Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

“How was your Birthday, Dr. White?”

It’s amazing how, where, and why so many epiphanies arrive. Honestly, I’m not sure why this surprises me. I really haven’t had all that many of what could or should really be called epiphanies, but the few that I have had have all kinda snuck up on me out of the blue mist of the mundane. For example, while playing golf with my Dad the week after 9/11 I was stopped in my tracks when a very simple, altogether reasonable question–do you want to play the Ocean Course again–delivered to me a two part gem. The stuff that makes me unhappy brings me down lower than the stuff that makes me happy picks me up. You can’t necessarily make the happy stuff happy all the time, but you can surely make an effort to avoid at least SOME of the unhappy stuff once it’s been identified.

I hated the Ocean Course; no, thank you, I’d rather not play it again.

And so it was that I found myself answering all kinds of folks who were genuinely interested in how my 65th birthday went. What did I do to mark the occasion? Did I enjoy the day? How was I feeling about 65? Normal questions asked in good faith by decent folks. I spent a goodly part of each day answering each person with some version of “good” or “great” or “you know, it’s just a number after all”, and “that’s very kind” when they expressed disbelief at the number in question. It was nice, actually, to receive those tiny gifts of interest from so many people, most of whom live lives that only intersect with the professional and not the personal version of who I might be at any given point.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve become a bit kinder to myself, especially when it comes to time. It’s a cliche, of course, but time is really the most valuable thing no one has enough of. A very nice benefit of being my own boss is the ability to give myself the gift of time during my birthday week even though I was returning from a lengthy Holiday break. Some of that time was quite productive (I reviewed a very complex case as an expert witness), some of it was put to practical use (I’m rebuilding the fitness habits that fell apart along with my hips), but the real gift was the luxury of indulging in tiny little pleasures, like my love for finales.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find “lasts” so fascinating? Beth is endlessly tickled by how hard I will work to watch the last episode of a television series I barely followed, or read the final entry of a long-running serial or book series. I think it started with the finale of M*A*S*H. The most recent favorite has to be Ted Lasso. Did you ever read that series about the female detective, maybe she was a doctor, where each book was titled with a letter? You know, “C Is For Whatever”, and so on? When the author got to “Y” I was literally going to read “A” so that I could read “Z” so that I could then see how she closed out her epic trip through the alphabet. I swear that I was as saddened by the author’s passing before she started “Z” as any devoted reader who’d made it from “A to Y”.

All of which is a build-up to the gift of watching the recording that I made of Hoda Kotb’s final 3 hours as co-host of NBC’s Today show. We are Today Show watchers, Beth and I. Hoda’s story is a good one. She seems to be a genuinely nice person, someone who truly likes, nay loves, most of the folks around her. Someone who is grateful for the life she gets to live. Unlike so many famous TV personalities she was leaving the show on her own terms for reasons that I can personally understand and support: she wished to be home with and for her two grade-school daughters as they grew up.

And then, there it was. Pretty much the last guest was a country music star, a guy named Walker Hays. Now, I am not the country music guy in the family, although everyone will likely agree that I’ve become at least conversant with the genre as it has become more “pop” in recent years. Still, I needed to Google Hays to “remember” that his big hit is “We Fancy”, or something like that. But here he was, strumming a guitar as he entered stage left, singing a song that he and Hoda had written together called “Wednesday”* and bringing with him my epiphany: Most days are just Wednesdays. A truly happy life is one where you are grateful, truly grateful, for the Wednesdays.

“Some days are the best days. Some days are ‘she said yes’ days. Some days are ‘it’s a girl, good Lord how in the world did I get blessed’ days. Some days are the worst days, on the taillights of a hearse days.

Most days are just Wednesdays. Get up and do the same old same again’s days.

If tomorrow ain’t nothing new, I’m just glad I get to do, just another Wednesday with you.”

Seriously, how good is that?! I went through half a box of tissues, me and everyone in that studio audience just yanking ’em out of the box, watching and listening as my big old epiphany landed. Most days are just days. Events, happenings, milestones might be what we remember, might be how we track our stories, but it’s all of those plain old every days that make up a life. Finding the joys of those every days, and more importantly being grateful for the micro joys that make up those days, is the key to happiness.

“What did you do on your birthday?” I went to work. It was a Tuesday and so I went to the operating room, and then I did a bunch of lasers, and after that saw a bunch of folks in the clinic. I got to help some really nice people be healthy. I spent the night with my Better 95%. We had dinner at home. Chicken. Not a birthday dinner but a recipe we have maybe once a week. Had a glass of “Tuesday Wine”. Watched a TV show we’ve been enjoying. It was just another Tuesday, nothing new, in a place that makes me happy and with the person I love more than anyone or anything, like so many Tuesdays I’ve been lucky to have over so many years.

Thank you for the Birthday wishes. It was just another Tuesday. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I’ll see you next week…

Twelve hour drive home yesterday after visiting Megan, Ryan, Tracey and Steve in the Low Country. 20ish degree high for the day, much too cold to brave the garage gym. A few errands, 11 or 12 newspapers to get through, groceries and laundry, a possible EPIC step toward landing the plane, and all of a sudden I realize, no “musings…”!

