision board, there are no suggestions, no ideas from which to choose. You’re making the cake from scratch, without a mix or a recipe.

2025 sounds like the far-off future, yet it’s moments away. In 1979, I hosted a radio show called “The 80’s”, filled with interviews and speculation on where things were headed. Five years later, I could hardly believe we’d made it to 1984. George Orwell surely had a few things right.

What I couldn’t have imagined, years ago, was Waymo, the robot car as my 3-year-old grandson calls it. I couldn’t have conceived of artificial intelligence, where my skills as both a voice over talent and a writer would be supplanted by a free service, available to all, in seconds.

While in high school, I read Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, a book published in 1962 which exposed the dangers of the pesticide DDT & questioned our collective faith in technology. Carson, among others, sowed the seeds of the environmental movement, which grew against the odds. I came of age being skeptical of corporations looking the other way when concern threatened profits, ad campaigns that convinced us chemicals were safe. Natural settings called to me, though they were not the natural habitat of my childhood, just outside of Boston, where I spent more time in movie theaters, bowling alleys and department stores. As a teenager it became clear that I could breathe more freely outdoors, that I could think more clearly surrounded by trees and bodies of water. I moved to California post college and grew to love hiking, finding both solace and adventure in wild places.

In 2025, I will become certified as a nature and forest therapy guide, spending more and more of my time communing with plants, insects, and animals, finding peace in stillness, slowing down enough to notice what most of us, including me, generally miss. I imagine bringing groups of people into natural places and, with any luck, guiding at least some of them into liminal experiences that ground them and expose them to new parts of themselves.

After a career in radio journalism, more than a decade running out of the box Jewish programs at a community center, and publishing a memoir, I could not have predicted that this is what my next chapter would be. It’s about listening to that still, small voice within and taking a risk. I rarely regret the moves I make when I trust my gut. Here’s to new beginnings and a very happy, healthy, growth-filled, new year!

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!