The story of women journalists in Gaza requires a new definition of courage. Many of these women are under 30. Several are young...
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New Year’s Resolutions for Growing Soulfully
Typically, we make New Year’s resolutions focused on improving our lives materially with pledges to diet, exercise, and travel to new destinations. But what if this year, your primary focus was on your internal self rather than your external self? In other words, resolutions to expand your soul where you grow in compassion. In a world [...]
Pat Taub
COME TO THE CABARET
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN Every day, I encounter deaths and illnesses: people I know and admire. Someone is no longer there. My first response is a horrified helplessness, emotional paralysis. But I cannot live in fear and premature mourning. Because I am not morose by nature, what bloomed in my mind today was whimsical and introspective, [...]
Pat Taub
How Did You Get to Where You Are?
GUEST POST by SHIRLEY DELONG Remember when the only way to figure out how to get to a place you’d never been before was to use a paper map? If you were like me, you’d write down all the road names in order, each left or right turn you had to make, approximate mileage and some landmarks to help you know you were on the right track. Or depending [...]
Pat Taub
Humanity In A Dark Time
Every morning I watch Democracy Now for updates on Gaza, and weep. It feels important to be a witness to this genocide happening in real time. I force myself not to look away from the traumatized children, covered with ash, sitting on the ruins of their former homes, crying aloud as their thin bodies tremble. I see humanity in the exhausted [...]
Pat Taub
Coping with Loneliness
“I do pretty well living alone, but on days when I crave companionship, it becomes depressing.” “I’m too embarrassed to reach out to friends when I’m feeling lonely.” “My family sees me as a strong woman, so they don’t realize I get lonely and would like them to contact me more.” “I wish there were places, other [...]
Pat Taub
Competitive Grandparenting
GUEST POST By ANONYMOUS* In a clear sign of the sickness engendered by the long reign of patriarchy in Western culture, grandparenting is now seen as a competitive rather than collaborative endeavor. Despite research confirming the long-held notion that children with at least one grandmother alive are far more likely to thrive than those without [...]
Pat Taub
“I Hate Being Old!”
Currently I’m teaching the course, “Women and Aging” at Portland, Maine’s senior college. The first day, as we went around the room introducing ourselves, one woman defiantly exclaimed, “I hate being old. I hate my lined face. I hate not being able to move as well as I once did. I hate being too old to date because men my age [...]
Pat Taub
Don’t Dismiss the Foremothers in Your Family
I have friends who insist the women in their families didn’t provide examples of independence and/or positive aging. This observation can be skewed by the fact that our mothers and grandmothers didn’t live in our enlightened era where women are consciously aging with an awareness of ageism and sexism, and where the anti-aging industry [...]
Pat Taub
Letting Go of Regrets
All things considered I’m managing my old age fairly well. I can check off most of the boxes for health, family, etc., but when it comes to handling my regrets, I’m often stalled. To this day I’m haunted over screaming matches with my teenage sons, impatience with my mother when she was dying, love affairs I allowed to go on way [...]
Pat Taub
Easing into Old Age
My grandmothers and mother lived well into their 80’s, transitioning into old age with only minimal complaints. While they followed healthy diets and exercised moderately, they didn’t obsess over their daily routines, or fret about their extra pounds or wrinkles. They simply didn’t stress about aging. Granted they lived at a time [...]
Pat Taub