Just don't say I'm elderly I know it’s silly. It’s just a word. But it hit me like a shock of cold water when a doctor described me as elderly in a message summarizing a recent visit with him. Patient is a healthy-appearing elderly woman, he wrote as a prelude to the specifics of why I was … [Read more...] about Call Me Ma’am. Tell Me I’m in My Golden Years—
What’s in a name
How we get them, how they shape us A few weeks before giving birth to a baby girl, my daughter calls for a consult on the protocol of baby naming, Jewish-style. The Jewish tradition is to name a child for someone no longer living. My daughter does not tell me any of the names she and her … [Read more...] about What’s in a name
Ghost Music
Finding my way back to the music I loved when I learned to play piano I’m sitting at my office desk, scrolling through emails, fingers in a kind of dance — Delete Delete Delete. Pause — when a beckoning sound, rich and melodious, filters in from the living room. My piano is being tuned, … [Read more...] about Ghost Music
No Place like Home?
Variations on a theme sparked by wildfires My daughter lives in Los Angeles. She is seven months pregnant. When fire flared up in the Hollywood Hills, she and her husband took the precautionary measure of leaving West Hollywood at least for the night. Too close for comfort, they reasoned, even … [Read more...] about No Place like Home?
Anything Is Possible
Or Is it? Back in 2013 Diana Nyad accomplished something no other long-distance swimmer had even tried. She swam from Cuba to the U.S, without a shark cage. It was her fifth attempt to negotiate the 110 miles with its manifest risk of sharks and deadly jellyfish. She was 64 years old. … [Read more...] about Anything Is Possible
A Vote Is a Kind of Prayer
Is America's melting pot in the throes of a meltdown? November 6, 2024 —Up at 6:30, earlier than usual for me. I needed to pick up where I left off with last night’s unsettling U.S. election coverage. Maybe I’d wake to some encouraging news. In the days leading up to Election Day, an … [Read more...] about A Vote Is a Kind of Prayer
