At lightning speed, Trump is chucking the constitution and flaunting cruel racist policies, throwing many Americans into despair. Climbing...
Summer Reads that Wow
Growing up before iPhones and the Internet were around, books were central to my life. Summers free of school meant I could read non-stop. When I read I could forget about my teenage insecurities, losing myself in Jane Austen’s world, the clever shenanigans of Hercule Poirot, or steamy sex scenes when I confiscated my father’s John O’Hara’s [...]
Pat Taub
Family, “Frankenstein,” Ava DuVernay & Summer Arrives
Family News Last weekend I traveled to Chicago for my grandson’s 8thgrade graduation. Max lives with his older sister, Jane, 15 and parents in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb. As the saying goes, time flies by. I have vivid memories of Max’s birth 14 years ago this August. It was bittersweet because it was the same month Hurricane Katrina [...]
Pat Taub
Unapologetic
GUEST POST by NANCY RULLO The model slipped her robe off and slid into a pose elongating her legs, torso, neck and arms. During the one-minute pose, artists moved charcoal across large sketchpads. I watched Judy’s hand translating the model onto the page in confident strokes. The thin charcoal in my hand broke in half; my sketch [...]
Pat Taub
Manhattan Sightings from My Memorial Day Weekend
I’m devoting this week’s “Short Takes” to events and sightings from my Memorial Day weekend in New York City. RBG Strolling in the Village I spotted this storefront hand-painted image of the wonderful RBG or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, our formidable Supreme Court Justice. She has become a national icon. Stonewall Memorial Park In [...]
Pat Taub
Coming into My Own at 60
GUEST POST by TONI KIEF The day I turned sixty I collided with a shocking revelation. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up! I was single again, living alone and on my way to meet my women friends for vodka and cake. The thought wouldn’t stop; it kept repeating. I drove to the party, and took inventory. At eleven I wanted [...]
Pat Taub
Breaking the Taboo on Loneliness
“I hate coming home to an empty house. The silence can be deafening.” “I can go days without speaking to anyone except the clerk in the grocery store or my mail carrier.” “I rarely reach out to my friends when I’m feeling lonely because I’m too embarrassed to admit I’m lonely.” “My daughter tells me to stop feeling [...]
Pat Taub
Boos for Kay Ivey & Susan Collins, Remembering a Cousin & More!
Alabama’s Draconian Abortion Law I’m old enough to remember when abortion was illegal and when college friends traveled out of state for an abortion. In 1973 when abortions became legal, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Now decades later anti-abortion fever is in ascendency. This week Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey signed the cruelest [...]
Pat Taub
Embracing Your Aging Body Can Be A Radical Act
Can you imagine a scenario where you, a vital older woman, actually liked your body instead of making it a battleground where you fret over your weight, wrinkles, and saggy boobs? What if food wasn’t the enemy and sleepless nights had their own advantages? What if you had practices for honoring your body? Body acceptance for the older [...]
Pat Taub
Mother’s Day Actions, The New World of A Handmaid’s Tale & Co-Housing
Mother’s Day Actions Sunday is Mother’s Day and peace and justice groups are marking it with actions to support mothers in jail and migrant mothers whose children were taken from them when they crossed the border into the US. For the third year in a row Black justice groups have organized “Black Mama’s Bail Out Day,” raising bail [...]
Pat Taub
When Your Adult Child Makes Your Life a Living Hell
“Out of the blue I received an email from my daughter saying she never wants to see me again.” “My son is frequently verbally abusive. I feel like I’m walking on egg shells around him, bracing myself for the next hurtful comment.” “My daughter and I always had a very loving connection until she married. Now she makes excuses [...]
Pat Taub