About me

(and about my extraordinary childhood)

Special shoutout to my new WordPress buddies who suggested that I should add an “About me” page!

Chapter 1:

Who knew that my Dad, who grew up in South Philadelphia in the back of a grocery store, would turn out to have such an affinity for boats? When I was five, we rented a houseboat on Lake Shasta and spent a couple weeks there, where I remember pine-wooded mountains and placid green water that I was allowed to jump into on my own.

Later we owned a speedy motorboat that pounded the waves, terrifying my mom and nauseating my little sister. When the boat was hauled out the water each time, all the screws had to be tightened.

In the end, my parents settled on a sailboat, which they would eventually name after my mom, calling her the Brenda Lynn. My parents began building the hull in the boatyard in Hermosa Beach, a place full of adventure for me and my sister, full of rusty hulks of ships in pieces and salty sailors who guzzled beer more often than they got their feet wet.

Eventually the building of our boat was transferred overseas – Masan, Korea – to be precise, where, at age 8, I got to spend a summer among the poop-smelling fields and guarded by the glass shards on the top of the walls of our small concrete compound.

I was almost 10 when we sailed off from San Pedro, in Los Angeles Port, on our way to the South Seas.

Publications:

• Like my writing? I’ve published a short story in this book:

In Our Own Words – Volume 5

• And published a scientific article on Intuitive Painting and Happiness here:

Gran Weinberg, Audrey (2017) “Combining an Intuitive Art Workshop and Neuroscience Rituals to Make us Happy,” The STEAM Journal: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 23. DOI: 10.5642/steam.20170301.23
Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol3/iss1/23

• And my other blog:

http://www.studyleaksamsterdam.com/