I came upon this gem and I think it is as applicable today as it was some 10+ years ago. Did you make any resolutions? I did. Well, sorta kinda did. If I didn’t work out today does that mean I already punted one of the big ones? For whatever it’s worth I’m off tomorrow and will doubtless squeeze something that looks like exercise in, so I’m going with “no” on that one. Last year ended pretty OK, and so far 2025 is starting off pretty OK, too. I’m just gonna go with that.

So rather than stress myself out by postponing a well-deserved, much welcomed “Sideswiped” I’m just going to help myself (and you) to a little dish of New Year’s leftovers with this re-post from the past:

Tons of random stuff banging around between my ears, so much that it’s a little difficult to wade through and make sense of any of it. One little thing keeps bubbling up to the surface, long enough at least to be noticed: the lowly comma. Mathew McConaughy describes himself as a “comma person”. I get that.

What with all of the New Year’s resolution action, here and, well, everywhere, it can get to feeling like there really is a discreet finish to a year. A ‘period’. Full Stop. Does it seem like that to you? Everyone gets all in a rush to finish off a year, in this case 2013, so that they can get started on the next one. All kinds of retrospectives, writ large and small, come cascading down at the end of the year. As if it really was an end. Capped by a ‘period’, you know?

The thing is, though, that I don’t really feel all that different. It doesn’t really feel like anything was all that completed on December 31st. Or, for that matter, like there’s any huge new start, re-boot, or even a mulligan just after that ‘period’. Sure, there’s a really convenient opportunity to take stock, maybe make some adjustments or even re-route, but the longer I’ve been at this New Year thing the less it seems like anything is ever really at Full Stop.

More like a pause. That’s it. Not a ‘period’ so much as a ‘comma’ leading into whatever comes next.

A sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, or the whole darned story ends with a period. The year is over and the last box has been checked, but the story continues on New Year’s Day. Even the most severe pivot is still connected to the other side of the angle, the beginning of the line. The line, the sentence, the story and the life do not really stop at all; New Year, Birthday, whatever. We may pause, indeed we do pause, sometimes quite often. Full stop? Nah. Not us.

That’s what’s got me thinking about the comma. The story goes on and on, one big run-on sentence with an occasional pause but never a stop. It’s connected front to back, side to side, and start to finish by those pauses, by the lowly comma. I think I get what McConaughy is getting at. New Year’s Day is a comma place for sure, but neither time nor life hits a ‘period’ there, either. We just keep on going. The comma means there’s more to come.

I think I might be a “comma person”, too.

And there you go. Not bad, eh? Seems like I used to be pretty good at this “musings…” stuff. For what it’s worth when I re-read this I found myself nodding along. I will likely never have the pleasure of meeting Mr. McConaughy, let alone chat with him, but heretofore I’m going to think of the two of us as “brothers in comma”.

Happy New Year. I’ll see you next week…

1) Rain. It is monsoon season in the Low Country of South Carolina. 3 days straight of almost constant downpour. With our dogs.

The smell of Christmas is wet dog.

2) Brobdignagian. My (no so) little dog, Bohdi, as sorta kinda a bespoke purchase by Beth. After losing Abby, the border collie we “inherited” from Dan (he might dispute the actual transaction), the companion we rescued, Sasha, became a big ball of angst. After almost a year of searching for a “mini” Aussie to rescue Beth found a specialty breeder. Bohdi was supposed to be 15″ at the shoulder and weigh around 25 lbs.

Yah, about that…

At 19″ and a bit over 40 lbs. I’ve been on a search for a word that describes the opposite of the “runt” of the litter. Since my little quest has come up empty, at least when it comes to an official descriptor, I have found a candidate. Herewith I nominate “Brobdignagian” (brahb-di-NA-gee-ann; from Gulliver’s Travels) as the antonym for “runt” to describe the largest puppy in a litter. As long as I’m taking it upon myself to make this declaration let me presume to offer a contraction as well: “Brob”.

And there you have it. The runt and the brob, both sides of the size coin.

3) Tipping Math. I truly hate the “tip for everything” thing. Hatehatehate it. You made me a double-something half-another? Sure, you get a tip. I’m stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts (yah, DONUTS dammit) and you poured me a black coffee and then spin the card display around so that I can choose a 18, 20 or 22%? I hate to be a Scrooge but I’m sorry, I just don’t get it.

Even worse, that hand-held thingy that the waitstaff carries around now so that they can finish the transaction right there at the table? That causes a whole nuther set of problems. In reality I am a very generous tipper, and sometimes 22% just isn’t enough. The other night at dinner I asked how to do a custom tip and ended up doing the math wrong. Instead of tipping high I shorted the poor kid. Had to chase her down with a handfull of cash to make up the difference.

So yeah, I hate the whole “tip for everything” thing.

4) Healthspan Testing. New Year’s is just around the corner. Gearing up for Resolution Season? Of course you are. Just this morning I re-booted the strength for mature athletes program created and taught by my fellow CrossFit OG Bill Russell (surf over to billrussell.com to sign up for remote instruction). This is a perfect time for you to start your Healthspan project, your effort not only to live longer, but to do so while simultaneously pushing the effects of chronic disease further and further out so that you not only live longer, you live healthily as well.

One of the things that made CrossFit such a sea change in the fitness (and health) world was its emphasis on measuring your fitness. “Work capacity across broad time and modal domains” was the fitness goal and one of the upshots of this was that you could measure your level of fitness by comparing your work-out results over time. Why not get some “pre-” numbers on a selection of fitness benchmarks as you start the New Year? Honestly, it probably matters less which ones and how many you choose as long as they can be measured.

