During Women’s History Month, the tendency is to celebrate famous women in the arts and politics, often ignoring those less famous women who have made an indelible impression on our lives. This year I’m celebrating Women’s [...]
Pat Taub
If you’re casting about for a way to take the edge off Trump’s wrecking ball, I heartily recommend the uplifting powers of a great read. Reading is more than an escape. It can provide inspiration for charting a course in these uncertain times. I’ve chosen novels with strong female protagonists who face life’s challenges with optimism [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI “Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate; I grow more intense with age.” ~ Florida Pier Scott-Maxwell, playwright, author, psychologist; d. 1979 May Sarton asked, ‘What is the opposite of “growing old?” [...]
Pat Taub
For poems are not words after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, and sometimes as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. —Mary Oliver To paraphrase Oliver, poetry isn’t just an art form, but a powerful medicine. Poems are a reminder when we are hurting that there is beauty in the world, and when we [...]
Pat Taub
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
My mother’s spirit was whispering in my ear, “Lockdown is the perfect time to clean your closets, messy kitchen drawers and disorganized office.” I shooed her away insisting that I’ll get around to cleaning eventually. I explained that until I find my equilibrium I need pleasurable diversions like books and films. This week I’m [...]
Pat Taub
“Don’t try to explain a lot to her. She’s too old to get it.” (Two clerks at a Best Buy referring to an older woman in the market for a new TV.) This is typical of the way older adults are stereotyped in our youth-obsessed culture. I won’t stand for it! I’m in my eighth decade, and I’m anything but set in my ways. I continue [...]
Pat Taub