These days, I watch the world go by from a different window. I mean that literally as well as figuratively. I’ve moved to the west side of Rossmoor, perched on a hillside with a view of Mt. Diablo, a grassy common space dotted with fruit trees, and a giant beech tree...
Spring conjures pictures of blooming daffodils and sunny afternoons. But that seems like a cruel joke in soggy Northern California. Just last week the “Pineapple Express,” the 11th of the season, battered rooftops with ferocious winds and downed trees. Another storm...
Last month I celebrated five years of retirement from corporate editing. It seems like a lifetime ago – I don’t live where I used to, or think like I used to, or do what I used to. And the world has shifted radically in five years. Everything looks different now. Work...
“Write your mind!” This exhortation originated with Allen Ginsberg and came to me via one of my favorite poets Frank X Gaspar (Late Rapturous, Night of a Thousand Blossoms). Gaspar speaks of his own need for encouragement, and his realization that Ginsberg was right –...
I used to joke about how coloring my hair was akin to keeping my portrait in the attic the way the fictional Dorian Grey did – one day, I’d have to face reality. The day has come! I’ve decided to let the gray grow in. In The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, a...
Work has always been a refuge for me. It signified perhaps more than it should have - that I was valued, worthwhile, accomplished. Like many Baby Boomer women, when I first began working in the early 1970s it was still unusual for women to have careers outside of...
As we greet 2016, I'm celebrating a clean slate - emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. The past year was a parade (some might say a circus!) of "let goes" which brought an avalanche of good into my life. If only it was easy. But part of the value of...
Since the dawn of time people have gathered for births, weddings, coming of age ceremonies, and deaths - to eat, drink, dance, mourn and celebrate. In our culture, retirement from a 9 to 5 job is a milestone that is both a major goodbye and a new beginning. I retired...