As a CrossFitter in my heart I will look at stuff like pull-ups and push-ups, deadlift and squat multi-rep maxes, rowing splits and times on the bike. After having my hips replaced I’m not supposed to run, but those of you who do should not only seek distance baselines (5K, etc), but push yourself for a mile time and a 400 sprint. Maybe this is the year that I finally take up race walking.

You can get super fancy of course. Lots of Healthspan gurus would encourage you to get an accurate measurement of your VO2 Max, for example, or go all out and measure lactic acid clearance. If you’re into it and can pull it off, especially VO2 Max, sure…go for it. FWIW I probably won’t just because of the hassle factor. For those of you who plan to aim for workouts in particular heart rate (HR) zones you’ll have to decide if you will have that measured or simply use age averages. Body composition, specifically % body weight (BW) and visceral fat, is on interest to me. Hassle or no I’m on the search for a place to get a DEXA scan. And listen, if you are elderly-adjacent like yours truly let’s be smart and check-in with our doc, OK? Maybe some kind of stress test or a Cardiac Calcium Score.

Just sayin…

There are some very basic, classic medical/health measures that you should get as you embark on this journey. Blood pressure is a no-brainer. Take yours first thing in the morning before any caffeine or breakfast. If you are going to take this at all seriously you won’t be able to avoid getting some bloodwork. The bare minimum is serum lipids, your cholesterol and its subtypes. Make sure to include LDL-C and Lp(a). A fasting glucose and an HbA1c (hemoglobing A1C) will give you insight on your insulin metabolism.

Now you need to decide just how much information you feel that you need. Why? Well, on a practical level some tests are expensive. A positive result may prompt you to seek more advanced (and more expensive) testing. The best known test in this category right now is the “Grail” (presumably as in “holy”) offered for around $1000 by Galeri, that tests for 50 or so cancer markers. On top of the cost there is a risk of both false positives (leading to unnecessary testing) and false negatives (leading to a false sense of security). Still, with the possible exceptions of mammograms and colonoscopies when appropriate, you aren’t likely to seek out a screening PET scan to confirm your negative Grail.

Brain health is a big deal. Testing here is a tough call for me. APOE is a gene that is highly predictive of Alzheimer’s if you are unfortunate enough to roll craps on the wrong combination. Everyone gets two copies of the gene: E2 is protective, E3 is neutral, and E4 confers an increased risk. E2E2 is the best combo of course, and E4E4 is a devastating result. Why is it a tough call? Man, there’s really nothing you can do except EVERYTHING, and even then you might still be afflicted. Since I already plan to do almost everything anyway (I don’t think I would enjoy leaving that nightly glass of wine behind). I just don’t know if I want to know, ya know?

So there you are, just in time for this year’s resolutions, some testing to set your baselines as you embark on your Healthspan journey. Nutrition, exercise, supplementation, and happiness still to come.

5) Distance. What I’ve always liked about the Christmas holiday season is how it always seemed to shrink the distances between friends and loved ones. Each year we would move Heaven and earth to connect. And not modern electron-driven connections via FaceBook, X, Instagram or TikTok, but real, live, honest-to-goodness reach out and touch connecting.

“Hugging distance” I once called it.

If you are very observant you might have noticed a couple of connections missing from my list above. Postal service and phone calls are how the extended White family has always communicated. Once upon a time my Mom sent each of us a postcard every day. That’s every single day. Four of us. We called and talked on the phone, all of us. We still call and we still talk (you young’uns might have a fleeting knowledge of what that green “call” button on your Instagram poster is there for), but the postcards stopped long ago. Our moms and dads are all gone now. No matter how far we might travel there are no hugs from our parents waiting for Beth or for me.

But this is not one of those wistful “oh I wish” or “oh if only I had” posts. Parents and grandparents depart. Our lives proceed as they will. As they have. We connect and we disconnect. Sometimes quite deliberately, on purpose, and sometimes quite simply by accident. At any one time, though, we are connected to some someones, and our connections might still include a Mom and a Dad. The door that opened this year was ours; we were the ones engulfed in the hugs that tumbled in. Beth and I travel on Christmas this year with one part sorrow at the leaving, and two parts joy at the destination where still more hugs await.

Until now, to my great surprise and delight I hear, for however long it may last, “Lets get together then, Dad. We’re gonna have a good time, then.”

I’ll see you on New Year’s Day…

It’s Christmas morning and I’m thinking of home. I mean, of course I am. It’s Christmas. Even if you can’t BE home you can still GO home, right? What else did you expect? Today isn’t the time to think about ideas or issues of the day. Come on…it’s Christmas! So it’s to home I go. To take a moment…just a moment…and peer through the windows of the home that lives in my heart. Come with me, won’t you? But bundle up now. It may be warm around the hearth but it’s awfully chilly standing outside at the window.

Off to Southbridge we go. Careful as we drive in. Lebanon Street was pretty narrow even back in the days of the original VW Bug. Even those big old Chevy wagons seem like mid-size cars when you park one next to, say, a Suburban. Look at all of the lights on the trees! They’re all colors, too; none of that pristine modern “tiny white lights only” stuff. And the snow! Southbridge was in a little snow zone in central Massachusetts. Heck, it seemed like every town north of New Jersey was in a snow belt back then. It looks pretty, all lit up by the street lights.

