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Dear Older (Love, Old)
This is the first in a series of letters between me and my friend, author Margaret Roach, on the challenges (and joys!) of aging. I’m Old (just 55) and she’s Older (facing 60 this year). Who knows...
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Tender
As I type these words, the world beyond my window is blanketed by snow. There is silence in the house, save for the hum of the refrigerator, the whisper of warm air rising from the grates in the...
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Dear Older, about these cars. . .
“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” ~Goethe This is the second in a series of letters between me and my friend, author Margaret Roach, on the challenges (and...
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Otherwise
Long after most of my friends in their fifties had given up running, I continued. Not every day, and not very far, and not for very long. Better, I thought, to save my knees to run again another day...
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Dear Old(er): aging with grace
This is the third in a series of letters between me and my friend, author Margaret Roach, on the challenges (and joys!) of aging. I’m Old (just 55) and she’s Older (facing 60 this year). And since...
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bucket list
On Tuesday afternoons this past year I’ve been a traveling yoga teacher, lugging a bag full of straps and foam blocks and lavender eye pillows to a small elementary school in a nearby town. My...
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this life
We’re all only fragile threads, but what a tapestry we make. ~Jerry Ellis I didn’t intend to go silent, back in July. And here I am all these weeks later, hesitating, not sure how to start again....
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empty
I awake this morning to a leaden, pre-storm sky, not yet light, the room silent but for my sleeping husband’s quiet breathing. The holiday season over, the work of this new year not yet begun, I gaze...
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mother, daughter& a special mother’s day offer
My mom and I just spent ten days together at my parents’ house in Florida. We didn’t go anyplace and we didn’t do much. What I most loved about our time was that it was so quiet, so spacious, and so...
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beautiful things
This quiet morning. My friend asleep in her bed, snuggled deep in a nest of pillows, her faithful terrier molded to the curve of her back. The gentle rise and fall of the covers, her breath coming slow...
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oasis
The surgeon was running a little late. I was right on time. I had followed every pre-op instruction to the letter: donated a unit of my own blood to receive back during surgery, had an MRI and new...
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dear old(er): my best apple cake and the beauty of lying fallow
This is the fourth in a series of letters between me and my friend, author Margaret Roach, on the challenges (and joys!) of aging. I’m Old (just 56) and she’s Older (by 5 years). And since we’re...
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four lessons I learned from surgery
It’s been two and a half weeks since my second hip replacement, a bit more than two months since the first. And I’m finally approaching the moment when I can look back and say, “It was worth it.” As of...
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expectations
Before we can change anything in our life, we have to recognize that this is the way it is meant to be right now. For me, acceptance has become what I call the long sigh of the soul. It’s the closed...
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downsizing, 10 things my mom taught me & a Mother’s Day offer
In a few weeks my parents will say good-bye to the antique red house surrounded by woods and fields that has meant “home” to our family for nearly forty-five years. At eighty and seventy-nine, my folks...
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happy reports
The other morning, I snapped the leash onto Tess’s collar and headed out for a walk. We followed our old route, down the hill from our house, onto the bike path toward town, and home again. Nothing...
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making room
A few weeks ago I phoned my son Jack in Asheville. “How would you feel about me taking over your bedroom at home and turning it into a writing space?” I asked. I’d hesitated for weeks before raising...
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on the death of a friend
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”...
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you are enough
“Sit down wherever you are And listen to the wind singing in your veins.” ~ John Welwood You are enough. Is it fair to say that taking these three simple words to heart is one of life’s great...
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kindness
“The simplest acts of kindness are far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi The other night at dinner I sat next to a dear friend I rarely get to see. For his 60th...
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