Tag: Smithsonian Magazine
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The Path to Grandma’s house
There are many under-appreciated people in our lives, don’t you think? People without whom we might live a very different existence, or inhabit an unfamiliar mind. And, especially, there are those who have not only affected us, but also those who care for us: our families. I never thought of my grandmother like that, but…
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Let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow
Colour has always held me in thrall. I suspect I can trace its origins to those pre-recollection times when my mother read to me as I sat pointing at pictures in whatever book she had chosen for my bedtime. I had my favourites, I imagine, but all I can remember from those very early years…
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Must we stop and smell the flowers?
Apart from passive receptivity, I have had no more opportunity to experience perfumes than any other nose in the average crowd. And even in that chaos, the scents seem to be equally admixed with whatever else clings to us -not all of it encouraging. But I have to believe that the ability to notice different…
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Do you play crib?
I’m afraid I was a user, but long ago, you understand -before I really knew what I was doing. At that age, you have to depend on your parents, I suppose, but we all know what a lottery that is… At any rate, so the story goes, I escaped unscathed when the contraption I was…
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Oh, true apothecary
That we would do we should do when we would, for this ‘would’ changes, says Shakespeare’s Claudius. In other words, do what you think you should when you think of it, or you may never do it… It seems to me that Medicine has changed a fair amount since I retired. Not only has science…
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The Mom and Pop Team
From time to time, I think we all need reassurance that we matter. That our seat at the game has not been taken by someone else. Could not be taken… Maybe that’s why we’re given names -so there’s no mistake. And if we’re not there all the time, it’s only because we sometimes have other…
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Thy wish was father to that thought
I’ve been waiting for something like this -expecting it, in fact, although not holding my breath: an exploration of the neurochemistry of fatherhood. I mean, it seemed obvious to me -a man, a father, and also an emeritus obstetrician- obvious that there are changes in many, if not most fathers with the birth of their…
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Full o’ th’ Milk of Human Kindness?
I used to drink a lot of milk when I was a child. It was 1950ies Winnipeg and milk was still delivered to the house in those clear glass bottles with the little bulge on top to hold the supernatant cream. I never much cared for the cream, but my mother always found a use…
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Within the Book and Volume of Thy Brain
Is it naive to mention that there is an almost magical bond between a mother and her baby? A bond that, while certainly not less in the father is, well, different? At first, I assumed it was probably related to the closeness of breast feeding –yes, the oxytocin and its effects on bonding, and the…
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The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley
Two steps forward and one step back –isn’t that always the way with progress? Reward coupled with unintended consequences? The Industrial Revolution with worker exploitation? Nuclear power with the Bomb. Nothing, it seems, comes without a price. Even religion, the great leveller, once established brooks no rivals. Life itself, is a succession of survivors outcompeting…
musingsonwomenshealth.com 