Here we are, 96 Lebanon Street. The house is so small! Look, the carport is still there. This must be BK, “before Kerstin.” Dad hasn’t turned it into a family room and a bedroom for the boys yet. The upstairs windows are all dark, but there’s a light on in the living room. Here, squeeze through the bushes and we can see in the front window. There’s Mom wrapping our gifts while Dad is putting all the decorations on the tree. I’d almost forgotten: when we went to bed on Christmas Eve there were no gifts out and the tree was bare. My parents would be up all night helping Santa bring Christmas home. Dad just opened a box of leaded tinsel and began to place the strands one at a time until you could barely see the lights and the decorations through the silver “rain”!

It’s Christmas morning now. Randy and I are sprinting up the front hall stairs so that means that Kerstin has joined us and we are now four. Randy is leading the charge, of course. He was always up first on Christmas day, dragging me out of bed and then jumping up and down on Tracey and Kerstin until they got out of bed and we all headed in to Mom and Dad’s room. We had to wait for Dad to to downstairs first. There he is! Oh my, he really looks tired; he must have pulled a near all-nighter. In goes the plug and on go the lights, and Dad is setting up his camera, complete with that silver plate-surrounded flash bulb that instantly blinded us as we tore down the stairs and around the corner.

Santa made it to 96 Lebanon Street again!

Did you have visiting family, or did you travel to a relative’s house on Christmas Day? Gama and Gramp always came to visit us in Southbridge for Christmas dinner. Just peak around the corner of the house over here by the Pingeton’s and you can see Gramp’s Cadillac pulling up. I honestly can’t remember if they brought more presents, only that it just wasn’t a whole Christmas until they arrived. We’re all excited. Even from all the way over here you can see Dad smile as my Mom hugs her parents.

Here, take my hand and let’s take a walk over to 30 Kirkbrae Drive. My family has moved to Rhode Island now. Don’t worry, it’s only a short walk. Christmas is a time of magic and wonder. We’ll be there in just a couple of minutes. Whoa…I forgot how much bigger 30 Kirkbrae was than 96 Lebanon. Same colored Christmas lights on the bushes, though!

It looks like we, the older three of us, are in college which means that Kerstin is in high school. We lost Gramp a few years ago. Everyone says he died of a broken heart. I know losing him broke mine. We can come right up to the big picture window here on the porch. Gama’s there, too. She lives with Mom and Dad and Kerstin now. We’re all hanging that same leaded tinsel on the tree, one strand at a time! Dad gave up the all-nighters years ago but somehow has managed to find that tinsel even though the country banned it years ago.

Did I ever tell you about the White family tradition of “rejecting gifts”? Mom wanted everyone to love every gift. If you really didn’t like something you could politely say so and decline it. The catch: there would be no substitute or replacement gift. Poor Kerstin seemed to have at least one gift rejected every year until she came home as a college freshman with Notre Dame swag! She batted 1.000 that year. Let’s walk around to the back porch where the window is closer to the tree so that we can hear the banter a little better. Dad is still handing out gifts one at a time. You had to “ooo and ahhh” over everyone’s gifts and wait your turn. My folks were super generous; some years we would be at the gifting thing for hours. Oh my, it looks like it’s the Christmas with most famous “rejection” ever. Mom finally caved and got the boys jean jackets for Christmas.

But she brought the wrong jackets! Wrangler with fluffy lining instead of regular Levi’s. Randy opened his first and shook his head. “Really Mom?! This was the gift you couldn’t get wrong” as he pushed it back under the tree. Dad handed me an identical gift. I looked at Mom and raised an eyebrow. She nodded and I simply put it back under the tree. Everyone is laughing about it, even Mom. She felt so badly that for the first, and only time, she replaced the rejected gift, sending Randy to the mall to make the exchange. She didn’t even blink when he upgraded, coming home with Calvin Klein instead of Levi’s. Here, come a little closer and you can smell the bacon that Dad is cooking up in the kitchen.

Oh, you’re shivering. I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s so warm in there that, well, I can feel it even out here. Are you OK? I’d like to take you to one more Christmas home if you’re up for it. Yes? Great. Another quick walk, just around this corner. Ah, yes, here we are. 29123 Lincoln Road. My little family has landed in Greater Cleveland of all places. Each year our house would be decorated with Beth’s flair; sometimes even with colored lights in the bushes out front!

If we step up to the window over by Cliff’s house we’ll have a great view. There we are, Beth and I and our three kids. It looks like Danny is maybe 13 or so which makes Megan 11 and Randy 9. And whaddaya know, there we all are in the “dancing room”, our name for the living room pre-furniture, and sitting on the couch are my Mom and Dad, now Gram and Gramp! Kerstin lowered the boom on Gram after she decided that none of her children had adequately invited her and Gramp to spend the holidays with them and sulked off to NYC to see the Rockettes.

Hilariously describing their companions as “all the other parents whose children didn’t invite them for Christmas”!

We’ve come full circle. Thanks to Kerstin very fourth year we host my folks for Christmas. There I am (look how skinny!) handing our gifts one at a time. Oh, and no rejecting gifts in this house. Oh no! Beth always hated that little White Family quirk and put the kibosh on it at our first Christmas together. No matter, though. Come closer and put your ear up against the window. It’s cold, I know, but it’ll be worth it. That’s my Dad laughing! And Mom helping my Randy with a bow. In a minute or two I’ll head into the kitchen and fire up some bacon and 29123 Lincoln will be filled with all of the warmth of 30 Kirkbrae and 96 Lebanon. Gosh, it’s so good to see everyone, Mom and Dad, Gama and Gramp, my siblings, Beth and all of my kids…together and happy and warm. Those were good times, at home.

