I have witnessed the slow crawl of history, from the joy of one decade to the agony of the next, from the fear of one decade to the fantasy of the next; I have seen the ashes of what once mattered and shared the dream of what might be.

This book is based on my experience of the past 80 years, from just before WWII to the present. As an advocate for conscious aging and a creative writer, I am fascinated with how we remember and story our lives, often to our own disadvantage. Now, in these later years, I've set about the transformative task of unraveling my own fragmented journey - a constant struggle for survival, through the re-invention of one self after another. This is how I faced the painful truth that if I could not own all my experiences, especially those in my shadow, I could not begin to forgive or love myself enough to even dream of becoming a whole person.

The 71 stand alone (yet integrated) short stories in this book are drawn from more than 20 years writing, from meaning-making autobiography to revelations of conscious aging; from embracing the wisdom of vulnerability to learning to think with both the head and the heart.