For years, I have seen above picture. Lately, it’s on my home-office desk. Sister’s family left side. Ours, right side. With my Mom, situated in the middle. Always the matriarch of the extended family. My brother, far right, was a Medic Captain (divorced and ran into his wife and kid on Wake Island, where this…

We’re privy, each of us, to 15 min of fame ( Irene Cara herself). Andy Warhol, Woody Allen etc.. all famous, with memorable quotes. Life compressed. A short sentence. One word. Name. People , who taught me about life, have all passed away. They showed me the opposite of the ideal they instilled in me.…

We can stay still. Close our eyes. We can think. Talk and discuss. Or we can move ahead regardless. Gretchen Rubin, author and expert on Happiness, says habits take self-control and decision-making out of the equation: showered and shaved, coffee and toast etc… Long time ago, event took me out of my habitat . Disrupted…

I wish. That life out of an alley would shoot forward to target, like an arrow. Unfortunately, its trajectory has been more like a beeline . A shock absorber with DNA strands and scars. Perhaps it’s better that way (an arrow might miss its target). Like little Red Robin, we can afford to make an…

Outer and inner life. The later is more important. It makes a total person, from cradle to the grave, both context and contour. At the present, cancer, stroke and dementia remain our top challenges. Slow decline and certain death. Faded memory. No recall. No joie de vivre. A long goodbye. I spoke to my sister,…

In the scheme of things, we shouldn’t be bothered with big problems e.g. climate change, gun control, homelessness, immigration etc… Yet the fall-outs from these issues are in our faces daily. Outside the gym, early AM, I saw a person looking for breakfast in waste bins. 21st-century scavenger. We want to survive, to see another…

Once 18 years living inside the Terminal, he has died as of yesterday. My daughter and I never forget the scene where he (played by Tom Hanks) prepared his cracker (singular) as if ready for holy communion ( only to be bumped by a hurried passer-by.). Cracker meal, on the floor. Our transient life viewed…

The things they carried….to Matterhorn…to the last chopper. While bridge left undefended per Big Minh order (Stand down, drop your weapons, go home). Boots off on retreat to town. My friend, whom I said Goodbye just the day before, mustered up all the flip flops he could find (as you walk down the main bridge,…

Darkness will enfold. Yet they don’t feel cold. The dead. In my memory. People I grew up with and looked up to. Towering figures (from my vantage point as a child e.g. glad to give Dad a siesta back rub or to shine his shoes as he kept knocking on doors). Those boots on the…

Text and drive. Walk and chew gum. Work out and scroll up. Occupy leg-extension machines. Occupy traffic lights. Occupy public space (for private use.) At least we no longer spread our newspapers on public transport (I found myself the only hard-back book reader on the plane). Public space used to lord over private space (build…