The windows seem to be getting blurry. No? Or maybe it’s me. Something in my eye, maybe. That must be it. I think it’s time I get you back home anyway. Get you warmed up, in case you might want to take a walk of your own. You know, a walk home. Home for Christmas. Christmas is a magic time, you know. Home will be just around the corner. I’m sure everyone is still there, at least today, on Christmas, waiting for you.

Merry Christmas…

*A respectful nod and thanks to the late Dick Feagler and his annual column “A Christmas Visit to Aunt Ida’s”.

“Santa is the Spirit of Giving. He is always real.” –Beth White

Once again Beth knocks it out of the park. We have a bunch of little ones again in our family, and because of that we will continue to have a healthy dose of Santa in our lives, at least for a little bit longer. While I realize that Beth and I will not really have a say in whether or not the whole Santa Claus story plays out in our grandchildren’s houses, what he stands for is important. Important enough for us to have had him in all his splendor and glory when our kids Danny, Megan, and Randy were growing up. Important for us to draw out the time before Randy came to the realization that Santa was not a real person for as long as possible, so deep was his love for the furry fat guy.

Rest assured, the parental units in our house did struggle with how to handle the inherent subterfuge that is necessary to have the Santa Claus story as part of our children’s upbringing. From the very beginning, though, the message was about the giving, about generosity and caring enough about someone else that you not only gave them a gift, but you gave them a gift that let them know that you “saw them”, showed them how much you cared about them. You know, the “spirit” in the Spirit of Giving, if you will.

No matter how you massage it, that day of reckoning when your child finally realizes that the character Santa Claus is nothing more than the figurative representation of that concept can be fraught with all kinds of emotional trauma. For sure you might get a dose of “you lied to me”, but in my now decades of experience being around parents it’s actually rather rare for this one to pop up. What you generally face is sadness, with maybe a touch of disappointment and even mourning tossed in just to add a little sting to the moment. Like so much else about parenting, or even just about kindness, these are times when you get to talk about and teach really important lessons. Here the lesson is about giving of yourself, with or without a physical gift to actually give.

While thinking about this we stumbled upon a lovely little story about how one family handled both the “Santa isn’t real” revelation and the “Santa is real” in spirit thing. Heck, the story may even be true! A Dad sensed that his son was pretty much on the cusp of discovering that the guy in the red suit wasn’t really the real deal. His approach? He talked to his son about how he sensed that he, the son, looked like he was not too sure about the Santa Claus character. The Dad complimented his son on being a caring young man: “Everyone who cares, who is generous can be a Santa. I’m very impressed by how kind you are. I think you are ready to become a Santa, too.”

The Dad went on to ask his son to think about someone in his world who looked like they were sad. Maybe a bit lonely even. He tasked the boy with thinking very hard about what that person might really like as a present. Something they needed, and something that would express that whoever gave it to them realized this need, and cared enough to give them a present that helped to meet that need. There was a catch, though: the recipient was never to know who gave them the gift. For the son the satisfaction was in the seeing and in the caring and in the giving, not in the recognition and praise that might follow.

It doesn’t really matter who the child chose or what he gave; you can trust that the story–true or not–is just lovely right to the end. What matters is that this very young boy is escorted through what can be a very sad stage in a young life by a caring and thoughtful parent. On the other side of this journey emerges a young man who has learned the true meaning of Santa Claus in the secular Christmas story. He has learned that what matters about Santa Claus is real indeed, and always has been.

Santa Claus is the Spirit of Giving. He will always be real.

I’ll see you on Christmas…

1) Book. It’s that time of year. The time of “Best of…whatever” in 2024. At the moment I’m thinking books. I really liked Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway on the fiction side, and I’m still mining nuggets, some of them gold, from “Outlive” by Peter Attia. How about you?

Not sure how you approach the “Best Of” lists but I’ve got the WSJ’s version next to me to help me plan my 2025. “The Anxious Generation”, “The Ministry of Time”, and “What If It All Goes Right?” are destined to join me somewhere, sometime this coming year.

2) Remontant. French: to rise again. Very specifically a term that refers to a plant that blooms more than once during the growing season. I really rather prefer the more poetic application as a descriptor of humans.

Who wouldn’t like to be thought of as “remontant”, blooming again and again as you enter each season of personal growth.

3) Exercise Rx. Up on my desktop I have an article I found that Alex Hutchinson references in the most recent issue of Outside Magazine: A Semiparametric Risk Score For Physical Activity. Man…so much math. Still, the outcome was pretty simple and straightforward:

15-20 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day is the single most powerful variable that decreases all cause mortality and improves health through age 70 (the cut-off for the study). The effect kicks in at 12.5 minutes and there is no meaningful additional affect beyond 20 minutes.

Keep this in mind as we start our conversation about Healthspan.

4) Healthspan. That portion of your life that is unencumbered by the ravages of chronic disease. In short what we should be pursuing is not simply the extension of our lives in years, but an increase in both the number of years we live and how healthy we are while doing so.

