My contributions to the HBR editors’ blog.
The Business Card Is Dead, Long Live the Business Card
With that small paper rectangle, I’d outed myself as a square.
The Surprise Benefits of Waiting in Line
If you want to grow your network and possibly your world view, hurry up and wait.
I authored the MySecretBoston blog “Fitcognito,” the source for little-known ways to stay in shape in Boston.
Rock On
Climbing to new fitness heights
Breaking the Ice
Not into solitary exercise? Join a team.
Run Around
Great places to run, in and out of town
Punch Drunk
The fun of getting fit in the last way you’d expect
Water Power
An exotic way to get out on the river
Working Vacation
Getting some exercise out of your visit to Cape Cod
Water Work
Keeping fit, with a paddle
Pitch Perfect
A batting cage that makes your workout fun
Yo, Row!
How to join the river crew
Study shows yoga may elevate important brain chemical
Yoga has long been known for building strength, flexibility, and spirituality — but it seems that the exercise can also improve mental health. A recent study conducted by researchers from Boston University’s School of Medicine and McLean Hospital suggests that practicing yoga may increase levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an important brain chemical. Low levels of GABA, the brain’s primary inhibitory neurotransmitter, are often associated with depression and anxiety disorders.
Study lead author Chris Streeter, a MED assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology, was interested in research showing that yoga decreases seizure frequency and helps reduce symptoms associated with depression and anxiety. “I thought that yoga, which worked on two disorders that improved when GABA levels went up, would increase GABA levels — and it did,” says Streeter, who is also a research associate at McLean.
The study compared the GABA levels of experienced yoga practitioners after a one-hour session with the levels of a group that read for an hour. Levels of the chemical in the yoga group rose by 27 percent, while those in the reading group showed no change. In comparison, pharmaceutical agents used to treat depression and anxiety disorders can increase GABA levels by 30 to 40 percent.
“It is exciting that a behavioral intervention is having an effect on brain chemistry similar to medication,” says Streeter. She says the research may provide more choices for people looking to improve their health, but warns people not to stop taking their medication without consulting their doctor. “As people get older there are lifestyle choices that affect long-term health,” she says. “It’s important to make good lifestyle choices, and I think that for many people, yoga is one of them.”
Michael Halley, a yoga instructor at BU’s Fitness and Recreation Center, is not surprised by research that demonstrates yoga’s health benefits. “If you get into the habit, you can do it forever,” he says. “Yoga is something you can grow into and grow with.”
Getting started with yoga can be as simple as walking into a class or picking up an instructional DVD. Halley finds that many beginners are nervous about their lack of flexibility, but he says that stretching is only part of the practice. “Yoga is not about touching your toes,” he says. “It’s about learning to make more space in your body.”
FitRec offers classes in hatha yoga and power yoga during the summer as well as throughout the school year. The second session of summer classes begins the second week of July. For more information, visit the FitRec Web site.
A 144-acre farm in rural New Hampshire hardly seems like the place for a publicity hub handling interview requests from some of the nation’s largest media outlets, but it is there on Eagle Pond Farm that Houghton Mifflin author Donald Hall is doing just that. A celebrated poet for more than sixty years, Hall can now add Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, or simply Poet Laureate, to his list of accomplishments. The seventy-seven-year-old New Hampshire writer will serve as the country’s fourteenth poet laureate when his duties begin this fall, and because of it he is receiving quite a bit of attention.
The position of poet laureate was created to raise the national consciousness of and enhance appreciation for the reading and writing of poetry. Hall hopes to continue the tradition of the last several laureates and extend poetry’s reach to a wider audience. The sometimes outspoken writer is interested in the possibility of a poetry channel on satellite radio or perhaps on cable television. This is an interesting choice for a man who lives and writes in a rural farmhouse without the aid of a computer or even a typewriter.
Eagle Pond Farm has been in Hall’s family for several generations and it was there that at age twelve, the poet began practicing his craft. At sixteen, he attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont as a fellow. Then, after studying at Harvard College and Oxford University, Hall went on to teach at the University of Michigan.
