As of this moment, I am one week away from turning 70 years old. Birthdays are presents we give ourselves and each one is a milestone in our lives. In this blog, I want to ruminate on what becoming and being 70 means to me. It is the start of my 8th decade living in this body on this planet; reflecting on this feels important to me. The light in my eyes, the lightness of being Me on strap-on roller skates, Centralia, Ontario, circa 1954. For some reason, in pondering the importance of writing this blog, the above image of my self, kept coming to my mind…when I wore a…

Something there is that doesn’t love a tennis court [with apologies in the allusion to Robert Frost’s incredible poem, Mending Wall] in ruin                                                     Life Skills or Real Rules for Playing a Court Game Tennis – is derived from the French verb, tenir, to hold. I will hold you here in play and goodwill; Court Etiquette – this is our court, our realm for now; I will enter our court in the spirit of play, not war; Play – is the dance of life and the rhythm of tennis; I willingly suspend myself to/in the spirit of play with you; Competing – I will com-pete with you, never against you;…

“What a piece of work is a [hu]man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel…William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 2, scene ii Popliteal fossa, the olecranon process, and the extensor digiti minimi are just some of the hundreds of anatomical terms that have imprinted on my mind for half a century. The human body has been magnetic to me all my life. By that I mean, I have always enjoyed my body and been stunned by its performance capacities; measuring myself against others in sport; marvelling at the incredible capabilities of bodies in exercise, athletics, arts,…

In my last blog, I ruminated about and wrote on my attraction to Italy, its people and places in general, and then focused on Siena’s palio horse race in particular. In this blog, I want to present images of Siena, taken by my Friend Clive, photographer of remarkable skill and intuition, while walking within the Medieval-walled part of this magnificent city over a one week period in February 2019. Through what lens, literally and figuratively, do we look and what do we see when we visit and walk in a country/city/venue different from our home? For me, the images capture so much of the sensation of the town, its people,…

  Travelling for me was never high on my list of things-to-do. My ingrained, self-created story and perception was trips were time-consuming, expensive, and never as comfortable as home. While there is a part of me that still holds to that belief, I have become far more interested in visiting different parts of the world, from Australia to South Africa, the UK, and various parts of Europe. About 10 or 12 years ago, I remember standing in downtown Rome, Italy, and marveling at the fact that I was actually standing in downtown Rome. From taking 5 years of high school Latin – I maintain to this day that Latin is…