Are You Old Enough to Know What Love Is?
By Suzanne Braun Levine
I am making a new friend…. I think; you never know about such things until you are actually there, at intimacy. But this friendship is already taking a surprising turn.
I find myself going at it in a very different way from relationship-building in the past. I am still looking for trust, humor, empathy, curiosity — the same old things I’ve always looked for — but the stages I find myself going through to get there are new.
SPECIAL EDITION! Mother Nature’s Surprising Gift: The New Intimacy
After 50!
Suzanne Braun Levine &
Mary Eileen Williams
FeistySideofFifty.com
“One of the lovely things about writing a book about women in my stage of life is that I learn so much that makes my life richer. The message of How We Love Now is the same message that I have taken away from all the thoughtful women I interviewed – that we are in more nourishing relationships than we stop to appreciate and that those relationships are helping us grow more authentic and more “bodacious” – to use Eileen’s word -every day. And we should stop to celebrate that.
JANE FONDA’S BLOG ABOUT
“HOW WE LOVE NOW”
Jane Fonda recently celebrated her 75th Birthday and shared the good news about being that age on her blog: “I am happier than ever, more at peace, healthy – well there are times when my body hurts all because of osteoarthritis. But that doesn’t define me…” (Read more at “Jane’s Blog”). I remembered that she had blogged about reading HOW WE LOVE NOW and thought I would share it here. Enjoy!
A Manual for Encore Careers
by Richard Eisenberg
NextAvenue.org
“The new ‘Encore Career Handbook’ is a terrific guide that shows you how to make a difference while making a living. If anyone can figure out how to overcome obstacles at the start of your second act, I think it’s Marci Alboher,” says Richard Eisenberg from PBS’ Next Avenue.”
Female Friendship–The True Gift of the Season
by Mary Eileen Williams
FeistySideofFifty.com
By the time we reach 50, we’ve gone through a lot. We’ve lost loved ones to death and through the breaking of relationship ties. We’ve endured injured pride, damaged self-esteem, and crushing disappointments. We have sustained significant blows to the ego through painful experiences of rejection. And we’ve seen our nest empty, watching our children build their own lives while our loved ones (and we) grow older. We need our friends now more than ever before!
A Touch of Mothering for a “Mother’s Helper”
by Karin Lippert
MotheringintheMiddle.com
Long before Ann Martin wrote her bestselling series The Baby-Sitters Club® I was a baby-sitter on Long Island at age 12. Looking back, I continue to be amazed that a family – a mother – would trust me to take care of three children [one an infant] at that age. It was the ‘50s and I was paid 50 cents an hour in a far more innocent time. I loved the family, enjoyed the kids. I also remember I tried one of the mom’s Lucky Strike cigarettes – cough, cough! Not good.
“Gray Hair: 25 Women Who Rock Silver Locks”
You might say it’s the time of year for silver belles. Vogue’s Vicki Woods, a journalist who has written cover stories for the fashion mag on Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie and Sarah Jessica Parker, is the latest high-profile figure to go gray. She wrote about her decision in a recent post:
Meet a 2012 Purpose Prize Winner: Judy Cockerton, Treehouse Foundation
Encore.org, second acts
for the greater good
A news story about a 5-month-old boy living in foster care who’d been kidnapped right out of his crib – never to be found – shook Judy Cockerton. She thought about all the other kids in foster care, the ones no one hears about until something awful happens.
SELF- INVENTION – The Bond Among Women of All Generations
By Suzanne Braun Levine
One thing about being an older mother is that you are constantly reminded of the truism that age doesn’t really describe the shape of a person’s life. Nor does our place on the family tree, the generation we are assigned to at birth. When my daughter was born I was 44, old enough to be her grandmother. When she went to school, I was old enough to be her teachers’ (and her friends parents’) mother. At the same time my contemporaries had long since forgotten about coping with babies and young children – they were on to the joys of grandchildren. My most meaningful cohort was other women with children my children’s age, but not my age themselves.
A Celebration of Sisterhood!
By Mary Eileen Williams,
FeistySideofFifty.com
Most baby boomer women can recall that our early years were not exactly fair. In truth, when we were young, being a member of the “fairer sex” meant you were destined to living a life of limited opportunities.