PinnedA conversation with my father after the Buffalo massacre“In my last passage through cancer, for a brief moment, I was back in Nagasaki, I saw the mothers crying, and I was crying with them. I now see how it is all connected.” My father would have been 96 this month. When he died, he was 48, and I…Racism11 min readRacism11 min read
PinnedMemories of Izzy on Mother’s Day 2022WARNING: This story includes a description of physical harm and references to slavery. It’s Mother’s Day 2022, and my indomitable mother has COVID. That woman has crashed through nearly every barrier life placed in her path, facing demons from her own and her family’s past again and again. But she…Motherhood7 min readMotherhood7 min read
PinnedMy 16-year-old body in Texas todayIt was right around this time of year when I got pregnant. There were maybe one or two times we didn’t use condoms. I was so numb and depressed I really wasn’t thinking like a rational person. And, well, we were sixteen… My father had died in February, and my…Storytelling4 min readStorytelling4 min read
PinnedThe Faceless Black Father: A MeditationA friend texted me this photo with the words, “This little girl reminds me of my daughter. What do you see in her eyes?” I see her terror. I see her life playing out with the residue of this moment. …3 min read3 min read
Nov 15, 2022What names should I give myself this yearTRIGGER WARNING: SURVIVING TRAUMA The pronoun decision is clear — she / they — the left half acknowledging the role I play in the world today; the right half the possibilities I have experienced since as long as I can remember myself living in a body or as having something…4 min read4 min read
Jun 24, 2022What I learned as a female CEO #1:Trust your instincts This story is part of a larger project, The Golden Repair, that retells the defining moments of my life without judgments or interpretations. It took me thirteen years to get my big idea about storytelling to a place where I can hand it off to others to…Women In Tech3 min readWomen In Tech3 min read
Apr 12, 2022Moses as Startup CEOGetting my company and myself through the pandemic I said to my coach, “I feel like Moses must have felt at the burning bush. I’m ill-equipped for the job I’ve been called to do. I’m not the right person to get this storytelling company into the world.” He said, “I think you should reread Exodus. That’s just the beginning of the story.” I reread Exodus on the plane home from my fifth trip to China in twelve months.Leaders8 min readLeaders8 min read
Feb 10, 2022Approaching The Seam“When we enter the world of story as a verb, we see how each of our remembered stories is a distillation of many different memories: our own and other people’s.” What does it mean to say story is a verb? It means that a story is not just a product…Storytelling6 min readStorytelling6 min read
Sep 15, 2021My Father, Yizkor, and ReleaseBy Carol Barash, PhD In 1989, four years into our marriage, Jed and I spent what was to be a sabbatical year in Los Angeles. …4 min read4 min read
May 28, 2020“This is certainly not ok…”I grew up on a blue island in a red sea. My parents were registered Republicans because, as my father said, “You could be a Jew or a Democrat, but if you were a Jew and a Democrat, no banker would loan you money, and a business needs money,” he…4 min read4 min read