GUEST POST by MARY LOU SMITH* When I was young, I would hear my elders say, “My circle of friends is getting smaller,” The words passed right over me, without listening or understanding. Now that I am eighty-three, I am in the midst of living those words. The recent death of my soulmate, friend, and “sister” Lucille, of fifty-three [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by JACOB WATSON At first and for many months after my wife died, I felt brutalized. Grief is brutal, a word I used often when my grief was fresh. Then slowly, way too slowly for inpatient me, a transformation began to happen. I remembered a class I took in my doctoral program taught by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the feminist author [...]
Pat Taub
At a recent wedding reception, I found myself in conversation with a woman marine biologist with a sad face. When she shared her concerns about the warming oceans and her despair over the failed response of government leaders to address our diminishing sea life, I attributed her sadness to that shared by climate scientists who keep telling [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST BY MARY LOU MACKIN Twenty-two years ago, I stood before a judge in a courtroom full of strangers trembling and bewildered, to petition for a restraining order from my abusive husband. I was the mother of a one-year old son, and I was terrified for his future more than my own. I felt the sudden presence of someone by my side, [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by LISA SAVAGE Around where I live people grow food starting in earnest this time of the year. No matter what our religion or political persuasion, once the soil is warm and dry enough, we all of us poke in some seeds. Some years it rains so often that the seeds fail to germinate and instead rot in the ground. It’s not great [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by FRANCESCA LYNN ARNOLDY* My Death Journal is a gift for my beloveds that I have been lovingly creating for many years. It’s meant for my end of life—whenever that occurs. My family members know of its purpose and where it lives. My Death Journal contains mementos, messages, song lyrics, poetry, quotes, wishes for care if and [...]
Pat Taub
As a young woman, I never would have predicted that landing in my eighth decade would usher in the most content state of my life. I expected the challenges of being in an aging body would sour my mood. Instead, I finally grew up. I learned to reap the lessons from all my years of soul-searching, growing from romantic heartbreaks, career [...]
Pat Taub
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
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
In a recent dream I was attending a civic meeting. I grew frustrated with the speakers who addressed safe topics, like improving city parks. I wanted them to take on the latest school shooting, which took place in Nashville, killing three 9-year-old children and three adults. Unable to hold back my frustration, I bolted from my chair, [...]
Pat Taub