Biography

I distinctly remember the first time my first grade teacher handed out pieces of new, lined paper to the class. "Today is Monday" she wrote on the board. I looked down at my sheet of paper and felt intensely happy. Smoothing it's coolness with my palm I inhaled its scent; a combination of cedar and possibility. When I looked up and around I realized immediately that not everyone was so affected; Jody Engel sat perfectly straight as befitted the teacher’s pet, eyes front, hands on desk. Mark Graham was engaged in his usual pastime, picking his nose and Mike Jaffe was trying to poke Andrea Nardo in the back. I could see his paper getting crinkled as he lunged forward with his pencil and this made me cringe. Because for me, everything had just changed. There was life before that first sheet of paper and life after; before, I was just another little girl in the first grade at Cherry Lane School. After, I was a writer. Maybe it was the glue.

Because I had two brothers who were so much older than me that I grew up as an only child, and because my mother believed in frequent visits to the children’s section of the Arrandale library in Great Neck, New York, I became a voracious reader at an early age, guarding and savoring the 6 or 7 books I was allowed to check out each time. At the same time I amassed an obnoxious amount of an obsessive attachment to Golden Books, specifically The Poky Little Puppy. The severity of this obsession was finally revealed by an ungodly tantrum and several stampings of my foot and a pitiful cry of “N-O-No!” when my mother insisted that I load them into my red wagon and hand them down to the little girl next door. I was fourteen at the time.

Reading frenzies defined an otherwise unremarkable childhood characterized by a love of all sports (I am still the only woman in the room who knows the difference between offsides and encroachment), an identity as a tomboy, and a pervasive sense of "late blooming." Stories with a lesson (Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, Ramona) were early favorites, followed by a fascination with biographies (Clara Barton, Girl Nurse, and Francis Marion, Swamp Fox) and finally a taste for fantasy (A Wrinkle In Time, Phantom Tollbooth), medical disaster (Follow My Leader, Death Be Not Proud), and mythology ("Medusa," "Pegasus," and The Odyssey). Other childhood favorites were From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Black Like Me, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher In the Rye, This Perfect World and stolen copies of Goodbye, Columbus and Valley of the Dolls.

For a short time I abandoned reading because I was under the impression that I could sing. I would torture anyone within earshot with great, booming, impressions of Barbra Streisand or Ethel Merman and my own stylings of The Fifth Dimension’s "Up, Up and Away" plus an especially grating rendition of "Band of Gold" which prompted my cousins to run screaming from the house shouting, “Mom! She’s singing again!”

After graduating from high school one year early (the press release was that I was bored and ready for the next step while the reality was that I didn’t make the Varsity Cheerleading Squad and was too mortified to show up for senior year), I first attended The American University and then The University of Michigan, from where I graduated with a BA in English and a lifetime love of the Midwest. A series of jobs in advertising, travel, and employment followed, none of which came close to bringing me the joy that staying home to raise my two children did. And believe me, I thank God every day for the financial freedom to have done this and the payoff is that my children are now perfect in every way. Seriously, they are. No, no really.

Later, I returned to school to get my Masters in Social Work both to find more meaning in my life and to also model productivity and passion to my children, who, although perfect in every way, would occasionally ask if one day I was going to get a real job. Usually this occurred as I was reminding them not to talk to strangers or help anyone look for a lost puppy. So what if they were in high school? You can never be too careful. Also, I had just attended my 20th high school reunion, where I regretted that I hadn’t had the foresight to make up business cards that read Debra Borden, Bank President or Debra Borden, NASA Astronaut.

When I finally did become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, instead of being impressed and suitably inspired, my perfect children groaned that I wouldn’t stop "therapizing" everyone. I first worked with developmentally disabled adults and then segued into school social work for the hours. Although I loved working with children and families of all ages, I found myself craving to write the assessments (story lines and character sketches?) more than do them, and after one critical incident with a group of 12 year old ADHD boys (let’s just say there was fire involved and it wasn’t accompanied by linked arms and a spirit of cooperation around a campfire), I decided to take a hiatus and let my writing skills take center stage for a bit. What I ultimately found out was that you never take a break from counseling, even if my clinical skills are not actively informing a client, then they are informing my work. Even more, when I write, outline, speak to groups, I am learning so much about people and life that I become a better therapist. When I went back to therapy, I worked for several NJ state agencies, and I discovered that so many people would be more likely to take advantage of therapy for themselves or their families if they could just fit it in to their busy or complicated or discreet lives; I decided to create a therapeutic agency that makes house calls and Counseling2Go was born. My practice has evolved into a creative and flexible model that utilizes many different types of traditional and indirect strategies; I have cooked, played games, roller-bladed, and even mini-golfed, with my clients (especially adolescents). What I've learned is that insight, modeling, and processing all take place when the client is engaged. In some ways it's like exercise. The best one is the one that you'll do.

Although I love my work (both hats) I definitely crave leisure time and my hobbies include golf, tennis, music (doesn’t music make everything better?), spinning (at the gym, not uncontrollably by myself in the house), cooking, skiing, traveling, and of course, reading. My tastes are eclectic: In no particular order: Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Berg, T.C. Boyle, Augusten Burroughs, Edward Albee, Dave Sedaris, Amy Tan, Anita Shreve and many new novelists, such as Alicia Erian. My favorite books, recently, are Life of Pi and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. At various times I have been obsessed with the following authors (okay not with them, just their books): Harold Robbins, Dorothy Parker, and Steven King. Don’t ask, I couldn’t tell you. Besides, I’m not proud, just honest.

Currently, I live with my family (although the status of who is in residence changes frequently based on college and career schedules) but always includes my husband and my two Labrador retrievers, all of whom are remarkably human. To varying degrees.