On my most recent podcast episode, I recommended a wonderful audio documentary series - We Share the Same Sky. In it a young woman documents her decade long journey traveling in the footsteps of her grandmother - a Holocaust survivor and a refugee. It’s a very moving story and also provokes a lot of questions about generational guilt, love, and the things that last (and the things that don’t).
It made me think of my own grandmother -a wonderfully whimsical, artistic woman, with a flair for the dramatic. She was the one who introduced me to so many wonderful literary worlds, who always had time for a tea party, and had endless hours for pretend play. She wasn’t perfect, but to me she was magic.
Back in 2020, during quarantine, KCRW prompted producers around the country with a radio race - create an original 4 minute piece based on a theme they gave you right at the beginning of the 24 hours. The theme was “Time.”
This short radio piece is the result of that race. I’m very proud of it and I think it captures my grandmother well. I think of her often, especially this time of year, when all the flowers are in bloom - all those hours we spent in beautiful gardens together.
I hope you enjoy it and I hope it provokes you to think about your own legacies, in all their beauty, contradictoriness, and complexity.
My grandmother once told me she was Alice and she’d fallen through the Looking Glass. This is where it took her…
Through the Looking Glass