As MEA alum Douglas Tsoi told me recently, “Loneliness may kill, but solitude does not.” His prompt led me to create a poll on the MEA Facebook group with the following question:

We all carry this unimaginable life-force that wants to come out into the world. And it will whip us around, if we are not grounded. When younger, my own creativity was such a force. I could be so intoxicated with it that I would follow that voice anywhere. It would say to me, “Keep going! Don’t stop! You don’t need to eat! You’re so close! Isn’t this great?”

An old Chinese proverb says, "the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And the second-best time is now."

I have been reading Chip's posts eagerly in anticipation of my retirement. I was looking for inspiration, affirmation, and maybe that push I needed to take the plunge. Retirement to most people is a bittersweet moment. Yes, it's something that most people look forward to and plan for, but being the last stop at the train station has its scary moments.

2020 was the year that shook us. Covid, quarantine, anxiety, depression, isolation, burnout. And that was only the beginning.

If you have to ask that question, you might ask about whether you have an adolescent relationship with the idea of permission. Let me be your “permissionary” and say, “dear friend, you can create personal resolutions any time of the year.” However, the real question is, what will you do with these resolutions?

In February I will turn 55. It is a lovely number and an easy milestone to slide into. It turns out I am the poster child for our most common demographic at MEA, age 54. Does that mean our average age will… age along with me?

CATALYST January 2020. I’m sitting in my stylist Danica’s sunny San Francisco salon, both of us gazing at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes zero in on the reason I’m there: The ¼ inch of grey that’s pushed out from my scalp.

To be “pent-up” is to feel “closely confined or held back.” Perfect pandemic prose! We are pent-up, aren’t we? To “ascent-up” is “the act of rising or mounting upward.” That describes our post-pandemic aspirations.

The best present I received for my 55th birthday party extravaganza (six and half years ago) was when my friend Ben Davis called me a "social alchemist." To be seen and articulated for who I was sent a jolt of lightning through my body and created a raison d’etre (a reason for being) ever since.