When I asked a young friend for an image when I said the word "mobility," he said, "wheels." I thought, "What a descriptive image for that word." All around me I see folks zipping around in electric wheelchairs, bicycles pedaled by motor or hand, kids on skateboards or scooters, cars...

A friend asked me what I had learned over 94 years of intense living. What a question! Since I will be 94 on Feb. 21, she thought it was time I gave the idea some attention.

Actually, the only thing I can say I've learned is:...

When people talk about "reinventing oneself" they usually mean reinventing or changing their public persona. During my long life (I will be ninety-four in February), I have changed my public persona many times. Was it really a "reinvention" of myself? No--it was a change in my public identity.

The hardest...

New Year's Resolutions are connected to Judeo-Christian concepts of self-improvement and apologies for any wrongdoing over the past year. According to Wikipedia, "A New Year's Resolution is generally a goal someone sets out to accomplish in the coming year. Some examples include resolutions to donate to the poor...

January is the month for new beginnings; December is the month for endings and how we manage the transition between December and January is the subject of this essay.

For elders like me, December, not April, is the cruelest month (apologies to T.S. Eliot). Eliot was writing...

There are two support patterns that help to structure our lives--routine and ritual, and they are not the same. Routine means habits that give form to our daily lives--brushing our teeth, changing our underwear, eating at specific times, making appointments. Routine requires discipline, and it begins very early. It sustains...

At a recent meeting with older adults, one of the participants leaned over and asked me, earnestly, "How do you cope with change?" I replied, "It's very difficult." Several possible answers flashed through my mind -- a flippant one, "with difficulty" -- but I managed too look carefully at this...

The impulse to create art, music, poetry, literature is a basic human impulse. As humans, we are hard-wired for creativity, and this impulse does not deteriorate as we age.

When we consider the basic impulse to paint on the walls of caves, we see that the impulse to record impressions...

Touch is the only one of our five senses that doesn't lose its potency with age. As we grow old, our sense of smell becomes less acute; our sense of taste becomes less discriminating; our acuity of hearing diminishes; our eyesight needs enhancement, but touch does not change. In fact,...

There are two things on my mind at this writing. One is the question of equality in human relationships, and the other is the question of parity. I am questioning the idea of equality when it applies to equality of opportunity for women, and to the idea of equality in...

My young friend, Lila, who just celebrated her 57th birthday, told me that her mother, Elizabeth, was reluctant to see her friends anymore because, as Lila said, "She wanted them to remember her as she used to be."

How sad. Elizabeth is only 83, and is quite healthy by my...

I have been thinking about what it means to "age gracefully" and I wonder whose opinion seems to matter. Does the aging person feel "ungraceful"? Or is the person viewing the aging person deciding whether or not the aging person is graceful or not?

I decided that it is the...