What does being invisible on the airwaves really mean and what would it take for older women to feel visible in the media? Is it up to the media to make changes or is it up to the women themselves? I have heard this word used as women over fifty describe the way they feel in the world. In order to address this issue, which I do believe is real, we will need to dissect and understand the true nature of this invisibility.
Let me take a shot at defining invisibility for women over fifty: failure to be seen for all that a woman fifty plus is at this stage of her life.
It is not like “they” do not see us at all just “they” fail to see us as anything other than a homogeneous, monochromatic group known as the aged and thought of as less interesting.
This is a big mistake. Being female and fifty is a different ballgame than it was just one generation ago and for the most part the media has failed to acknowledge this at the most subtle level. The options available to women fifty plus are endless and impact our working, personal, spiritual and physical lives. We are no longer fitting onto the old track or into the old track suit for that matter…retire and give up the three P’s-Power, Prestige and Passion.
We are as multi dimensional as we were when we were thirty five, maybe even more so. Some of us work for income into our ninth decade, others establish charities in foreign countries, others go back to school and start again, some write books or make films, some become nanny grannies and revel in the years they did not have so simply with their own children. Many women just finally hit their stride as they enter their fifties, think Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, and Margaret Thatcher.
Women 50 + have embraced the stage of human development that begins at fifty and is characterized by expansion and freedom in our thinking and our actions. When we are small children we enjoyed an open space of exploration and limitless boundaries then as we matured we were shaped into the responsibilities and roles of adulthood. We willingly gave up many freedoms and dreams and pressed toward midlife, focusing tightly on the prizes of acquisition and the rewards of achievement. Post fifty we begin to enter a space again which moves towards freedom. As one of my mentors put it “life is a journey to and from freedom”.
We move ahead into this unfamiliar territory with the renewed confidence and the strength which comes from a life lived and explored. We hold dear a corresponding sense of self which makes many of us a far braver and far bolder version of our former selves.

The media for the most part just have not caught onto what is happening yet. They have failed to capture the zest and vitality and the sense of freedom that we are experiencing and they continue to see us, paint us up and write us in, as old which means bland, one dimensional and bereft of options. Decisions to replace older female personalities or executives with younger employees are driven by the mistaken belief that the younger audience requires this and that ratings will benefit from it. Someone is missing the point. A woman in her late thirties worried about her upcoming fortieth birthday can see her future open wide and rich before her when she realizes that at sixty she can still be a dynamic on screen presence.

In all fairness to the media I do think that we need to be comfortable with what we are at this age at the same time as we ask the media to represent us more accurately. I don’t need to see every face fifty plus botoxed and ironed smooth to see beauty fifty plus. I don’t need to see a perfect figure to see sexy and I do need to acknowledge that the seasoned years like all years are a mixed bag. Meryl Streep needs glasses now to read her acceptance speech. Does this detract from her outstanding theatrical performance? No, it is just one of the slightly more obvious issues of being an actress over fifty. Why was giggling nervousness on the podium at twenty five more acceptable than reading glasses at sixty two?
I don’t need my news anchor to be my age or my gender to value the news more but I do admit that it irritates me that the general public still accepts the credibility of the older male anchor more readily than the older female and is more willing to listen to the older male, apparently a father image issue.
But my guess is that this will slowly change as the next generations see strong successful female role models in their homes and come to expect them on the news too.

The bottom line is ladies; we still have some work to do, the boomer generation and the generations before us had some tough firsts to achieve. We had to carve out some new paths in which our daughters and granddaughters could follow. I was one of only two women in my 1971 university economics class, my professor did not want me there and he made it tough. I never worked so hard for any grade because I was determined to claim my right to that credit
As the early feminists called us to stop the inequities, to stand bravely and to speak out for what we knew was right I call on us all to do the same thing now on the topic of aging. Make yourself visible through your actions.
• State your age proudly
• Act what you know today
• Show what you can do today
• Introduce those who have not seen 50 yet to the vibrant world of opportunity which awaits them on this side of the hill.

We must be the change we want to see happen…sound familiar sisters?

Link to the article on the BBC

Here they are:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I picture tabulating regrets in my dying hours as a similar process to checking off the scars on my four year old limbs. I was not willing to give up even one of those booboos for a more placid or less adventurous childhood. In adulthood too, if we are engaged in life, we will take some “bumps” along the way and a few will not be erased by time. I assume I will carry repentant scars to the grave just as I carry the pebble under the skin on my forehead, the cost of a riotous adventure on a swing (or maybe my sister pushed me).

Sadly, I have to admit that I have already started to count some on the list above as my regrets.

1. Do I wish I had followed my dreams more and worried less about what others expected?
I get a pass on this one because I have been quite diligent in pursuing what dreams came up sometimes without a nod to common sense, but that is another kind of regret.

2. Do I wish I had spent less time at the office?
Sure I do. My children are now in their 30s and as I sometimes wait patiently, or not so patiently, for a visit or a call, even a text, I cannot imagine how I ever voluntarily missed a moment of their lives.

