Initially my plan in interviewing Penny Rosenwasser, a founding board member of Jewish Voice for Peace, was to highlight the work...
Positive Self-Image10
Diana Athil: A Long Life of Inspiration and Joy
If you need inspiration and reassurance that old age is still a dynamic time and not a passage to be feared, then grab Diana Athill’s two memoirs. The first, Somewhere Towards the End, was written when she was 89. Her memoir, Alive, Alive Oh! was published when Athill was 98, three years before her death at 101 when she was working on [...]
Pat Taub
Celebrating the Older Woman’s Body: Interview with Jocelyn Lee, Photographer
“My mission is to create a radical empathy for the older body. I want to expand our understanding of beauty and sensuality, which is not confined to the young.” Jocelyn Lee’s new photography book, Sovereign, is the book older women have been waiting for: a book filled with photographs of nude aging women, proudly facing the camera [...]
Pat Taub
Casting Off Regrets
Nervously I opened my aging report card. I earned respectful grades for healthy living, close relationships and meaningful pursuits, but a low grade for managing my regrets. No surprise. I tend to resemble Lady Macbeth uttering “Out damned spot!” In my case, it’s regrets that I can’t rub out rather than blood. I’m haunted over screaming [...]
Pat Taub
Aging Like a Wise Woman
This week I’ll be a guest speaker for a Zoom class of older women, addressing what makes for a meaningful aging. For my presentation, I came up with these guidelines for growing into a wise older woman, which I’m sharing here: Honor Your Failures Reframe your “failures” as risks you took where you stuck your neck out. Examine [...]
Pat Taub
Walking with New Eyes
I was driving myself crazy over the prospect of Trump winning re-election, turning our country into a fully-fledged Fascist nation where hate rules. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t shake my doomsday thinking. I was desperate for a way out, a path to quell my anxiety. An answer presented itself in the form of Alexandra Horowitz’s [...]
Pat Taub
Women’s Friendships As A Lifeline
A friend once said, “If grown women had pajama parties, they wouldn’t need therapists.” She was referring to the close connections among girls that often get lost when women mature, becoming preoccupied with family and careers. Feminist psychology contends that because women are affiliative by nature they frequently find their voice [...]
Pat Taub
How Did We Become So Obsessed with Aging?
My grandmothers and mother lived into their 80’s, transitioning into old age with only minimal complaints. They didn’t take mega doses of vitamins, or exercise madly to stave off the Grim Reaper. Nor were they bombarded with advice on how to slow the aging process. Both of my grandmothers dressed up almost every day. My paternal grandmother [...]
Pat Taub
Silver Linings From the Lockdown
In the beginning of my lockdown I was antsy: irritated at not being able to see friends, eat out, and plan a summer trip with my grandchildren. My days were endless and depressing. Once I settled into the lockdown, I began to re-examine my lifestyle choices. Why had I been making all those trips to the mall for clothes I didn’t need, or [...]
Pat Taub
Dealing with Uncertainty
GUEST POST by GWEN McCAULEY Here I am thinking of ‘retiring’ for a second time after officially retiring 25 years ago. That first time I retired I received a generous buy-out package from a major telecommunications company after 20 years of hard work and much success. I knew the world was changing. I knew that the aspects of corporate [...]
Pat Taub
Learning to Love Our Older Faces
A professional photographer once told me, “Every time I photograph an older woman she says, “Make me look 20 years younger.” I incredulously responded, “Every time?” ‘Yes, every time,” he replied. What a sorry state for aging women! How can we enjoy old age if we hate the faces that accompany it? I realize not every older [...]
Pat Taub