For Mickey   Two old women, friends for over four decades, have been meeting this way for years at a boutique hotel in a horse racing town in upstate New York. Immense hanging ferns draped across a front-facing,   pristine porch, anchor four days of talking about their joys and sorrows, their evolving lives, in the company of their silent companion, death. She keeps a tight lip but takes up space just the same.   They have a long history of speaking truthfully, however old age has brought...

Another yearly GYN exam today, and as it turns out, my last. After a brief discussion, the nurse practitioner and I concur that at my age I can opt out of all preventive GYN care. For fifty-some years I’ve dutifully yielded to stirrups, vaginal speculums & specimen collections, even as I winced and tensed, and wished I could somehow resist, fight the invasion of instruments, swabs and fingers. Mammograms— gone! Breast & bone density exams float out of my line of vision. No head trips to find...