I write about mental health, aging with grace, travel and boating. Regular contributor to USA Today Travel and The Week. Published in the New York Times, Cruising World, Washington Post and others.
Our Bodies: The Owner's Manual
We all get just one body for this ride; now researchers are helping us find simple yet profound ways to flourish.
MENTAL HEALTH: Good News for Your Aging Brain
With the drumbeat of bad news about dementia, it feels like we’re all on a slippery slope of cognitive decline and memory loss. Evidence to support this negative perception is easy to find. But if you look for it, research into the aging brain has produced some silver linings as well.
ESSAY: Love Looks Back on Itself
Every day, a few more wisps of my childhood rise up like steam from a still, morning pond and disappear from her memory, leaving me as the sole guardian
of my history, plus one treasured poem.
MENTAL HEALTH: The Science of Being Busy
In a new study, scientists found evidence that keeping an active schedule might not be so bad, after all. In fact, it might actually improve cognitive function as we age. In other words, being busy may be good for the brain.
CULTURE: Invader Will Bring His Signature Street-Art Mosaics to New York ...
While the eyes of many in the art world are trained on the big New York auctions this month, an emissary from a dissident faction will be at work nearby, as the French street artist known as Invader brings his signature pixelated mosaic works back to the city.
MENTAL HEALTH: Your Brain in the Digital Age
It's hard to remember what life was like before we had the internet at our fingertips, smartphones in our pockets, and a laptop on every desk. Today, our brains are racing to adapt to the digital age.
MENTAL HEALTH: The Science of a Perfect Office
If all these studies are to be believed, implementing small changes to the office environment can make you more productive, less stressed, more energetic, more compassionate, and maybe, if you apply them all just right, will endow you with co-working superpowers.
Seattle: It's a Big (Art) Deal | izi.TRAVEL
Audio tour transcript: Welcome to the Emerald City, where we love our coffee and our Seahawks football team, the only place where drinking Starbucks and ordering from Amazon is considered buying local!
ESSAY: Gone Missing With Mom
She has no concern about a future that doesn’t exist, because she can’t remember to envision it and then to worry about it. Her disease, one I had always seen as
tragic and debilitating, had freed her from her past and her future.
TRAVEL: Tips for New Cruisers
You have done an amazing thing. You had a dream and made it happen. You are the elite — when you leave the dock the first day, when you sail into your first foreign port, when you raise that brand-new Q flag and even when you’re yakking over the rail.
TRAVEL: The Great Loop: Appalachian Trail for the aquatic set
If you live east of the Mississippi River, technically, you live on an island.
Every year around a hundred boats prove this point by completing a circumnavigation of the entire eastern U.S.
TRAVEL: Dinner trains delight rail fans, foodies alike
NAPA, Calif. -- In our hurry-up age of jet travel and road rage, sometimes an ambling ride through the countryside can be a balm for the soul. Add a gourmet meal, a bottle of wine and a vintage train, and you've got the perfect travel day.
TRAVEL: Middle Earth on the ICW
Gnarly live oaks strain toward the sky, so filled with life that you can almost hear them whisper Middle Earth secrets behind your back. Stretching arthritic arms overhead, they grasp hands to form a towering cathedral ceiling.
BOATING: Beautiful sailboats you can buy for $1M
Above the water alone, there are dozens of mast and sail configurations, which morph as technology delivers stronger, lighter weight material for rigging and sails. Below, modern sailboats are a study in craftsmanship and sheer eye candy.
TRAVEL: Give the gift of flight
From the ground, hot air balloons appear so dreamy, floating silently through the sky, a picture of peaceful flight. I always wondered if the reality of being onboard matched that notion, so I hopped into the basket of a candy-apple red balloon.