The Popcorn Wars — A Movie

The Popcorn Wars — A Movie

  Conflicting cultural norms and expectations can spring up in unexpected places. Spilled movie-popcorn led me to rethink some lifelong assumptions and question my wisdom. Scene (Part I): Conflict in the Lobby It’s pre-COVID. I’m at the movie theater with my...
Lunch With My Grandson

Lunch With My Grandson

  Sometimes a simple event transforms a person’s anxiety into elation. I’ve learned that I can be that transformer for my grandchildren. In our all-too-busy consumer culture, where life may at times feel like a task, I’ll parachute into my grandson’s...
I’m Lonely Too

I’m Lonely Too

  Loneliness is a national epidemic and it’s killing us. Social isolation is more lethal than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It increases inflammation, heart disease, dementia, and death rates. It’s linked to our opioid epidemic and soaring suicide rates. Despite...
Gratitude

Gratitude

    A friend loaned me her copy of Gratitude (Knopf, 2019) by Oliver Sacks. Its spare 40 pages hold four beautiful little essays, each a memory or reflection written by Sacks in the closing years and months of his life. Though each essay yields many...
How I’m Exploring Being Older

How I’m Exploring Being Older

  How I’m Exploring Being Older “Without structure, there is chaos.” — Anonymous My wife died from dementia in 2012. My experience as her caregiver was a million-dollar experience that I wouldn’t take $1 million to repeat.  Meaning that, while the experience was...