My husband and I have developed a new ritual. After I brush my teeth, I sit on my walker in the bathroom, and he brushes my hair. I close my eyes as he strokes and pats and fluffs. I would happily sit there all day under his gentle ministrations...
Why I Love Being Naked
For a couple of years after college I lived with a communal group. We were upstanding people with respectable jobs as therapists, teachers, and architects, but we were free spirits, too, people who liked to do things that pushed boundaries. One...
Love Your Body
In the ten years before the pandemic began, I was regular practitioner of hot yoga. When I first began, the studio offered only ninety-minute classes conducted in a room that was 105 degrees—or more—with 40% humidity, designed to produce maximum...
Fixer-Upper
In a couple of days I will be having surgery to replace my infusion port which has become blocked by fibrous tissue. This will be the third port I’ve had implanted near my clavicle to transport the ALS drug Radicava. I am hoping the third time...
Body Inventory
I was in college and deeply involved in theater. We were doing an exercise blindfolded, in a dark room, and we were instructed not to speak but to get to know each other by touch—a group grope. Afterwards one of the participants told me he’d...