• CANDICE BERGEN, MURPHY BROWN AND ME

    On the front of The Arts section of the New York Times this past week was a picture of Candice Bergen. Older (aren’t we all?) but still lovely even carrying thirty extra pounds. Making no excuses for the weight gain, she says, “I live to eat.” (I can relate to that.) She had written a…

  • NURSE PRACTITIONER VERSUS PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT

    NURSE PRACTITIONER VERSUS PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT

    Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted: Last week in a restaurant in Lyon, France, my tablemate turned toward me and asked, “What’s the difference between a nurse practitioner and a physician assistant.” My husband and I were on a tour. Our traveling buddies consisted of older folks like ourselves. The woman knew I…

  • IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE MUCH

    Last Saturday, toward the end of a daylong workshop, Carol Henderson, our leader, gave the last prompt. Where is home? However, knowing we only had a few minutes left, I believe we seven women wanted to share our appreciation with Carol, and with Mamie Potter who hosted the event, before we left. That prompt fell…

  • LIFE IS A CRAPSHOOT

    As we sat finishing our lunch at a roadside restaurant on our way to the Rainforest in Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, my tablemate said, “It’s all a crapshoot.” We had been talking about the aging process. She uttered the same term I had been using ever since my husband and I bought a two-story town house…

  • Celebrating Forty Years of Friendship

    Originally posted on Write Along with Me: Proverbs 18:26 Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family. Readers of Caring Lessons know I was desperate to find a friend when I was in my early thirties, someone like me, a nurse and mom who wanted to go back to…

  • SO WHAT’S NOSTALGIZING?

    Nostalgizing is a new word for me. I discovered it in a New York Times article: Tierney, John. What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows. The New York Times, 8 July, 2013. I needed to re-read the essay for reassurance that feelings of nostalgia I’ve been experiencing with some frequency could very…