3. I can definitely say I wished I had expressed my feelings more.
At sixty I am just learning that my feelings don’t need to right, checked out by some universal standard or OK’d by anyone else. They have worth just because they are my feelings…never too old to learn, forget that old dog saying.

4. Do I wish I had given friendship a greater priority in my life?
Of course, now I find myself with few old friends and therefore without the insights of people who have shared the stages of my life. Old friends cannot be created, only the years of tending the relationships will cultivate them.

5. Have I wanted to be happier in this life?
Well who would turn down more happiness? I have not always been as happy as I would have liked. I have not laughed as many times as the smile lines on my face would suggest. But I question if we chose happiness or more importantly do we chose its opposite? I don’t think anyone chooses to be unhappy and yet, unhappy happens. In the circumstances of living fully both joy and sadness will come and I believe that both are required to experience each other. How would I know happy without sad?

If we are able to predict what we will regret in our last moments of life then why do we not change our lives to forestall those regrets?
In my professional coaching practice I have observed that people get stuck in self defeating patterns of thinking and action for example; guilt, fear, working long hours, isolation from meaningful relationships or hiding feelings. Patterns can be broken and when they are change occurs.

 First we need to observe the patterns of behavior and perspective with which we operate
 Second we must come to understand the effect of this patterned thinking on our lives
 Then we can make the conscious effort to change just one thing and viola… the chain of habit is broken and the crack that lets the light in is formed
 Then practice makes perfect. This process of breaking from the old pattern and forming the new takes frequent practice
 After each practice session the result must be observed so it becomes the learning
Over time the value of the new becomes more clear and then eventually we have a new pattern of behavior. Someday the new behavior may need to be changed also because it is not the patterns themselves that are bad but the fact that some have outlived their usefulness or appropriateness in our lives.

This brings me to what I see as the value of a book like The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
The perspective of the dying can never be the full perspective of those who do not face their imminent demise. That end of life perspective is as unique as the way a child views life.
However regrets that are noted when it is too late to change anything, can be literally food for thought for others. Those of us with a few years left can use these pre death insights to evaluate how we are doing today. Maybe this alternative view is just what we need to make the changes that could nourish the rest of our life.
It is possible that if you examine how you are currently living you too may find that you have planted the seeds of some of the 5 regrets listed above. If so, consider beginning the process of breaking the patterns which no longer serve your life.
Personally, I am still hoping for another 30 years or so. My mother lived to be 92 and my father 96 and if it be the will of my higher power so will I see such a ripe old age.
I do not really know what final regrets I will have with my last breathes but I am sure I will have some. I am greedy and I want a full serving from this life and I can’t imagine I can get out that type of living without a few skinned knees or a few more embedded pebbles under my thin skin.

What do you anticipate as your final regrets and what are you willing to do about it now?

The Talented Ms. S.

We are thrilled to have you holding the banner and marching out front. What better representative for the post menopausal years than the woman we have all admired for decades.
Out of Africa is still, without a doubt, my all time favorite film. I watch it once a year just to enjoy the opportunity to cry alone on the couch with my glass of wine and popcorn (For the record- a nice grassy white Sauvignon Blanc is a perfect pairing with buttered corn).

As much as I believe that Ms Streep deserves the recognition she is receiving I do think there is something else going on. The media has turned its focus on older women, finally wiping the Vaseline from the camera lens and clicking unabashedly at the faces and bodies we grew up into.
The women that Meryl represents are, how shall I put it without making us sound like good cheese or wine, matured in form but bodacious non the less…think Annette Bening, Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren, all are fitting Vogue cover models.

On the ramp

Some days I am amazed at the gifts this time in my life has given me. I think how uniquely fortunate I am and then I see Meryl on the cover and I realize I am not unique; my sisters are here in this time with me.
Thank you Meryl, you have given us a lifetime of your thespian talent and a timely reminder that beauty does indeed thrive with age inside and out.

Sometimes the stars align and the right people just show up. It happened to me. A few weeks back Tina Dolter came into my life. Tina is an award winning artist from Newfoundland, Canada and she found me in Zoomer magazine.
Tina checked out www.fiftyfab.com and decided we were kindred spirits, joined at the post menopausal hip so to speak.

Tina was just about to launch the third installment of her painting project, titled The Sensuality of the Maturing Woman – Celebrating the Fine Art of Aging Well. The project is a universal theme that explores the feminine allure, and the positive influence maturity and life experience have on the perception of female attractiveness together with the idea of the female as the centre of human sensual power. It is comprised of nearly two dozen portraits of women from varied and diverse backgrounds, between the ages of 40 and 85, experiencing the most creative and dynamic time of their lives.

I attended the opening of the exhibit and I was touched and overjoyed to see the response of those who came to view the art.
At first they appeared just ever so slightly shocked as they came face to face with scantily clad women between the ages of 50 to 85. But then a smile broke on the faces of women and men alike. I have interpreted those smiles as recognition- recognition of beauty which has been before them all along, in the mirror or across the room but which they have not acknowledged as such, until Tina’s skill and the wisdom in the eyes of her subjects, put it right out there where it cannot be denied.

