When I am not writing about living with scleroderma or helping my clients with marketing and communications strategy, I pursue my own writing. Fiction, that is—historical fiction, in particular. Back in 2014, I began working on a novel set in World War I about a mother whose estranged daughter runs off with her beau to […]

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Daylight Savings Time crept up on me this past weekend. Really, is it already time to set the clocks forward an hour? I find this adjustment jarring. I’d rather just let the sun tell me what time it is. According to Harvard Health, we’d all be better off sticking to standard time. But DST has […]

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Nights here have been clear and cold, and the moon is waxing brightly. As I write on Monday morning, I’m anticipating tonight’s stunning view, when the moon will be full, a huge silver plate in the sky—that is, until 12:44 a.m. Tuesday morning, when a two-hour total lunar eclipse will begin. As the moon passes […]

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As I write on Monday afternoon, all is white outside, once again. We are in the midst of a blizzard that has slowed down our corner of the world. Maybe a foot-and-a-half of snow when this is over later today, maybe a little less, maybe a little more—on top of all the snow that hasn’t […]

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Every morning, I try to spend a few minutes meditating. I use an app, which is helpful and instructive. My mind wanders as minds do, but I am, over time, getting more adept at slowing down and focusing on my breath. This came in very handy on Monday, when I found myself back in my […]

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It’s only December and it feels like January here in Massachusetts. Rolling up in a ball and hibernating sounds enticing. It’s hard to get myself out of the house, let alone out of bed in the morning. When I sit too long at my computer, I stiffen and need to rouse myself. But I know […]

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This is one of those periods when all of my many and various specialist appointments clump together. I can go for weeks without seeing any of my docs, and then, boom, lots of visits—most likely because they are on similar follow-up schedules, usually four months apart. I definitely consider myself fortunate to have such an […]

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For all of the bad things that happened during the COVID pandemic, the one good thing that happened for me was reconnecting with old friends over Zoom. Five years ago, when we were hunkered down, I looked up friends from my teens and twenties and caught up online. Some of us have continued those conversations, […]

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Recently, a young boy was studying my fingers. “Why do you have so many bandages?” he asked. “I have problems with my hands,” I answered. For a pre-schooler, that seemed the appropriate explanation. He looked concerned, or perhaps afraid. “You don’t have fingernails,” he said. “No, I don’t,” I said. Not exactly true. I have […]

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As I wrote several weeks back, I’ve restarted taking Pilates. My purple pool noodle adaptation for padding the reformer’s foot-bar did not work, unfortunately (the hollow core was too narrow to fit over the bar), but my instructor found a great alternative—black foam pipe insulation. It’s about an inch thick and just the right amount […]

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