Tag: biography

Magnificent Midlife Podcast.

What a delight to chat with Londoner Rachel Lankester, founder of the Magnificent Midlife Movement. She celebrates and empowers women in midlife and beyond. “We’re not over the hill or on a downward slope. In midlife we’re just getting started!” To listen to the podcast, click here. To learn more

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Time: The Gift in this Pandemic.

So, with all this free time on my hands I decided to tackle the stack of papers, photos and mementos that have been tucked under my bed since my mother passed away two years ago. It’s a chore I’ve avoided because I knew it would take me down a rabbit hole

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Children of the Dump

Phew. Let’s just say, I steeled myself for the poverty I might see yesterday, but I was not at all prepared for the lessons I would learn. At 8am, all thirteen of us loaded the van for our hourlong drive back to Guatemala City, and to the city dump. When

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82 Blocks through Manhattan

Yesterday was a very unproductive day. For three hours I sat in my little cubicle, my mind on everything but my manuscript. At 6pm I finally gave up and decided to walk. Eighty-two blocks later I finally got home. You know, when you get old you get really introspective. You

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The Final Mile of Writing a Memoir

There are a lot of emotions tangled up in writing your life story. I have come to learn that it’s not MY story, but a tapestry of many people’s stories all woven together.  It’s been cathartic writing through the struggles Jim and I faced in our marriage. Wading through the

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Help.

“You need to learn how to accept help,” my friend Jane told me back in 2011 when I was packing up the home my family was leaving after 27 years. She had barged into my house uninvited, thank God, her arms full of boxes, intent on helping me through one

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50 Years – Has Anything Changed?

I wrote this piece for a writing class four or five years ago. After listening to all the MLK tributes yesterday, I thought it might be worth resurrecting. “Is it fair to hold OUR children back in order to let the negrah kids catch up?” I was only 16 when I

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Istanbul during Ramadan 2016

I travel on a very limited budget. The down side of that is I seldom discover the art of fine dining in the places I visit. The good side is that I often end up sitting in a park, eating street fare, amongst the local color. Or in some hole-in-the-wall

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Ah, History!

I’ve always hated history. Ever since the 7th grade at Sidney Phillips, when my social studies teacher made us memorize an exhaustive list of wars and Louises with Roman numerals, I tuned out. I know history is important, but its not my thing. I’m much more curious about events and

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Istanbul, June 2016

Not good. Four days in this intriguing city is way short of what it’ll take to really see it. We had just gotten settled in our apartment. With the front windows open, we were enjoying the breeze and watching the sun set over the Sea of Marmara when we heard

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