(Photo of All Hallows Roman Catholic Church, my childhood parish. From San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. http://www.sfpl.org/sfphotos When all the shouting’s done, humble goodness shines forever. Temporary power and posturing are empty calories that disappear. But quiet strength continues to nourish decades later. I remember Mercedes, an old woman whose last name I […]
(Photo: Suzette Standring with granddaughter Lulu at The Cahoon Museum of Art in Cotuit, Cape Cod, MA) I’m a senior with benefits, very different from “friends with benefits.” Turning 65 is a loaded baked potato: retirement, social security, Medicare, all slathered in anti-aging creams, and sprinkled with AAA senior discounts. What just happened? One minute […]
March 24, 2019 David’s in the hospital. He fell off a ladder in Falmouth trying to clean the roof of our home. Eight feet up, he was trying to scrape lichen off the roof when the ladder slipped back. He fell face first, his nose hitting the rung of the ladder, leaving multiple facial fractures. […]
In 2019, I hope to “become” not to “overcome.” To me, becoming is about awareness and inner change, while overcoming feels like a grinding discipline of must and should. Yet there is so much to overcome: the polemics of news, bad habits, ongoing hurts. But recently I fasted from TV for a week, and a […]
[Photo taken in 1973 of Suzette and her father, Steve Martinez, who passed away in 1982.] Lately memories of loved ones, now gone, are tinged with “I wish I told them [fill in the blank].” Recently, I had the chance. A meditative exercise is designed to heal the unsaid with direct conversation. I tried it […]