Gayle Markow: As I am…

I have sought out options.  Always there, sometimes they are hard to see and have to be sought with resolve. Because as a nurse for thirty years, I saw the need. Because before that, I loved and was amazed by my own body.  The cartwheels it did gleefully, easily, creating a cartwheel perimeter in my … Continue reading Options — “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” —Viktor E. Frankl

This morning I hugged my daughter.  Several times. Before I climbed into the “car service” car to go to JFK.  Before I left her standing alone on the sidewalk in front of her hip industrial-style loft in a beginning-to-gentrify neighborhood, where Ridgewood meets Bushwick. There is still all the old stuff — auto body and … Continue reading En Route: Crossing the Great Divide

Summer has arrived in San Francisco, which means it’s grey, dark, cold, and windy. My daughter is getting married in October.  I volunteered my home and garden for the small family gathering.  It’ll be lovely I know.    Like my daughter (the opposite of Bride-zilla) I was thinking low key.  I was thinking easy-peasy. Until … Continue reading wah-wah, keeping perspective, & staying open to joy… an update

Several years ago, my friend Anita and I went to see the Buddhist teacher and performance artist Nina Wise  at the Marsh theatre. Because Nina is brilliant, her play was at once  heartbreaking and hilarious.  Breathless from worry and laughter, I followed  each & every twist and turn of the story, growing firmly attached to what I hoped … Continue reading Impermanence: Brooklyn, a case study

First of all, I can take in more of the view. Second of all, I’m less likely to rear end someone or get rear-ended.  Third, my heart rate can stay low, my blood pressure too. I don’t have to find myself hurling silent or voiced epithets at all the really bad drivers and the dumb … Continue reading Life in the slowing down lane…

My good friend and wonderful writer/human Rita Kampen recently visited from Vancouver where she lives. It was a glorious visit. We talked and talked and talked. I love her wisdom. She told me not to move too quickly to “therefore”. “Let go of the ‘therefore’ ” she said.  We never really know where something is … Continue reading Because… Nourishment.

  May 4th was mom’s 96th birthday. She hasn’t tired in the least of loving this life.  She’s curious and engaged, and willing and ready to love all kinds of people, giving each day her best shot.  I’m similar to her though intermittently I get taken down by doubt and self-doubt.  I have to re-group … Continue reading Birthday visit and reveries…

I keep trying to have civil conversations. With myself and others.  It’s not easy in either case, though I might be detecting a little improvement lately. Imagine if Donald Trump (or this clown) were your uncle on your father’s side.  And Albert Einstein was your great uncle on your mom’s side.  Imagine Neil de Grasse … Continue reading In the ‘hood…

I smoked marijuana for the first time when I was 19.  Unlike Bill Clinton, I inhaled. I was a Vista Volunteer in Chicago, and still a virgin. It was 1966. One year earlier (still in my virginal and undrugged state) I was almost kicked out of the University of Arizona for “drugs” and being a … Continue reading Being Your Own Hammock….

I’m trying to decide between meaningfulness and happiness. To help me sort out a few short term goals.  I’m not kidding.  Ask my friend Eileen.  Or my friends Allison and Stephen.  Have lunch with me this week or just read on. I think I’m in an early-old-mid-life crisis.  If it was only “mid-life” and not … Continue reading Mundane & Sublime