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Karen Paul

Writing at the still point of the turning world.

Recent Activity

Life in the (Widow) Hood: Re-Set

Three weeks ago I traveled to Florida to see my daughter graduate from college. This entailed navigating an airport, flying on a plane in close proximity to other passengers, staying in a friend’s home, staying in a hotel, going to restaurants to eat (outside), and walking around the downtown area... Continue reading

Posted Jun 10, 2021 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Graduation

This coming week marks six years since my husband fell ill, and late in the month we will mark his fifth Yahrzeit. It’s a minute and a lifetime all at once. I’ve reached a point where I can think about that year without crying … sometimes. It was a year... Continue reading

Posted May 29, 2021 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Burrowing

I hugged this week. Now that I can, when I meet someone haven’t been able to see or touch for over a year, I hug them like crazy – hold them and don’t let go. As I clutch my victim, I feel a year’s worth of love and touch radiate... Continue reading

Posted Apr 25, 2021 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: One Year Later

Anniversaries live in our bones. We have muscle memory that reminds us that they are upon us even if we have neglected to note it on the calendar. I know, for instance, that every year around this time I start to feel a tightness in my chest and a sadness,... Continue reading

Posted Mar 1, 2021 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Pandemic Flashback

There has been a spate of articles, most recently an 18-page section in today’s Sunday New York Times, about the impact the pandemic has had on mothers in the U.S. Over four million jobs held by women lost since March. A 700% increase in calls to the crisis hotline for... Continue reading

Posted Feb 7, 2021 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Breaking the Glass

“Why aren’t you also worried about the person in that ambulance and what’s happened to them?” my oldest son, now a young adult, asked as an ambulance roared past. We were driving to the cemetery where he was to be a pallbearer for one of his oldest friends -- the... Continue reading

Posted Jan 22, 2021 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Bearing Witness, Bearing Pain

I waited on a line early yesterday morning on a quest to get some bagels. As I neared the store entrance, I could hear the sounds of the music from inside, and the opening notes to an old Billy Joel song, “Only the Good Die Young.” And I started to... Continue reading

Posted Oct 12, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Duality

For my high school yearbook, when the requisite senior quotes were being collected to garnish the inevitably ugly thumbnail portrait, I spent a long time finding the most appropriate words with which to cement myself in my classmates’ minds for all eternity. I landed on Whitman, his Song of Myself... Continue reading

Posted Sep 26, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: The Wrong Side of the Bed

Many years ago, when my husband and I reconstructed our tiny bungalow and turned it into a large, four-bedroom home for our large, five-person family, we indulged in a king-sized bed. Prior to the build, our two younger children, 5 and 3 at the time, liked to pile into our... Continue reading

Posted Sep 16, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Lipstick

I just did a very daring thing for these Covid times: I ordered a new lipstick. Of course, the only people who are going to see me wearing it will be seeing it through the filter of a Zoom screen. I don’t really want to start figuring out the best... Continue reading

Posted Sep 13, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Anniversaries

Tomorrow is the 29th anniversary of the day I got married. The person with whom I am supposed to mark that date is no longer alive, and so it becomes my responsibility alone to remember, celebrate, and mourn what is no longer. This is true of all the important dates... Continue reading

Posted Aug 31, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Bursting with Delight

I’ve been very blue throughout the pandemic. Not the I-wish-I could-go-to-the-movies kind of blue, but the I-don’t-know-what’s-worth-living-for-anymore blue. I’ve inhabited this hole before. I always find a way out. But I have to admit that this moment in time has definitely pushed me to new depths of existential mournfulness, much... Continue reading

Posted Jul 11, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Five Years Later

On June 3, it will have been five years since I left my office at the end of the day, walked around the corner to have a drink and dinner with a friend, saw my phone light up with a call from my husband’s phone, and knew, with my witchy... Continue reading

Posted May 31, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: The Day After

There were three must-see television events during my college stint in the early 80s (actually four, if you include the release of the Thriller video, which, for those too young to understand, was actually something we waited for with great anticipation.) In the spring of my freshman year, 1981, American... Continue reading

Posted Apr 15, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Worrying

Many years ago, not long after the birth of our third child – our daughter, who was our baby born a little over a year after the death of our second child – my husband and I and our two small children were at the beach with some friends. A... Continue reading

Posted Mar 31, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Life During Corona

My oldest son returned home last night, not triumphant but exhausted and defeated. Three months into what was supposed to be his year-long quarter-century adventure, during which he planned to travel and work his way through Australia and figure out the rest of his life, his entire trajectory has been... Continue reading

Posted Mar 27, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Bonus Day

Today is a bonus day, a day, during this strange, long winter that has been too warm and yet not warm enough, where we have a little breathing room. It’s not quite February, and it’s not quite March. Where we are recalibrating the calendar, and with it, our selves. I... Continue reading

Posted Feb 29, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Secondary Losses

I’ve started to clean out my house, in preparation for … many changes down the road, none of which are yet certain. But what is certain is that I want to rid myself of objects that belonged to my old life, with my husband, and no longer have a place... Continue reading

Posted Jan 9, 2020 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Compartmentalizing

I sat on the side of the bed this morning that I always do to pull on my clothes. It’s closer to the bathroom and my dresser and closet. The sun, which has been in hiding in recent days, made a reappearance and poured into the room, bright and blinding.... Continue reading

Posted Dec 1, 2019 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Filling the Tank

Four years ago in the midst of a year in which I was taking care of my terminally ill husband 24-hours-a-day and still trying to keep up with my full-time job and be present for my three scared and hurting children, I started to realize how low my tank had... Continue reading

Posted Nov 22, 2019 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Grief Retreat

I have just returned from a grief retreat at the famous Kripalu yoga center. I spent three days in the company of around 40 other people who were there to process their grief under the gentle and guiding hands of two facilitators and writers, whose skill and expertise in the... Continue reading

Posted Aug 7, 2019 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Watching the Lilies

There is a giant patch of orange day lilies in my neighborhood. They begin their journey in the dark of winter, their green stems poking up around the time the first crocuses are fading, twisting and growing all through April and May until they finally explode in early June. Their... Continue reading

Posted Apr 30, 2019 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Triggers ... and an ending

Last week I had the honor of volunteering in two Washington, DC, schools. I accompanied a grief and trauma counselor from the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing – an extraordinary organization dedicated to providing support services for people grappling with all sorts of loss and trauma in their lives... Continue reading

Posted Mar 19, 2019 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: 21 Years

Ari Joshua Stern would have been 21 years old today, March 5. A lifetime. Majority. Adult. Instead, he died on March 10, 1998, five days after he was born, because of a doctor’s error and an ensuing tragedy. He died in my arms. It was the first time I was... Continue reading

Posted Mar 5, 2019 at Dwelling in Possibility

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Life in the (Widow) Hood: Solitude

I’ve just spent an entire weekend alone. My youngest son had a weekend away at a friend’s house, my partner is at a work event all weekend and no friends popped up magically and suggested a date. I’m sure I could have packed my weekend with social activities, but when... Continue reading

Posted Jan 27, 2019 at Dwelling in Possibility

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