Hope
Not too long ago I texted a friend, “I hope my flight won’t be delayed”. Unfortunately, airline personnel had already indicated it probably would be, and I was almost 100% sure that I wouldn’t be in a plane readying for takeoff as scheduled. In truth, the vast...
Gifts
The tiny, wrinkled lady sat in an overstuffed chair in the “Gathering Room” of the assisted living facility, surrounded by about 30 people of varying ages. I had stepped out into the hall to give my friend some privacy while an aid helped her change into fresh...
Out of Focus
A few months ago, I asked a group of over 100 adults to commit to doing two things. First, they were to answer one question. A few weeks later, I explained, I would ask them to answer a fairly simple “poll”. I asked that they agree to commit only if they were...
Enough
Perhaps I was oblivious to any previous popularity, but it seems to me that the word enough has come into vogue in the past several years. On one hand, social media memes, jewelry and home decor,...
Dream Too Big
When I was growing up, I was a dreamer. Oh, not the stereotypical dreamer with my head in the clouds and not grounded in reality. I was a practical child and teen, but I had dreams.Almost all of those dreams were inspired by books. Books which the protagonist...
Bravery
A few years ago I assigned my 9th grade composition students to write a 2-page essay in which they defined a word of their choice. I gave them a few days to choose a word and then asked them to write their name, the word they chose, and...
It All Adds Up
“Aging is a process of giving up things, sometimes one by one and at other times in batches,” lamented a 92-year-old friend when I visited her just after Thanksgiving. She told me that while she didn’t mind the loss of things like an uninterrupted night’s sleep and...
Choose
The past couple of years have been a “perfect storm” of age and isolation that has allowed (caused?) me to be more contemplative than in previous years. I’ve had plenty of (aka more than enough) alone time to look at where I am, what caused me to arrive here, and...
Simple Pleasures
Wherever I’ve lived over the past 30 or so years, I’ve put up hummingbird feeders and bird feeders. I don’t know much about birds — the migration habits of various species, how to identify them, etc., nor do I really want to. Maybe you can relate when I say that...
Let it Snow — Not!
This was the view from my bedroom window at 6:15 this morning. If friends’ facebook posts are any indication, I’m in the minority when I say that I was not at all pleased to see the white stuff.It’s not that I don’t like snow; rather, I don’t like the cold...
