Life in the Slow Lane

My face, my hair, my scalp, look up at me from this snapshot on my Northeastern University alumni ID, pre-pandemic, a younger version of myself.

After three years of living in a residential community in Boston with a rotating cast of 18 other individuals, most of whom were half my age or less, I'm back in my apartment in Medford Square—living alone and trying to figure out what to do next.

It's a drumbeat, a thrum, an electric current running through my mind and body on a daily basis. "It" is the news — an endless stream on phone (I'm addicted), TV, National Public Radio.

For the past ten years, ever since I was diagnosed with sleep apnea in my late fifties, I've been on a quest to get a decent night's sleep.

"There are no good options here," the surgeon said, confirming what I had just figured out, the realization snaking its way into my mind and body.

I've never been one for sitting still...

I live in a communal house in downtown Boston, on the city's historic Beacon Hill.

I was lying on a gurney at Massachusetts General Hospital, my stomach gurgling and growling after two days with virtually no food...

Over Memorial Day weekend, I found myself sitting in the Great Room in the lodge at Easton Mountain, a retreat center for gay men in the wilds of Upstate New York.