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Here are a few things I wonder about these days.

There’s something immutable about old friendships. I’m talking about friends from grade school and high school. From your hometown. Before you moved away and started living your adult life. Before careers, marriage, children, grandchildren.

Since I retired, I have been exploring the area around my home. I walk for miles on local trails, on city sidewalks and in my favorite place, the Arnold Arboretum. For anyone who loves trees, walking in the Arboretum is paradise, with a different view around every curve. I watch the leaves bud out in the spring and then welcome the summer’s lush foliage providing cooling shade. As the days become shorter, the trees perform their magic, turning their green leaves into a palate of red, orange, yellow and brown. In winter, the bare fingers of the branches allow me to see the architecture of the trees, especially when they are silhouetted against a snowy backdrop.

FiveTips for Navigating a New (Ab)Normal

Every day I am amazed by the realization that we are ALL going through the same events. My friends and family in Colorado, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, California, New York, everywhere, we are all in the same vessel, doing our very best to stay afloat, keep healthy and not spread this virus.

A Senior Influence exclusive.

Debra Stark, owner of Debra’s Natural Gourmet in Concord, started carrying Cannabidiol products in 2018.

For 30 or so intrepid souls of varying ages and livelihoods, a new program through the Adult and Continuing Education department of the Concord schools is leading them to examine their personal beliefs and inherent biases.

Elizabeth Akehurst-Moore has a thing for Scottish poet Robert Burns.

I can’t even…

Retirement needs a do-over, according to Concord-based consultant and author Tom Wilson. In fact, he prefers to call it the “next stage.”

Using yarn and fabric to make fashion and home accessories has always been a way for me to indulge my creative nature.

What fueled your interest in stress reduction? What in your background propelled you to this field?

Reflections is a regular feature of Senior Influence which is user-generated. Please share your stories by sending an email to betsy@seniorinfluence.com. This column is from contributor Ann Hengerer about her ongoing career as an ESL teacher.

Four Questions is a regular feature of Senior Influence.

The history of my meditation practice begins in the early 1970’s when my husband and I scraped together the money to pay for Transcendental Meditation training. We met with a trainer several evenings and learned about how to meditate. In great secrecy, we were each given a special mantra…a nonsense word…that we would repeat during meditation. Trainers instructed us to never tell anyone about our mantra, and to this day, I have never told anyone. For all I know, we might have all received the same word.

Robert Gonzalez, pastry chef at the Concord Market and adjacent Trails End Cafe, is a contestant on the TV show “Chopped.”

One of my favorite pastimes is bike riding. I have a hybrid Trek bike with medium width tires, and handlebars that allow me to sit straighter than those racing models do.

I enjoy riding on a paved off-road trail near our house, but lately I’ve come to dislike riding on weekends.

There are too many people on the trail, and I can easily go Monday through Friday.

But Sunday was such a perfect early fall day, I decided to take to the trail.

I’ll know better next time.

The anniversary of the moon landing brought up a wash of feelings.

In the summer of 1969 I was traveling in Greece, bumming around with a friend on the island of Rhodes.

We didn’t have detailed knowledge of the space program at the time, but the whole world, it seemed, was keenly interested in the moonshot. Even vacationers at the tiny seaside hotel where we were staying.

My husband and I took a road trip from Massachusetts to Western Michigan over the 4th of July. Our first stop was Niagara Falls, Ontario.