Tina’s work is the visual medium of my writing.
As we began to connect we found ourselves using the same phrases and metaphors to describe the stage of human development that begins for a woman around 50 years of age.
Tina had found through and represented by, her art, the same wonder and vibrance that I had discovered in my interviews with women around the world and then shared in Fifty & Fabulous!The Best Years of a Woman’s Life.

We decided that a joint project was in order and on Sept 21st in conjunction with Tina’s Toronto exhibit we hosted a panel discussion titled Redefining the Art of Aging Well.
The Propeller Centre for Visual Arts on Toronto’s trendy Queen Street West hosted our panel in a spacious room surrounded by Tina’s outstanding paintings.

The panelists included
Dr Susan Brunt – Toronto based Family Physician
Marilyn Lightstone- Actress, Author, Broadcaster Artist
Mary Sheppard- CBC Executive Producer and Author
Tina and myself- Artist and Author of sparkling- eyed women

What a wonderful evening it was! We drew a full house in the pouring rain.
We were very fortunate to have the skilled moderation of Elizabeth Lancaster of Kingstone Brigid Consulting . Elizabeth tossed out the questions and for an hour we took turns with the” talking stick” microphone and told our stories about living female and 50+

Catch the discussion on YouTube Redefining the Art of Aging Well

I felt so grateful to have the time and attention of such accomplished and thoughtful women, to spend the evening in discussion with women who are fully and unapologetically present for the stage of life in which they now find themselves.
At the end of the night everyone agreed,there is so much more to say.

September 21st from 7:00-9:00PM at the Propeller Centre Tina and I will host a panel discussion on the same topic.
Redefining the Fine Art of Aging Well will explore what aging well means to a female in 2011 and look for ways to influence the popular attitudes towards aging.
We are very fortunate to be joined on the panel by two women whose portraits are include in the exhibition- actor, author and painter, Marilyn Lightstone and CBC producer and author,Mary Sheppard.

If you are in the Toronto area we hope you can join us, admission is free just bring your thoughts and ideas and enjoy what promises to be a stimulating and fabulous evening.
Details below – hope to see you there.

Today is the anniversary of my Mother’s death. She died nine years ago and last week would have been her

Mum and Dad on their 70th Wedding Anniversary

This morning I lit a candle and it has burned all day beside me on my desk. I do this each year to mark my mother’s passing.
On her birthday I do something she would have liked to do. I make scones and eat them with fresh butter and tea or I watch a movie in the afternoon and eat dark chocolates.
Oh dear, that makes her sound so frivolous. The truth is I am not capable of doing so many of the other things she could do.
I cannot turn an old piano into music or a plot of unruly dirt into a magical garden and even though she taught me how when I was five, I seem to have forgotten how to knit a cable knit Irish fisherman’s sweater. And I seem to have had trouble keeping a marriage together too, well I am hoping this latest one sticks but I will never live long enough to match my parents 70 years of conjugal coexistence. For them it was not always bliss but my observation was it was always love.

The loss of our parents is a thread pulled from our tapestry. It leaves a space forever. The space we previously filled with calls home just to hear the sound of the voice that resonated reassurance even if the actual problem was not shared.
The space we used to fill with the pride that swelled when we shared our latest achievement. When the publisher accepted my first book draft, who did I want to tell first? All is right in the world when we have made Mum and Dad proud, still.

I believe that the mother daughter relationship is a strange combination of trouble and joy. In the growing up days there is inevitable conflict and some scars do remain forever, on both sides. But so does the sense that this person has knowledge about you which no one else has, as if you whispered secrets to mum when you were in the womb or maybe later during the night feedings.
Maybe it is those body spaces in common that causes the conflict and at the same time bonds us for life, what perfection in form and function.
The father daughter relationship can also be a complicated recipe of tension and adoration but in a healthy relationship the mix is over salted with protectiveness and for me at least, that is the warm feeling I am left with even though I do remember the ego and independence battles which raged.

The loss of our mother and our father can be a rite of passage, a loss which takes us off the bench and onto the field of life. Suddenly some invisible but perceptible barrier that existed between us and life is removed.
It shocked me when I felt it because I believed I was quite fully involved in life, thank you very much. I had raised two children, worked full time, owned my own house, negotiated multiple new car purchases and travelled alone outside the country.
When it was removed, I realized I had lived over an invisible safety net and then it was gone and I was swinging high without anyone on the other end of the line, without the illusory option of just going home if it all came apart. A few times in the eight years since the thread was pulled from my tapestry I have come close to feeling my world come apart and it took my breath away when I looked down and realized the net was gone.

But I did then,in those difficult times,what we women are so good at doing, what the lucky ones have learned from the men and women who raised them… I kept going.

Today my daughter phoned. She said, “I just wanted to call you today.” I am so grateful for her gesture. I could hear the missing in her voice too,she adored her nanny. It is a tribute to my mother that we both feel the space today, so many years after she left us behind, left us with just one direction… “Keep going.”