Toward the end of his eighteen years at Michigan, Hall met Jane Kenyon, then a student who would later become his wife and an accomplished poet in her own right. After marrying, Hall left his tenure and he and Kenyon moved to Eagle Pond Farm to take up the uncertain life of freelancing. They lived and wrote together for twenty years until Kenyon’s tragic passing in 1995 after battling with leukemia. Ironically, they had initially put off marrying for fear that Hall, nineteen years older than Kenyon, would leave her as a young widow.
Kenyon’s death deeply affected Hall and its presence in his writing is clear. His 2005 novel, The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, is an intimate look into their twenty-three-year marriage that further imparts the sense of loss felt in Without, an earlier book of poetry reflecting Hall’s grief.
Hall’s most recent work, White Apples and the Taste of Stone, chronicles more than two hundred poems from his lengthy career. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington noted that the new laureate is “one of America’s most distinctive and respected literary figures. For more than fifty years, he has written beautiful poetry on a wide variety of subjects that are often distinctly American and conveyed with passion.” The array of those subjects is featured in this collection, from details of his life on Eagle Pond Farm, to his marriage, and even his love of baseball.
As former five-year poet laureate of New Hampshire with thirty-five books of poetry and prose, children’s books, and plays to his record, Donald Hall is certainly a highly qualified man of letters. When he begins his duties as the nation’s laureate, he will travel to his Washington, D.C., post at the Library of Congress several times a year, and make appearances around the country. However, even with the increased attention on Hall’s life and work and the $35,000 stipend given to laureates, it is likely that much of the business of his new position will still be arranged through that unlikely media hub nestled within the walls of an 1803 New Hampshire farmhouse.
Woods Hole, Mass. is more than just a stopover
From May to October, Falmouth, Massachusetts’ sleepy seaside village of Woods Hole wakes up to welcome thousands of seasonal visitors. Many will just pass through on the way to Martha’s Vineyard—parking a car, grabbing a cup of chowder, and hustling to catch one of the Steamship Authority’s regularly departing ferries. These Vineyard travelers may think of the area only as a stopover, but Woods Hole boasts enough attractions to delight those with time enough to stay ashore.
Though the livelihoods of local business owners depend on the increase in visitors in the summer, year-round, Woods Hole is a scientists’ town. Jammed into its 2.16 square miles are numerous scientific organizations, including branches of the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Geological Survey, and the privately funded Marine Biological Laboratories (MBL) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)—the organization behind the discovery of the Titanic in 1985. The resulting feel of the tiny community by the sea is decidedly hipster-meets-hippie intellectual, with a bit of old salt toughness stirred in.
Parking is extremely limited in “the Hole,” as locals call it, so if your not already planning on arriving by shuttle bus from one of the Steamship Authority’s many parking lots throughout Falmouth and beyond, two wheels may be a more convenient mode of transport than four. The Shining Sea Bikeway is a four-mile paved stretch of flat and friendly terrain that begins just outside Falmouth center and ends at the main Steamship Authority parking lot on Railroad Avenue in Woods Hole. Named after a line in the song “America The Beautiful,” written by Falmouth native Katharine Lee Bates, the scenic bikeway travels through the woods, past salt ponds and marshes, and along the ocean. If you’d rather not break a sweat, the charming Whoosh Trolley loops from Main Street in Falmouth to Woods Hole every twenty minutes in the summer ($1/ride, $3/day pass).
Whether arriving by car, bike, or trolley, Woods Hole’s attractions are easily navigable by foot and are generally located around Eel Pond, the small harbor in the middle of the village. If you pull into town in time for breakfast, the Pie in The Sky (10 Water St.) and Coffee Obsession (38 Water St.) offer baked goods, coffees, teas, and juices in cozy atmospheres complete with local art, funky employees behind the counters, and free wireless Internet access. If you take your fare to go, make sure to stroll by the post office (16 Water St.) for a postcard-worthy photo of its ever-blooming window boxes below the village’s name marked in gold gilt on the plate-glass windows.
For a sit-down breakfast, Fishmonger’s Café (56 Water St.) cooks up omelets and homemade muffins and is perched next to the tiny drawbridge that separates Eel Pond from Great Harbor. On the hour, the bridge raises to let boats, large and small, pass through. The process of closing the road and raising and lowering the bridge is undertaken by a single bridge-tender and often draws a crowd.
