Writer’s block is a locked room where you wake up with no memory of how you got there. The walls are made of sentences you have never finished. The ceiling hums with rules. The floor is littered with drafts that apologize too much. Somewhere nearby, an editor clears his throat and sharpens a pencil. Freewriti...

To the Editor: Editor’s Note: Columnist John Heckel received this as an email. With the sender’s permission, we include it as a letter to the editor.

You can learn so much about a country and its people through their food stories. For me, cookbooks are like travel guides seen through a lens of taste and smell. Many of the books on my kitchen bookshelves have come home with me from my globe-trotting days, and I love to recreate memories of those trips throu...

An Arcata ecology and environmental consulting company is looking for alert beach walkers to help document the amount and kind of specific kinds of marine debris washing ashore on Humboldt County beaches. The project, funded through the California Energy Commission, seeks to track marine debris like rope, net...

In his new book of pandemic-era poems, whether he’s describing dolomite stones bedded together or pouring bits of bone and ash upon the waters, releasing his father, David Holper reaches deep within to give us rich and harshly beautiful poetry. The Eureka poet and teacher reflects that while politicians denie...

Join Dr. Bill Carlson and others as they help those with memory loss — and their loved ones — “connect, share and enjoy together” at the McKinleyville Senior Center’s monthly Memory Café.

It felt scary at first, the idea of me, an old guy, writing about sex and intimacy. To discuss such private things in public seemed like trouble, like being caught outside bare-assed in broad daylight. In other words, exposed. Vulnerable. An interesting problem, since I believe that to be intimate, in sex or ...

Several years ago, I was delivering stacks of Senior News in Arcata and as I approached the doors of a senior apartment building, a man on a bench waved at me. “Hi!” I said. “Want a copy of the paper?” “Is there any sex in it?” he asked. None in that issue, but he might find some in this month’s edition, whic...

Over 2,000 years ago, Marcus Tullius Cicero said, “For old age is respected only if it defends itself, maintains its rights, submits to no one, and rules over its domain until its last breath.” My wife, Janet, took that last breath with the help of meds offered under California’s End-of-Life-Option Act in our...

I’ve had the good fortune to have loved deeply — and to have lost — and still be open to possibilities. Some say, “Oh, I would never be in another relationship … too much compromise required.” Some say, “Older men are just looking for a nurse with a purse.” And some simply say, “I’m too old.”...

Intimacy is often misunderstood as simply physical closeness, but its true essence lies in the willingness to be known and the desire to deeply know another. According to relationship experts, intimacy is one of the three pillars of a healthy, lasting partnership, alongside passion and commitment. Yet, as the...

All five of us kids are Boomers. Our parents were products of the Depression, World War II and the Post-War boom — exciting, if not romantic, times of rapid change. Struggling young workers in the midst of fast-moving history, Wes and Mary couldn’t see it swirling all around them, while I, their confused elde...

If you are a woman of a certain age, you have probably wondered if doctors skipped the lecture on menopause during their schooling. More accurate would be that doctors of a certain age were never given a lecture on menopause. Who knew that half the population might have menopausal issues in their middle and l...

I was surprised, perhaps shocked, to open a local newsletter recently with a photo of me with my violin. I don’t think of myself as a violinist. Happily, it was taken by a very fine photographer, so I relaxed and enjoyed the moment. I do play the violin. A lot! I play nearly every day in duets, trios, quartet...

I don’t know who I am! For the first two weeks or so after Janet died, I felt like I was floating. Something in my mid-section kept me afloat — off the ground. I mean, I knew that in one reality I was walking, but in this new after-her-death reality, it was like my feet never touched the ground. I wasn’t walk...

This still-dark morning, I startle awake, hearing Kayla pace from my bed to the door and back. Judging from her near-frantic pacing, I realize I’ve not been conscious of her usual sedate tempo that begins a normal day. Being forced to get up fast, find footwear, flip on the coffee machine, find a jacket, and ...

As a therapist, I have dealt with a lot of adolescent sexual issues, mostly trauma and abuse. I have seen very few seniors. But I have started to wonder how senior care homes and assisted living facilities deal with sexuality. Is the myth that seniors lose interest in sex as they age still common? I have frie...

I write not as an expert, but as a fellow traveler, one who has lived long enough to know that intimacy is not something we lose with age. It is something we are asked to relearn. Our bodies change. Our histories deepen. Silence can grow heavier if we let it. Many of us carry grief in one pocket and prescript...

That day of days when you were allowed to acknowledge a fondness for the opposite sex, legally allowed to write her, and she you. She might be the popular girl who smelled of raspberries, wore a clip in her hair, sat near the front or middle, where you studied her. She never got in trouble, never had scabs on...

I’ve lived alone (as in unpartnered — I do have a housemate) quite happily for many years. I’ve never been much good at multitasking, and I learned long ago that effectively managing a career and a committed relationship simultaneously was not within my capabilities. Some things happened early on in my adult ...