Sometimes the story of life needs to be coaxed. Too much travel can kill it, I am convinced. Making me redefine travel these days. A balance is what's needed. Once I have traveled enough at home, facing the great screen of word processing life, then it's time to hit the physical road. Now the road is here. It does not lead very far. I don't want it to. Accompanied by Alexandra and Matt, twentysomethings, I reencounter the Menlo Park Farmer's Market. I knew they would like the place. Alexandra, Read more [...]

"I can't do it," an old friend told me. We had both received an invitation to a reunion, if that is the word, of a long defunct public relations agency. We both worked there for several years in the 1980s, both got our careers going there. But although these words are accurate enough, they do not do the situation justice. For someone half paralyzed and already into the second half of his 30s, this was an extraordinary opportunity. Injured at age 21 and without full-time work until age 32, I knew Read more [...]

I would say it's my favorite city, but truly it is my only city, at least the only big one I have known. So it's London for things truly urban. And there are more things than you can shake a stick at there. Many more. And the rate at which London changes means that those things, or those sticks, keep shaking differently. Yes, this metaphor is exhausted, but so am I. Thus, jetlag.   I spent much of my time on this trip worrying. Family matters from back home were preoccupying me. But that's Read more [...]

All you need is love, some famous songsters once observed. And by the end of this day, I couldn't agree more. I've been out of sorts since the a.m. Everything seems hard. Exercise, cleaning up my office. Everything. And then Jane and I have a brief cuddle in the afternoon, some hugging time between her church newsletter and my untended emails. And this makes all the difference. Thank God I have this option, this relationship. As for the rest of the day.... What is so difficult about cleaning Read more [...]

The trip, and its difficulties, began in my bedroom. That's where I switched from the Swedish to the collapsible. I am not fond of the folding electric wheelchair. Yes, it can fit in the trunk of Jane's little car, but there are trade-offs, aren't there? Comfort, for one. Actually, when your body is compromised, comfort counts for a lot. Maneuverability is the other thing. This complicated by the difference between my front-wheel drive Swedish chair and this flimsier reardrive model. Whatever Read more [...]

The comeback trail...is there one? More to the point, is there always one? Or, viewed differently, who maintains it? And can one always find the trailhead? You're not walking enough, my physical medicine emissaries keeping intoning. Of course, if you're doing something like writing, not to mention reading, you do find yourself sitting. And as walking grows more difficult...and with age, what doesn't...it is terribly easy to walk less and less. The antidote being walking more and more, which Read more [...]