Last week I spoke at my very favorite conference of the year. Cedars/Aspens is a small group of like-minded cataract and refractive surgeons who also spend time consulting and speaking for the various companies that make medicines and medical devices that we use in our jobs. In short most (but not all) of my closest friends in eyecare, both doctors and people who work in the industry, attend this meeting. Last night Beth and I hosted our annual Holiday Lasagna fest. 8 couples who raised their children together gathered at Casa Blanco to eat monstrous servings of Beth’s homemade lasagna, downing this bounty with Italian wine picked out by yours truly. This is my local circle of close friends, together in one way or another for almost 30 years now.

So what does this have to do with Healthspan? Well, these are two groups of people I like and care about. I gave a formal talk to the C/A group about Healthspan (from which this series will emanate), and introduced the concept to my friends over tiny tipples of Icewine (a dessert choice not exactly on point as we will see later on!). Helping my professional family live longer and be healthy enough to be productive until they hang up their spurs is immensely satisfying; if successful I can take a tiny bit of credit for all of their good works toward the end of their extended professional careers. Doing the same thing for my close friends is an entirely selfish endeavor: the longer they live and remain healthy the longer I will get to have them by my side.

And as we will see, doing that for and with my friends will very likely increase Beth’s and my Healthspans in the process!

As we move forward in this endeavor I will offer what I have come to think of as a series of invitations to inquiry. The slides for my talk are probably best described not as dissertations but something rather more akin to chapter titles and subtitles. It is certainly possible to begin one’s journey toward an enhanced Healthspan by simply following the stuff that I’ll talk about, but you are far more likely to succeed if you use my bit of drivel as a series of “starting gates” that launch you forward. Assessment, nutrition, exercise, exogenous elements, and well-being are on the menu. Honestly, I have no idea how many Parts are to come. I do know that each time I look at these things, and especially when I write or talk about them, I get better at doing my own work toward expanding my personal Healthspan.

And honestly, as directed-toward-self as that obviously is, the more selfish aspect of this effort, like my C/A talk and last night’s discussions over dessert, is that I am highly invested in YOUR Healthspan. The longer you live and the freer you are from the crappy stuff that comes from chronic disease, the more likely it becomes that we will be together.

And be happy!

I’ll see you next week…

“Enough is as good as a feast.” Sir Thomas Mallory in “Le Morte d’Arthur”

Welp, here we are on the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend, my favorite holiday of the year, careening toward Christmas, the polar opposite of holidays. Giving and receiving; wanting and needing. The season that epitomizes the mantra “the only thing better than enough is more.” More lights, a bigger tree, another dinglehopper for your collection. More that seems to beget, well, more. I sit here chuckling over my keyboard as I prepare to extol the opposite of more.

I’ve just spent more than an hour scrolling myself deeper and deeper into the rabbit’s hole of “Best Gifts for…” shopping lists.

Still, I think it bears stating that “enough”, at least here in the Western World, is a meaningful concept for contemplation in this, our most covetous of seasons. Let me stipulate at the outset that “enough” does not apply to everyone in the U.S. (or in the countries of the couple of you reading my drivel x-U.S.), but if you are reading my stuff it most likely applies to you. We could do worse than to return to the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence in which the forefathers of our nation declared the “inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The needs of a free people are encompassed in the first two of those, liberty and life. To be free of the tyranny of forced servitude. Access to food, shelter, clothing, and in our modern world access to some (albeit difficult to define) baseline level of healthcare. These I think we can reasonably agree are “needs”.

It is in the “pursuit of happiness” that we come acropper, both for ourselves and on behalf of others. We could call this column “wants”, those things that we desire, sometimes painfully so, that do not rise to the level of need. If we examine this through the lens of the food need, I believe that we can agree as an example that we need to consume protein. By and large the source of that protein is not a significant factor; we simply need protein to survive. The beef in a standard McDonald’s double cheeseburger is nutritionally no different from that to be found in Beef Bourguignon at your local French Bistro. We need protein; no one needs to have it come packaged by a Michelin-starred chef. Similar thought exercises exist for clothing and shelter. While considerably more complex, and beyond the scope of today’s “musings…”, the same applies to healthcare.

Which brings me back to “enough”. When you have enough, when your needs have been effectively covered, and a significant number of your wants likely handled as well, it becomes easy to see the brilliance of Mallory’s allegory. I imagine awakening to each morning, rising from my bed and beginning the new day as full as I was when I somehow managed to lift myself out of my chair after the Thanksgiving feast. I move into my day, and when I’m on my game I do a little bit of level setting on the want/need continuum. I admit that I can covet as well as the next guy, and that this is sometimes harder than other, but here’s what I learned once upon a time that helps:

Want what you have.

Really, I’m just everyone else, especially at this time of year. 60+ years of Christmas conditioning, both on the giving and receiving ends of the season. For example, I’ve been completely sure, totally and utterly convinced, that Beth and I need new phones and new laptops. Dead certain. Need. And so in preparation for those purchases, in order to “survive” until I ordered the new additions for my already Apple-cluttered universe, we updated all of the software and operating systems on our existing iPhones and MacBooks. Lo and behold, we were already in possession of “new” stuff. Sharper screens, faster processing, and battery storage all miraculously and dramatically better. Maybe not new stuff better, but way more than either one of us needs at this time.

