Molly Jong-Fast’s new memoir, “How to Lose Your Mother” conjured up memories of the 1981 film, “Mommie Dearest,” where Faye...
Aging Thoughtfully
It’s Never Too Late to Follow a Dream
I have a friend who’s been telling me for years that she’s going to take Italian lessons. Another friend has a long-standing dream to visit Japan. For just as long, every time I pass an art supply store I revisit my dream of taking up watercolors. We’re members of the late-in-life dream club whose engine is stalled. But it doesn’t [...]
Pat Taub
Autumn As a Time of Renewal
At autumn we leave summer behind and anticipate cooler temperatures with joyful images of cozy sweaters, glorious foliage and sitting by the fireplace. But autumn can be much more than reenacting nostalgic traditions. It can be a time of renewal. As the days grow darker I am called to deep reflection, reviewing the past year and then doing [...]
Pat Taub
The Wisdom Path
The writer, Lily Iona MacKenzie admits that she finds aging hard, but when asked if there are advantages to being an older woman, Lily offers a big smile, followed by the response, “I get to celebrate my wisdom.” But what if one is having trouble accessing her wisdom? For help in getting on the wisdom path, I’ve compiled responses [...]
Pat Taub
Here Comes the Invisible Woman!
80 years have gone by and now it seems I’m not here at all. Here comes the invisible woman. I can’t recall when it first happened. Don’t know how I became so unseen. My tangible self was put on the shelf. Why do I feel so much less then I am? There’s so much more of me now. We might not have a choice, but we still have a voice. [...]
Pat Taub
Obituary: The Final Writing Assignment
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL I’ve typed up many others’ documents in my time, but the single page printed in a strange reddish ink was a first for me: my father-in-law’s self-written obituary. This record of his life was too important to him to leave to others to put together. Robert “Bob” Weil was a gentleman of the old school, and [...]
Pat Taub
Diana Athil: A Long Life of Inspiration and Joy
If you need inspiration and reassurance that old age is still a dynamic time and not a passage to be feared, then grab Diana Athill’s two memoirs. The first, Somewhere Towards the End, was written when she was 89. Her memoir, Alive, Alive Oh! was published when Athill was 98, three years before her death at 101 when she was working on [...]
Pat Taub
Learning to be Positive in Hard Times
I wake up most mornings vowing to be positive, but it’s hard to maintain a positive mindset when it’s bitter cold out, eliminating a walk, and when contacts with friends and family are relegated to phone calls and Zoom. The longing for in-person contacts sends my positive intentions out the window. It became clear that I needed an approach [...]
Pat Taub
Last Things, New Beginnings
GUEST POST by BARBARA BENGELS Do you remember what you were doing (or planning to do) when Covid shut down the world as we knew it? Were you teaching a class, standing in line at the supermarket, planning on seeing a play? Those were my plans; they’re still undone. How do we respond when taken-for-granted opportunities vanish? Well, [...]
Pat Taub
Women’s Circles That Transformed My Life
A recent Facebook posting described how elephants form a protective circle around an elephant giving birth, started me thinking about the women’s circles that have supported me and transformed my life. One circle that looms from the ‘70s was the one that accompanied the birth of my first child. David was born at a time when women were [...]
Pat Taub
Inspiration from 2020 WOW Guest Bloggers
While 2020 saw most of us grumbling over our Covid isolation, others found silver linings in their alone time. Lucky for us they churned out guest posts chock full of wisdom to live by. A few samples from last year’s WOW guest posts follow: Sally Bowden-Schaible* On her trip to Palestine to pick olives, Sally mused over the persistent [...]
Pat Taub