We have never had more ways to communicate, yet I wonder if we have forgotten how to have a conversation. I have spent much of my life talking. As a journalist, radio host, teacher, and activist, I’m familiar with the power of words. [...]
Pat Taub
We have never had more ways to communicate, yet I wonder if we have forgotten how to have a conversation. I have spent much of my life talking. As a journalist, radio host, teacher, and activist, I’m familiar with the power of words. I’ve learned how to ask questions, challenge authority, make an argument and, when necessary, raise my [...]
Pat Taub
One of the things I like about getting older is discovering I am still capable of surprising myself. I am not the woman I was at thirty, or fifty, or even seventy. I have different strengths now. I have accumulated experience, perspective, mistakes, friendships, memories—and, thankfully, wisdom. What I don’t want to accumulate is the [...]
Pat Taub
There are too many mornings when I wake up with a heaviness. Sometimes it’s the weight of the world. Sometimes it’s the accumulation of years, recognizing there is less time ahead of me than behind me. I have been an activist for much of my life. I have marched, protested, written, spoken out and stood with people who were fighting for [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by BARBARA BENGELS When a good friend announced she was expecting her first great-grandchild, I immediately responded with the age-old question: “Is it a boy or girl?” Much has changed in my lifetime; the role of gender is among those. Recently a young friend went to the DMV to have their name and preferred gender [...]
Pat Taub
Lately I have been thinking about the meaning of home. Not the wonderful Victorian space I have lived in for almost 14 years; my neighborhood of tree-lined streets; the welcoming market; the Maine coastline that still takes my breath away. These places remain. What has changed is the country I thought I knew. I no longer feel at home here. [...]
Pat Taub
Barbara Rainville died last week; we’d known each other for 50 years. What I will miss most is not just Barbara’s steady friendship but sharing life’s big moments: the birth of our youngest child; dinner parties filled with laughter in one another’s homes; family picnics; our growing children; the excitement of new, meaningful jobs; [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI On the sidewalk a rusted shopping cart overturns: cans and bottles spill, clattering along the pavement. A frazzled, disheveled older woman scurries to retrieve her day’s income. Cars race past, oblivious. On the church nearby a multicolored banner proclaims, “STRONGER TOGETHER.” It too, oblivious. Connection [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN That you are reading this surely means you don’t need it. But I ask your indulgence. When interacting with children we often try to teach civility, by prompting, “What’s the magic word?” True, it’s uncomfortably close to puppy-training, but we who pride ourselves on our own courtesies get [...]
Pat Taub
We have core stories we tell ourselves that trap us in a negative narrative: “If I speak up, my feelings might be hurt; I’m too shy to make new friends; I’m too old to take on a new project.” Esther Perel, the popular relationship therapist, contends the stories we tell ourselves are adaptive responses to childhood trauma, when [...]
Pat Taub
Like many women I’ve spent endless hours analyzing my relationship with my mother, giving only a passing nod to my father-daughter relationship, which impacted my independent strivings and my relationships with men. As Father’s Day approaches, it’s an opportune time to reflect on my relationship with my father. I grew up in [...]
Pat Taub