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Invisibility
I heard someone say, recently, that being a woman “of a certain age,” carried with it the “gift” of invisibility. They said that no one really even saw you anymore, that no one thought much about who you were or what you did, one way or the other. That comment has been clanging around in…
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Acknowledging the Obvious
It’s an often-asked question. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t been asked it, or read it in some sort of quiz. Probably more than once. I know that I have. The question is a simple one. If you could have dinner with anyone one, living or dead, who would it be? It’s a question that…
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Stretching
In December 2020, at the end of a year that felt a hundred years long, I read an email to my husband. I told him that one my favorite yoga teachers, and one of my favorite people, was offering a yoga teacher training course. She had partnered with two other teachers and they’d created an…
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Mindset
I was reading a column this morning by someone who has been writing about aging, She wrote about her life slowing down, her memory sometimes failing her, this next chapter of wrapping up life and heading for the inevitable end. As someone who has spent much of her life working with older adults, I started…
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Living with Loss
I have come to believe that our paths in life are determined by loss and how we manage loss. Every change in our lives, we know, involves an ending. After endings, there are certainly beginnings—new times, new experiences, new eras. But what those new beginnings are, and how our life moves forward, is a result…
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Finding Mindfulness
As a child, my mother frequently begged me to “please just sit down,” my constant motion both familiar and, I am sure, more than a little irritating. As an adult, a friend and mentor told me that I had “the attention span of a monarch butterfly.” Those comments join a lifetime of similar ones, in…
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Purpose
In my world of work with older adults, we often talk about purpose and how vital it is to for everyone to have a sense of purpose. Regardless of abilities or challenges, we can all find meaning in our lives. What we must remember is that it may look different for each of us. Purpose…
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Civility
It sometimes seems to me that courtesy has ceased to exist. The words that we had drummed into us, and that were drummed into our children, “please and thank you” are often hard to come by. And, “excuse me” has completely vanished. I don’t think that this is an indication of me being “old fashioned,”…
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Passing It On
Maybe it is being the child of older parents, maybe it is because the memories were not necessarily good ones, but regardless of the reason, there are more holes than story when I think about my parents and their lives before marriage, before children. I thought about that this week when I spent time with…
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Being the Glue
There are so many ways to approach relationships, both personally and professionally. Some of us hold ourselves apart and watch, engaging only when we choose to engage. Some of us seek control of situations and interactions, certain that the way we want things to play out is the best way, maybe the only way. There…
With a Full Heart
Reflections on Leadership and Life
With a Full Heart 