Just past the bridge you will see a marker that annually draws a crowd of a different sort. Outside the Captain Kidd Bar and Restaurant (77 Water St.), you will find a thick line painted from sidewalk to sidewalk indicating the starting point of the Falmouth Road Race. This thirty-five–year-old athletic tradition draws 10,000 runners and swells the town’s population in the beginning of August each year.
If there is a need for the requisite souvenir t-shirt, Sweats (6 Luscombe Ave.) provides the standard variety, but Howlingbird Studio (89 Water St.) creates designs with a local flare. For more than thirty years, the studio has sold t-shirts and other apparel with screened images of marine life such as horseshoe crabs and cuddlefish. For other homegrown keepsakes, Woods Hole Handworks (68 Water St.) is a cooperative gallery featuring unique items including jewelry, stained glass, and ceramics. Under the Sun (22 Water St.) also provides an outlet for local artisans.
The spirit of localism is strong in Woods Hole. The village’s businesses are all locally owned and residents like it that way. In 1996, McDonalds was set to move into the first floor of the Lee Side Restaurant (2 Luscombe Ave.). Locals were vehemently opposed to the chain opening and launched a campaign to voice their displeasure. T-shirts and buttons urging officials to “Keep Woods Hole Franchise-Free,” a parade, and legal action ensued. Eventually brothers Joe and Jamie Crowley, also owners of The Captain Kidd, purchased the Lee Side and eliminated the possibility of the golden arches glowing by the sea.
Being local though, is not a requirement for two of Woods Hole’s most popular summer residents. LuSeal and Coco, harbor seals who call the Woods Hole Science Aquarium (166 Water St.) home, were rescued after being stranded on the beaches of Maine. The pair draws large crowds to their twice-daily feedings and is quite popular with school groups. The small aquarium showcases animals from regional waters and welcomes visitors behind the scenes to interact not only with the staff, but also with snails, crabs, and other small creatures in two shallow “touch tanks.” Especially on a rainy day, the aquarium is widely considered a top attraction.
Another free draw lies away from the hustle of Water Street. Constructed in the 1880s, St. Joseph’s Bell Tower and its accompanying garden on Church Street overlook the boats tied up in Eel Pond. In line with the community’s scientific emphasis, the tower’s two bells are named Mendel and Pasteur.
After the walk back from the Bell Tower around Eel Pond, you’ll probably have worked up an appetite for lunch. To sit on the water with a view of the Steamship Authority ferries docking, and smaller vessels tying up at an arm’s length from your table, head to the Landfall Restaurant (3 Luscombe Ave.). Opened by David Estes in 1946, the restaurant is now run by his sons, Don and Jim and displays a mass of nautical décor. The classically New England menu features a clam chowder that shouldn’t be missed.
If a fresh squeezed cocktail and a quahog (a stuffed clam) are on your must-try list, walk down the cobblestone path off Water Street to Shuckers World Famous Raw Bar and Café (91a Water St.). The casual dining restaurant is located practically in Eel Pond and serves it’s own signature Nobska Light Beer, named for picturesque Nobska Lighthouse located just outside the heart of Woods Hole.
If your perfect Cape Cod day involves more lying on the beach and less exploring, Stoney Beach (Gosnold Rd.) is the place to get comfortable in the sand. A favorite among scientists, families, teenagers, and seniors alike, the beach is packed on the weekends, so plan to arrive early. If you do drive, a one-day Falmouth Town Beach sticker will cost you $20.00.
For the less adventurous, Woods Hole may never be anything more than the last bit of dry land on the way across Vineyard Sound. But for everyone from a family of five to someone looking to enjoy a cold cocktail on a hot summer day, Woods Hole brings a whole lot of choices to a Cape and Islands vacation.
See Woods Hole from three different perspectives on these free, guided walking tours. Reservations are recommended.
WHOI
Access to WHOI dock area and other restricted village facilities, background on WHOI history and research information.
(Late June through early September, M–F, 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., 508-289-2252, information@whoi.edu.)
MBL
Video presentation, visit to Marine Resources Center to see research animals.
(Late June through the end of August. M–F, 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., off-season tours available upon request, 508-289-7623, comm@mbl.edu.)
Woods Hole Historical Museum
10 downloadable audio tours with photos and interviews.
