Columns

I will never again underestimate the strength of a McDonald’s paper cup — or my Rock Steady Boxing class. The other day, I took my grandson to his favorite playground: McDonald’s. A friend was meeting us there with her grandson. By the time she arrived, the place was…

I thought that when I retired, I would have more time, not less. How did life get so busy? There are not enough hours in the week to finish all the things I want to. If I push myself harder and longer, then I get fatigued and overwhelmed, but then…

My dad is a soft-spoken soul. He observes the madness of our lives while quietly rocking in his plushy black chair. His philosophy has always been passive: Worrying doesn’t help you navigate tribulation, and aggression is destructive. So when he told me he was going to join the Rock Steady…

I had breakfast with some friends today. One I hadn’t seen for six months and another for 10 years. Both of them are forever kind of friends, the sort who overlook your flaws. Flaws like Parkinson’s disease (PD). It is rare for me to have tremors with all of…

“We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” –Martin Luther King Jr. Fallen, again Not even two weeks after I put the finishing touches on my walking with mindfulness column, I had a very nasty fall. My first fall occurred in July 2017. Since…

I lie in bed at night, my left hand under my head. In this position, I can hear the ticking of my watch. Each beat reminds me that another moment no longer exists. I am one second farther from yesterday and one second closer to tomorrow. About two years ago,…

While at my boxing class the other evening, one of my classmates told me about a watch he is testing. It is called the Personal KinetiGraph (PKG)-Watch. This device is not to be confused with the Emma Watch, which was designed by a Microsoft inventor for Emma…

“Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.” — Sharon Salzberg The ability to walk is something many of us, myself included, have always taken for granted. Now that I have Parkinson’s disease (PD), something that used to come as a matter of…

If you’re anything like me, there’s something energizing about gardening and pulling weeds. About pruning back overgrowth and watering budding seedlings, even if, because of having Parkinson’s, you can do it only a fraction of the time you used to be able to keep at it. In those…

There are quite a few articles that talk about caregivers supporting a person with a chronic illness, and that caregiver is usually the spouse. But what is it like when both people in the relationship have a chronic disease? There is a lot less information out there about…