Catherine Gigante-Brown

A midtown Manhattan studio was recently the site of liberation-both on and offscreen-when Shenshean

herbalist. shiatsu practitioner. healer.

The Ultimate Counter Culture Diva

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.

What Stephen didn’t know –– what no one knew –– was how weak my knees grew when I pushed through the swinging doors of the ICU.

8. Educate, don’t fixate.

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

I realized my father was from a generation that never said those three little words. He was saying he loved me without them. But I didn't realize it then.

We’ve pieced ourselves back together in a patchwork quilt of ragged emotions. The aftermath of 9/11 wasn’t easy for us, yet it was much easier than for some. People standing 50 feet away from Peter didn’t come home that night; he did.