Which leaves me quite content wanting what I have, and therefore on to the last of my three core beliefs about enough. This one a true core belief in general. One that has stood me well over the decades that have passed since I first found it and adopted it as my own from “The Tao Te Ching” and Lao Tse: the man who knows when enough is enough will always have enough. Think about it for a minute. You’ve figured out how much is enough. Every minute of every day is like having a seat at the banquet table. Each breath as filled with enough as Mallory’s feast. Sure, for all the work that you do wanting what you have, you can still have room for a bit of “want”. Kinda like an two scoops of ice cream or maybe a slice of apple AND pumpkin pie after the feast.

It’s OK. You know you don’t need it. You know you have enough.

Giving yourself the gift of enough, of knowing that you have enough, is perhaps the loveliest gift you can give not only to yourself but to those you love and who love you. Enough leaves you room for joy. Joy for you and for others. Enough gives you space to be grateful. Enough for you allows you so see first whether those you love have enough, and if they do it allows you to think of what they may want more than what you may want. You’re covered. You’re good. Enough is what let’s me pivot from the joy of family and friendship that I love so much about Thanksgiving to the joy that comes from the giving of the next holiday. Indeed, that particular joy may be the one thing outside of love that is the exception to all of what I think of when I think of “enough”. Thinking about that is why I’m still bathing the the glow of Thanksgiving on Sunday.

That, and the complete certainty that I have had enough pie.

I’ll see you next week…

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Has been forever. Food, family, and football. Each family had its own, unique take on the traditions of the day. Some had been passed down for generations, while others were seemingly created on the spot to mark generational change. Still, the constant was family. My beloved crowded tables in every house, everywhere. For decades change simply meant more loved ones around the table. All of the old traditions and rituals grew and embraced the newcomers, making room for whatever wonders they would add to the majesty of Thanksgiving.

It was so easy to think that it would last just like this forever.

And then, one day, you put down your glass and look up over the last of the pies made just like they’ve been made since forever, and you see it. An empty seat at your crowded table. When did THAT happen? How did that happen? Where did they go? It’s jarring, isn’t it? There are all kinds of things that leave a chair empty at Thanksgiving. Some of them are common, expected. Grandparents depart almost on schedule, usually just about the same time that you start to collect young in-laws. Sometimes this change is more like musical chairs than emptying chairs. For sure you miss the super-elders, even if you didn’t really prepare for missing them. The last one always seems the hardest, though; every White family table will see the empty chair left behind when my Mom passed in June.

It’s the ones we don’t really expect, the ones we didn’t really see coming that you just can’t not see. Family members misplaced or lost with or without warning, seats unexpectedly emptied. These you see, and depending on the why you might see them not just that first time but for something that feels like it might be forever. If you are very lucky your table continues to welcome newcomers, continues to grow. A child is born. A nephew or a niece have a new special +1 who comes along, choosing to join you at your special table. If you are very lucky this part of the table’s story continues for a very long time.

Still, for many of us, there is an empty seat across the table that we see each time we put down our glass.

What to do, then, at this time of joy? Of family and friends and the warmth of gratitude for both? How do we leave room for the love we have for whoever it was who sat in that seat for so long, who we miss so much, without letting our love or our loss dim the glow coming from all of the other seats that are still filled with love? Like pretty much anyone my age I now have my share of empty seats around my crowded table, at least of couple of which I still see. How do we feel all of the joy and as little sorrow as possible? I’ve been accused on occasion of being a bit, oh, preachy I guess, so rather than offering any suggestions why don’t I just tell you what I’m doing this year.

It’s all too easy to say don’t think about the empty seats, or the people I wish were still sitting in them, but to be honest I really WANT to think about them, and I do really wish that they were here. I miss them, and there is an emptiness that I feel inside that is just as real as the emptiness of their seats. And so I give myself permission to feel that, all alone while I take my morning shower. I think of them, think of how much I love or loved them, and allow myself to be sad that they are not here. All alone except for the memories I allow myself to grieve. Sometimes I cry, the sobs that wrack my body drowned out by the sound of the shower as I let the water wash away the tears.

And when I’m done, when I’m all cried out, all of my sorrow and all of my hurt washed away, I emerge ready for the love that awaits me at my still crowded table. I leave behind whatever sadness I felt and start my day being truly grateful that once upon a time those seats were filled. That the people who filled those seats meant something to me. Mean something to me. And I walk toward my table deeply thankful for each of them. That they had once upon a time filled one of the seats around my crowded table, and that we were happy together. I silently thank each one of them as I step into the embrace that Thanksgiving has brought once again.

May you feel the love that once filled any empty seats that might be there today. May your table be overflowing with love from each of the seats that that are full of those who’ve come to share your crowded table. May you be bathed in this love today, and every day.

And may you have sweet, sticky, peanut butter-filled dates covered in sugar!

I am grateful for each and every one of you who have ever spent a moment with me, here, in my Restless Mind. I’ll see you on Sunday…

1 Gulp. As in Big Gulp, the semi-famous brain freezing concoction sold at 7-Elevens nationwide. Did you know that they sold 153 million Big Gulps in 2023?

Not sure what to think about that, honestly.

2 Battitori. Name for the people in Italy who traipse through fields of Juniper beating the bushes with sticks to knock loose the berries used to flavor Gin.

Don’t know how you feel about this, but for Martini lovers world wide Battitori might as well be Italian for Hero.

