Stories

Stubborn

Stubborn

If someone had suggested, even two years ago, that I would be choosing to live in the independent living portion of a senior community, I would have thought, “Well, they obviously don’t know me!” New Year’s Eve 2022 I moved into a lovely apartment on the third floor...

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Never Too Old to be a Krank

Never Too Old to be a Krank

One of the best Christmases I ever had was when I was eleven years old. I opened the sliding doors and saw two bicycles, one for me and one for my brother. Now I could "ride bikes" with friends and get a job as a paperboy. And I have never stopped riding since....

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Finding My Tribe

Finding My Tribe

I looked around at the group of cyclists shivering in a parking lot at 8 a.m. on a chilly fall Saturday in Orinda, CA. “What the hell was I doing here?” I asked myself. I wasn’t a cyclist, but I had agreed to join my friend Val to train for a week-long bike ride to...

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My Parkinson’s Journey

My Parkinson’s Journey

I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease at 62. By that point in life I’d become convinced of the close brain-body connection, and what may possibly bypass it. Thirty-eight years before this diagnosis, I had a significant experience one evening while meditating: I was...

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Moving Down the Road

Moving Down the Road

After a lifetime of dreaming, a couple years of scheming and two weeks of intense searching, my wife Christina and I bought our Winnebago Travato this spring. It’s a beaut. A shiny gray 2022 Class B recreation vehicle with low miles in very good condition. After a few...

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Reprioritizing Life After A COVID ‘Hard Stop’

Reprioritizing Life After A COVID ‘Hard Stop’

It had been a crazy, relentless last few weeks in California. I was ramping up my coaching business, teaching virtual fitness classes, hiking daily, taking multiple dog walks, all wedged in with lunches, dinners and visits with family and friends. On Friday night we...

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Peace Corps Volunteers: Full Circle

Peace Corps Volunteers: Full Circle

I have always lived the paradox of desiring both home and adventure. This is how I walk my days. I go big into the world, sometimes weeks, months, even years.  And then I come home. So it is that when I am living in Africa and awash in the wonder and joy of my life, I...

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The Magic of Sisterhood

The Magic of Sisterhood

On November 4, 2023, I’ll complete my fiftieth trip around the sun. I cannot wait to celebrate this milestone, and I know that I have so much to look forward to. I’m lucky. I was born with a gift: I can see my future. I arrived in this world in 1973, the youngest of...

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On Being Elderly

On Being Elderly

Elderly is not a number. Elderly is a physical and mental and emotional state of being. I was elderly when I was 35 but I’m not elderly now, at age 73. At 35, I became elderly overnight. I woke up one morning and I could not put my foot on the floor when I tried to...

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The Next 20 Years

The Next 20 Years

When I hit 55, I did a mathematical calculation about how many months, weeks and days I had in my life until I turned 75. That’s roughly 240 months, 1,042 weeks or 7,300 days, in case you wondered. Seventy-five years old! From the perspective of a 55-year-old, that...

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Dynamic Aging 4 Life

Dynamic Aging 4 Life

What do Grandma Moses and I have in common? We both chose to create something new in our lives and in the world that didn’t exist before. We did this when people might have considered us “old.” We were both 78. That is the age when Grandma Moses began her life as a...

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Satisfaction

Satisfaction

Every ten years or so, I find myself watching Mick Jagger fling himself across the stage like a possessed puppet. With wild-eyed ferocity, he postures and prances in the spastic style he alone owns --- a style still so vital it’s a mind boggle that he’s been doing...

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