Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach remembers the first time she spent Christmas in her husband’s Jewish family. She missed the “Christmas hubbub” more than she expected. Then, one small, 18-inch gesture worthy of Charlie Brown changed everything.
Claudia Sternbach
Claudia Sternbach has lived in Santa Cruz for almost four decades and from 2022 to 2025 was a Lookout columnist. In 2023, she chronicled the sudden illness and then February 2024 death of her beloved husband of 40 years, Michael. She is the author of three memoirs, “Now Breathe” (Whiteaker Press), “Reading Lips” (Unbridled Books) and “Dear Goldie Hawn, Dear Leonard Cohen” (Paper Angel Press) and has also written columns for many newspapers, including the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She now lives in New York City.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
New children’s book by first-time local author Taylor Lahey offers up a tale of hope
As we turn to the holiday season, Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is hungry for tales of community. Recently, she found inspiration in a new children’s book written by Aptos native Taylor Lahey, who moved back home during the pandemic. “Câmbio” tells the story of a community in Brazil that has banded together to solve the city’s trash and transportation problems. “I kept imagining our own Santa Cruz County community doing something similar,” she writes. “Could a program like this work here?”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
My husband is retiring: What will it do to our marriage when he realizes I eat cookies for breakfast?
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is undergoing a life change: Her husband is retiring after 40 years at a tractor dealership. She works from home and is uncertain what it will mean to share the space all day. “First thing on my worry list is that he will judge me,” she writes. He’ll also find out she sometimes sleeps until 10 a.m. and eats Tate’s chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Time to get flattened!
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is a breast cancer survivor and reminds us why getting mammograms matters, even though she keeps putting hers off.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Our kids accept trans classmates without a problem — why can’t we all be so open?
“I believe listening to your child and honoring their feelings is the kindest and bravest and most loving thing to do,” Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach writes after hearing her 9-year-old grandson’s easy, matter-of-fact mention of a classmate with they/them pronouns. “The folks who are trying to take away the rights of trans people need to get educated.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Anderson Cooper is helping me understand grief — and podcasting
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach has fallen for Anderson Cooper. His podcast, anyway. On it, he unpacks his grief at the death of his famous mother, the heiress and fashion trendsetter Gloria Vanderbilt, and the suicide of his brother, Carter. Like most people in their 70s, Sternbach has lost loved ones and has become accustomed to carrying her grief with her. “The older we get, the more we lose,” she writes in this latest column on aging. “And yet, as we continue on, we are expected to carry more. More memories, more grief, more tools to deal with said grief. We fill up a virtual backpack with it all and just keep walking as the load gets heavier.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Need an escape from bad news and politics? Try fiddlin’ in the forest
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is amazed at her friend Nora, who at 68 took up fiddling in 2019 and recently performed in the Valley of the Moon Fiddle Extravaganza at DeLaveaga Park. Sternbach attended and was mesmerized by the range of emotions the music brought. “I had gone from foot tapping and clapping to sobbing silently, a lump in my throat the size of a boulder,” she writes. “I thought of the people I miss. The people I loved.” She also got a brief respite from the woes of the world. “Who knew that such a small instrument could provide such an abundance of joy?”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The secret to aging in Santa Cruz: Wear that tiny bikini on the inside
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is sometimes surprised at the gray wave sweeping Santa Cruz. On her regular beach walks, she sees “more and more older folks out catching some rays.” Census data confirms the trend; the county’s 65-84 age bracket grew by 81% between 2010 and 2020. Sternbach, in her 70s, shares her thoughts as she grapples with her own age-related ailments and “being transported to this other existence.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I lost my longtime friend to suicide. I’ll never recover.
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is mourning the loss of her friend of almost four decades, who took his own life last month. Here, she shares her grief, sense of helplessness and hope that her friend has found “some kind of peace.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I think my mother-in-law has discovered the Fountain of Youth
Juan Ponce de León never found the Fountain of Youth. In fact, he never even looked for it; that is just a weird rumor. But Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach, who often writes about life in her 70s, believes her 93-year-old mother-in-law, Rozzy, holds the secret many of us crave — the recipe for longevity. Rozzy is coming to California next week and is still wave jumping and making airport runs and hard to tire out, even in her ninth decade. She is also making Sternbach rethink her attitude about aging.