3 Yiddish. Schlemiel: a klutz who trips and falls into a shrub, scaring a bird.

Schlimazel: the person the scared bird shits on.

Is there another language that does this, describes things like this in such a picture perfect way? Long live Yiddish.

4 Sequel. There is talk about a fourth season of Ted Lasso. Maybe even a movie. I’m more than a bit conflicted by this news. I openly admit that I thoroughly enjoyed Ted Lasso. All of it. In fact, I plan to make the Season 2 Christmas episode a part of my Holiday Season viewing rotation, tucked in there with Charlie Brown and Rudolph. Ted Lasso was a phenomenon. No one I’ve ever talked with was done with Ted when he left AFC Richmond to return to Kansas. Nick Mohammed, the actor who plays coach Nathan Shelley, is as pained as the rest of us: “I feel there are so many stories left to tell.”

Perhaps.

There were so many lovely moments over the 3 seasons of Ted Lasso. None was lovelier than the ending, though. After so very many beloved shows that ended with a fizzle, story lines dangling, adoring audiences left hanging as favorite characters were still adrift, the writers of Ted Lasso gifted us with closure. Almost across the board closure. And happiness, or at least happiness where happiness made sense. Where it belonged. Like the gift the show had been for all three seasons, all wrapped up and left for us with a bow.

Sequels and encores have historically been fraught. Some things are one-offs, especially when they are really, really good. For every Godfather 2 there’s been another lackluster Rocky 4 or Rocky 11. Spin-offs are problematic, too. I suppose Creed was a pretty good Rocky offspring as they go, but come on, does anyone think we needed more than one? Some shows simply shouldn’t be extended or have a reboot. Heck, some we all probably loved hung around a bit longer than they should have, no? I mean, can anybody say that Grey’s Anatomy has been as good since Meredith lost Christina to Sandra Oh’s ennui? Graceful exits (see what I did there?) and logical conclusions burnish not only the critical acclaim of these shows but also keep bright their shine in our memories. Could you ever imagine a new season, heck even a single episode of M*A*SH after watching Hawkeye fly over B.J. Honeycutt astride his motorcycle? j

Admit it, even your memory of “Goodbye” from the air above the 4077th is blurred by the tears that streamed down your cheeks.

Ted Lasso was as nearly perfect as a TV show could have been. As much as I miss it, I’ll miss it so much more if extending its run dulls the glow we all felt, that we all see when we look back over those three precious seasons. When we can still see that handmade sign over the door. And that one, perfect, ending.

We, too, Believe.

Fare thee well, Ted.

I’ll see you in a few days on Thanksgiving…

“I’m in the twilight of my beauty. In a decade I’m going to need a lot of proof.” –Sarah Nicole Prickett

“I’m taking notes, Dr. White. Honest. I’m not just texting.” –Random Sales Rep

The question arises with some frequency: where do I find the topics on which I muse? In truth, most of the time “musings” arises from something that is either on my mind or in front of me just before I sit down to type. Oh sure, I occasionally have the foresight to jot down an idea or thought during the week, but as often as not I misplace a note as reliably as I misplace the memory of a really good idea.

If memory only did serve.

Last night was spent mostly in the company of a friend, The Dude, with whom I also do business. Sitting across from one another in a quite lovely restaurant we did just enough business to count, but mostly we just talked about our lives. I remember saying a couple of things that made me go:”Oh, that’ll make a great topic for ‘Musings'”; my friend made a point of identifying a couple for me. There’s this sense, this feeling, a kind of dim light in the mist of my morning mind that alerts me to the apparently fleeting existence of ideas I’m sure would have been brilliant once I’d committed them to electrons here, were they to have survived the night.

Alas, they did not.

I’m told that this need not be the case. Even as I hurtle through middle age, careening between the crevasses that keep cropping up in what was once solid (memory, muscle, et al), I’m told that I can remember everything if I want! Ms. Prickett would counsel judicious (one would hope) use of the “selfie”, the ubiquitous cellphone portrait or landscape that forever marks a visual memory. From there it would find it’s way to any number of memories. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, wherever. Evidence freely shared that, alas, the twilight of my beauty has long since passed. If, that is, the sun ever shined there at all.

Random Sales Rep would show me his Evernote app, or some other portal to a virtual urn that I could fill with ideas that heretofore required either a more effective neural network or a more easily located notepad to ensure their survival. Once there I need only curate my little corner of the cloud. Just think of what Sunday musings could be if I could always remember everything.

Hmmm. About that.

You see, what I DO remember of last night is how I felt. How often and how easily both The Dude and I smiled. The mist that is so effectively hiding the more granular memories is actually emitting a rather warm glow. It’s much like the memories evoked as Mrs. bingo and I have unearthed the Kodachromes of our personal antiquity. They’ve faded, both the photos on paper and the finer details of that time the photo has frozen, but they, too, seem to evoke a glow within that is warmer for their lack of detail.

I think this is better. At least for me. What I might gain from the “selfie” or the endless shelf space of the cloud I fear I might lose in the feeling. You see, for all of the cracks that have appeared over time in my memory, it seems that I have retained a rather amazing capacity to remember feelings. Indeed, it almost seems as if my ability to recall emotion is enhanced by relying solely on what memory may lie only between my ears. What I remember of last night, without the aid of Evernote or Instagram, is that The Dude and I were really quite happy.

Give it a try.