Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.” Lord Byron (1788-1824) Reader’s Digest filled the shelves in our childhood home, such loyal subscribers were our parents. When a new issue arrived in the mail, we turned to its humour: the jokes, one-liners and riddles. SAMPLES A woman accompanied her husband on his annual checkup. […]
SOLACE IN SOLITUDE
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt in solitude, where we are least alone.” Lord Byron (1788–1824) In early 2018 then Prime Minister Teresa May launched the first cross-Government strategy to tackle loneliness, “one of the greatest public health challenges of our time,” she said. Among other initiatives (e.g. the appointment of a Minister of […]
RESTORATIVE RITUALS
A few years ago I wrote that some individuals retire to escape routines yet, paradoxically, routines can form the very framework necessary for happiness in our sunset years. In retirement I recognized the need to shape my days and weeks but decided to replace the uninspiring word ‘routine’ with ‘ritual’. The year 2020 reminded me […]
FOREST BATHING: TRANSFORMATIVE WORDS
What’s in a word or two? For me, a lot. Take the words “forest bathing”, introduced to me by my sister-in-law Linda, and derived from the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku developed in the 1980s. Shinrin-yoku, which translates as “forest” and “bath”, means bathing in the forest atmosphere — or absorbing the forest through our senses. […]
PANDEMIC POSITIVES: ARE THERE ANY?
Guest writer Tanya Loretto is a Spiritual Mentor within the Christian tradition but journeys with people of all faith traditions, as well as those with no religious affiliation. She has personal and professional experience in the areas of grief, neurological disability, mental illness, dementia, and addiction. She wrote the following article for my blog. No […]
ADOPTION: A LOVE STORY
November is National Adoption Awareness Month in Canada. Bear with me readers who already know about Glen’s and my experience in becoming adoptive parents. In these feel bad times I decided to write a feel good story. For posterity. ‘The Baby Project’ dominated the decade of my thirties. I was diagnosed with infertility at age […]
WHAT WOULD CHURCHILL SAY?
Glen Wickens, my husband and a retired English professor, submitted this article of apt quotations by Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965). Churchill served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. He led his country from the brink of defeat to victory during World War II. Over […]
STAYDAYS STAVE OFF THE BLUES
“Stay home” has been a dominant message during the pandemic, in addition to frequent hand washing, social distancing, wearing masks and, in BC, being kind, calm and safe. Early on the instruction meant sheltering in place, especially for older adults. Then we were encouraged to go outdoors for walks, while maintaining 2 m distance from […]
GAME ON
We do not stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Most of us cherish memories of playing in our younger years. Outdoors we whiled away the hours with hide and seek, kick the can, scrub baseball and more. Indoors we played card and board games, […]
WALKING WONDERS
We know walking can be an easy activity that burns a few calories. A spry 92-year-old woman attributes her good health to taking a walk, faithfully, every day. During frigid months in Edmonton, Mom joined the ‘Mall Milers’, walking a circuit in an indoor mall with other older people eager to move. Neuroscientist Shane O’Mara […]