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.
Freedivers Are Testing the Bounds of Human Endurance
LONG ISLAND, Bahamas — Shouts of “Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!” pierced the tropical air and echoed off the limestone precipice around Dean’s Blue Hole, a vertical cavern plunging 660 feet, a cobalt blue pool of seawater surrounded by crystal-clear shallows and white sand.
Bathing-suit clad spectators stand in ankle-deep water, at the precipice of the deepest blue hole in the world and only 20 yards from the diving platform, where world-class freedivers are descending to the edge of credibility...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CULTURE: Mosaics left by elusive Paris street artist
PARIS – The City of Lights is a visual feast, from the Seine below, to the sidewalk cafes, to the mansard roofs overhead. The wandering eye lands on works of art at every turn: sculptures, bridges, fountains, Space Invaders. Wait, what?
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.
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!
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.