Category: Writing the Book

New Love in Old Age

I wanted to post an upbeat aspect of aging after my last one focused on death. While we can’t deny that the ultimate conclusion of aging is death, there are many diversions along the aging journey that turn out to be a surprise and delight. I, for example, would never have predicted that after I…… Continue reading New Love in Old Age

A Story You Won’t Soon Forget

For the past ten years, I wrote my book in isolation. Long hours in front of my computer at my home, or a coffee shop, library and on Amtrak traveling between our home in North Carolina to Washington DC or New York City, and in other spaces I can’t remember. Wherever the location, I rarely…… Continue reading A Story You Won’t Soon Forget

Dream Deferred 

Dream Deferred  by Langston Hughes   What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore– And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over– like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does…… Continue reading Dream Deferred 

Excerpts From My Book

  My book will be published on November 6, 2018 by She Writes Press. I have changed the title over the course of writing the book so many times that I can’t give you a count. The latest one, and I do hope the final one, is Stories from the Tenth-Floor Clinic: A Nurse Practitioner…… Continue reading Excerpts From My Book

Nurse at the Switchboard

Ten of us from a class of 44 traveled to Cape May, New Jersey to attend our 55th nursing reunion. We first met as young Catholic teens in the late ’50s enrolled in the diploma program at Saint Peter’s School of Nursing in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Hard to believe we are now in our…… Continue reading Nurse at the Switchboard

Spotlight: Marianna Crane

This appeared in the September 2017 Erie Family Health Center Donor Newsletter   Anniversary Spotlight: Marianna Crane   Over thirty years ago Dr. Sally Lundeen, a nurse and Erie Family Health Center’s first Executive Director, spearheaded a project that would provide care for the underserved elderly right where they lived. The Senior Clinic* opened on…… Continue reading Spotlight: Marianna Crane

Laughter: the measure of a friendship

I believe the better the friendship the more raucous the laugher—the real belly laughs that make you think you are going to die of asphyxiation. I have a number of friends that are enjoyable to be with but I have just two or three that make me really laugh. Donna and I worked in home…… Continue reading Laughter: the measure of a friendship

A Little Music and Movement Can Make You See Things Differently

Yesterday, I went to the North Carolina Art Museum at 10 a.m. to move to music. Two women led, followed by a man in a suit holding an open laptop channeling the songs that were mostly by the Bee Gees. The women, in sequined dresses and sneakers, stomped, marched, trotted in time with the music.…… Continue reading A Little Music and Movement Can Make You See Things Differently

My Book Comes to Life

This past weekend I traveled to Chicago to attend the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the clinic where I worked 30 years ago. The clinic sets the stage for my memoir: Playing Sheriff: A Nurse Practitioner’s Story. The formal function on Friday had 500 in attendance but it was to the intimate and informal…… Continue reading My Book Comes to Life