It’s been just one week since Trump won the Presidential election, catapulting many into despair, terrified of his campaign pledges...
Aging Thoughtfully10
Aging and Raging
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL “Here’s the check, sweetheart.” The handsome young waiter laid the little tray on the table. Seating me at a booth, he had started with, “I guess it’s just the two of us.” I felt a vague annoyance. Now, after his calling me “sweetie” twice before, annoyance was turning to anger, a familiar emotion [...]
Pat Taub
Remembering Tina Turner – Beyond Suffering
GUEST POST by JORINDE VAN DEN BERG As I climb the three flights of stairs up to our condo, I think to myself, “Neither dragging up my groceries nor my weary old bones is something I will miss when we move into our single-level home in the 55+ community next month.” Recently, I have started feeling as if my powers are waning and I can [...]
Pat Taub
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
We all have core stories we tell ourselves that keep us trapped in a negative narrative: “I can’t seem to speak up when my feelings are hurt; I have a hard time believing I’m good enough; I’m too old to be in a relationship.” Esther Perel, the popular relationship therapist, believes that the stories we tell ourselves are adaptive [...]
Pat Taub
Finding Your Voice
Finding your voice is coming home to yourself, being true to what matters to you, and no longer suppressing your feelings. The noted Canadian psychiatrist, Gabor Mate, refers to finding your voice as acting with agency. In this recent book, “The Myth of Normal,” he contends that nice women, who do for others at the expense of their [...]
Pat Taub
No More (Empty) Earth Days
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL “Who should decide how best to use the resources of the earth? What are the most effective ways to build a more sustainable future?” – Adam Rome, “The Genius of Earth Day” Three years ago, early in the global COVID pandemic, on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I wrote a guest blog post, a remembrance of [...]
Pat Taub
How I Became A Climate Activist
GUEST POST by MOLLY SCHEN I’m coming to climate activism pretty late in life, in my early sixties. I’m no Greta Thunberg. But I can’t stay on the sidelines any longer. I am dismayed by the frequency of severe weather events—floods, fires, droughts, and storms. And I cannot ignore my own lived experience of hotter summers, milder winters, [...]
Pat Taub
Astrology as a Tool for Self-Understanding
GUEST POST By LAURIE FARRINGTON My fascination with astrology began the first time I saw the symbols on those little horoscope booklets by the grocery store check-out counters in the early 1960s. Following many years of self-study, I began my formal practice of astrology in 1994. As a professional consulting astrologer, I use the tool of astrology [...]
Pat Taub
The Night of the Bras
GUEST POST by BARBARA MUDD It was full darkness outside. The spring air was perfect. I was lying face down on the edge of a dock with eight other middle-aged and senior-aged women doing the same thing. We were hanging over the dock with water below us. At the exact same time, we all put our hands into the cold water and began swirling [...]
Pat Taub
How I Learned to Embrace Poetry
Because of the way I was introduced to poetry, it took me awhile to develop an appreciation for poetry. In middle school I was forced to memorize classic poems like Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” I remember standing in front of my 8th grade class, woodenly reciting the poem, then sitting down and that was that. Frost’s poem wasn’t [...]
Pat Taub
I Cane, I Saw, I Conquered
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN I’ve never been a sprinter. And in the past decade, some friends have commented on my odd forward motion. “You walk funny. Are you OK?” You could say I limp, or perhaps hobble. A woman I was dating told me that she was “concerned” about “my mobility issues,” to which [...]
Pat Taub