Bonni Brodnick Blog

Seeing the world through my eyes would make most people either dizzy or feel like they were going to throw up.  Like they just stepped off a roller coaster at an amusement park or were living in a perennial state of hangover. I see everything in double. And there are times when I also see a ghost image hovering over the primary image. I've tried patches and prisms to try to correct it. In fact, the goal of every ophthalmologist or optician I see is to merge these two images, or at least line them up on the same visual plane. Nothing works. It's hard for me to imagine what it would be like to see straight. Would I be me if I didn't have the character-building "pirate" episode in the popsicle line at Maplewood pool when I was five years old? (See part one in a series of three: "Seeing With Crossed Eyes: My World in Double Vision" ) Or, to strengthen my eye muscles when I was seven, I forwent after-school sports for something even more challenging: after-sc...

June has always been one of my favorite months. I especially get swoony when I get a whiff of wisteria or lilacs. These fragrant clusters of purple blooms scream "It's  JUNE !" and transport me to Jefferson Elementary School in Maplewood, New Jersey, where I grew up.  At the end of every school year, there was an assembly in the auditorium. Row upon row of hard-wooden mahogany folding seats that made creaky sounds when you opened them to sit down, then snapped closed when you stood up.  Once each of the grades -- from kindergarten through sixth -- was in their places, Miss Lorenz, the music teacher ,  walked to the front of the auditorium. She'd raise her arms like a conductor preparing an orchestra, then ssssh-hhh the restless students.  It was the sacred moment to sing the song we'd waited for all year, a snappy tune that marked the end of another school year an d the be g inning  of summer. I can't find a recording of it anywhere, but here it is, in a...

Photo by the Author On Sunday, we went to the Bronx Zoo with son, daughter-in-law, and the grands. While taking a shot of the pensive monkey (above), I overheard a mother reprimanding her son, about 4-years-old.  His tongue was just about to take a swipe.           "Honey, do not lick  that ," she said. Photo by the Author "But, why ? " he asked. Would YOU ever be tempted to lick something as foul and funky as a moldy, wooden fence directly under the monkey habitat at the Bronx Zoo? Uh, I don't think so.

Credit: Alison Saeng for Unsplash For an upcoming interview, I was reviewing My Stroke in the Fast Lane: A Journey to Recovery. It made me remember not being able to walk, talk, or swallow. Lying there in a hospital bed with no idea when I would be better, and better how ? When my husband comes home from the office, we usually pour two glasses of wine and head to the living room to chat for a bit and catch up on our day. As I sat there listening to him talk tonight, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Hearing his deep voice, and knowing his body would be lying next to me in bed in a few hours. Sitting in the beautiful living room, which we just had painted, the sliding door to the back garden open, a zephyr of early spring was in the air. The robin in the birdbath gently flapped his wings in the water.  I am THANKFULL for so many things: my marriage, my children, my grandchildren, and pockets of best friends. Because of my stroke, I am fully aware of my body, and that I was able to ...

                                         The Cultural Director (my husband) and I recently attended "Giant" with John Lithgow at the Music Box Theatre. The play dramatizes a controversial book review Roald Dahl wrote, deeming it antisemitic. He confronts moral and professional dilemmas as the play comes to ... WHAT  IS THAT LOUD SOUND? Is it the CELL PHONE of the guy sitting next to me? (And, I'm not even mentioning that it was in John Lithgow's voice, which made me think that this horrendously mannered person was actually RECORDING the performance??) The jolting sound went off  at the pivotal moment Dahl is speaking on the phone, giving an interview, and the script  is  verbatim to his real conversation.  Is this idiot next to me trying to ruin it for the entire row in his vicinity?  Well, he did.   When you are asked  to shut off all electron...

As Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II would have celebrated her 100th birthday last week, I remembered a letter I received from her in 1993. I wrote to The Queen to let her know how much I enjoyed the television documentary "Elizabeth R." I didn't write this part, but at one point, it was particularly touching. In a grand room, Queen Elizabeth sat alone, eating dinner on a TV tray. Just like the rest of us. (Or some of us.) It reminded me of a retort my father gave me about President Kennedy. I must have been going on and on about how I idolized him. (We happened to be learning about idols in Sunday school.) To bring it down and humanize it, Daddy said, "Remember, Bonni: even President Kennedy makes a poop every day." (The profundity of that message silenced this curious six-year-old.) Among the many personalized letters I have are those from Jimmy Stewart, Robert Goulet, Isaac Asimov, Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Diana, Helen Hayes, and more. There is also one from J...