YEHUDIT
FEINSTEIN
MENTESH

There are moments in my life when all I’m longing for is quiet. Not the kind that comes from the outside, but the one that slowly opens from within,  somewhere between the heart and the breath, between the body and old memories, between fear and tenderness. I think a lot about this shift: How the body and mind move from vigilance, that place where the muscles tighten and the senses scan for danger, into presence. Into a moment where it’s allowed to simply be. Quiet isn’t alwa

Every year, winter arrives in New York all at once. Not with hesitation or grace, but like a heavy curtain dropping from the sky, closing in on the street, freezing the breath. The cold here doesn’t fall from the air; it rises from the ground, seeps through shoes, and blurs the sense of time and place. When I was growing up in Israel, the cold was different. It never pierced, it caressed. It came in gentle ripples, through showers of rain and winds that carried the scent of

For quite some time, I’ve found myself drawn to hidden places, the quiet places that exist behind the city’s polished storefronts and...

It’s been a few days since we returned from Paris. These days, after the jet lag, the dizziness, the strange awakenings between night and...

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about time maybe it’s because I turned fifty this year maybe it’s because this summer marks half my life...

My mother was always busy. She was a mother to four children, a full-time nurse, the wife of a man who came back from war—injured, broken...

Lately, I find myself gasping for air in moments I don’t expect. The weight on my chest doesn’t leave, and sleep feels like a distant...

“Where we love is home—home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. In 3rd grade, my parents took us on...

Our memories are a collection of moments and items that shape us, often in ways we don’t fully understand until we meet them...

What is it about time that is so painful? I feel its cycles deeply—from within and from without. Each season, each turn carries its own...

Why is it so hard to find and listen to our own inner voice? What happened along the way that we learned not to hear it? These questions...

For many years, my relationship with art was like an engine carefully hidden under layers. That space of quiet distance allowed me to...

The older I get, the more I realize that there are dreams we’ve carried with us for a long time—sometimes for so long that we almost...

Late afternoon on a Sunday, the end of a weekend, and almost the beginning of a long week at the studio. I just finished my last Sunday...

There’s food in the fridge, the house is tidy, the laundry is folded The closet is organized. Everything is alright. The kids are at...

Now I’m writing about the yearning. About those dreams. About our lake. Chairs standing in the wind. Snow that piles up on trees. There’s...

It was one of the most challenging years that I’ve known. The difficulty penetrated slowly, and every time it seemed that it was over or...