Aug 24/ 2011
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.”
This one is about legacy, the one we all create by the actions of our lives and also about our sense of purpose which according to research on longevity has a direct affect on our life span….
I had dinner the other night with a group of friends, all educated professional women who have worked long and hard to do as we do, raise families, contribute to society, make a difference at home and out in the world.
• Two have recently downgraded to HMO health insurance because they could no longer afford the more expensive PPO option
• One is still unemployed after a 12 month job search
• One is in her 40’s and still working on contract with no benefits and no security
In the same week I also spoke to three other friends
• One will soon lose her house after an 18 month battle with the banks to keep her home for herself and her children
• One worries about her mother confined to a substandard nursing home
• One worries about her child in an overcrowded classroom, missing the great teacher she had last year who got laid off
I can’t imagine that my conversations are so unique. It is my belief that today such conversations are happening all over the US.
In each of these exchanges we ended the conversation with “ something has to change.” My friends and I are not unwilling to do the work of change, to suffer the transition to even accept that we are in a new order. We are not even demanding the return of the old days but how do we affect this change and what will happen if we don’t?
In a recent paper titled, “The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East, published on arXiv.com Marco Lagi, Karla Z. Bertrand and Yaneer Bar-Yam state that ”When the ability of the political system to provide security for the population breaks down, popular support disappears. Conditions of widespread threat to security are particularly present when food is inaccessible to the population at large, All support for the system and allowance for its failings are lost. The loss of support occurs even if the political system is not directly responsible for the food security failure, as is the case if the primary responsibility lies in the global food supply system.”
I realize that the subject of this paper concerns an area of the world where the issues are more at the edge of the tipping point. And while there is hunger in the US, the new unrest is generated from the loss of something higher up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. However I believe now is a good time to ask…
Why have we not taken to the streets?
Do we need to get to the point of a food crisis before we withdraw our support for the system and make it clear that we will no longer tolerate its failings? What will happen when we do give up on the systems we rely on to “fix it”?
This past May, what was coined “The Spanish Revolution”, shocked the Spanish government on the eve of their elections “Without a hint of violence the Spanish people are saying, Enough is Enough!!”Houston Chronicle
Demonstrators, most of who were young, took to the streets for six day sit ins in a dozen Spanish cities demanding an overhaul of the political system in order to improve living conditions.
One 32 year old revolutionary, Javier de Coca, when asked, why, had this to say, “Some people are trying to turn this into a leftwing or Marxist thing, but that is not what it is about. The really important thing for the moment is that we are raising our voices. No one should think we are just sitting around and taking this.”
Food for thought…
The form of revolution is as varied as the conditions bringing it about and the courage and nature of the revolutionaries leading it.
In Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Libya thousands have taken to the streets to demand change and many have lost their lives to make their point.
In Iceland the revolution was sounded from the polls where citizens voted strongly against bailing out the banks they believed had caused the crisis in the first place.
Yet little pavement has been trod here at home. This week in San Francisco the BART was protested to a halt as citizens peacefully and lawfully protested what they believed was police brutality and the loss of freedom of speech. Is this a sign of things to come?
What will it take for the average citizen of the USA to step up and out their front doors, to put goggle and twitter and other social networking technologies to work in the country where they were born, for the good of that country and its people, to march as one voice demanding simply…Something Has To Change?
A recent article in guardian.co.uk states that “In the 21st century, given the broadening of available communication-technology, it is not power elite “leaders” who may decide the future but the broader populace who are moving the Internet Reformation forward. Those at the top of the EU may come up with solutions that they consider adequate one way or another only to find that voters are dismissive of them.”
Politicians around this country are about to begin that big spending spree better known as campaigning and I for one resent every cent they will spend trying to convince me that they will do it differently, make it better, or that they have the right answer.
I have to admit that my resentment is a symptom that I am losing faith in the talk. I am withdrawing my popular support for the system and seeking a new way. This is a country build on entrepreneurship, where are the new ideas now when we need them? It seems to me that no one party, never mind one person, has the right answer for the crisis this nation faces. The answers will only germinate in the place where each person with power, personal or elected lays down his or her arms against their peers/adversaries and unites to seek pioneering solutions for a new life in these times and in the times of struggle yet to come.
Maybe, today,the solutions cannot be found inside the political and geographical boundaries of one nation. We seek to “win” in a world which is closely linked by technology, trade patterns, resource needs and population movement so why are we seeking solutions alone in our own back yard?
Why have we not taken to the streets?
Why have I not taken to the streets?
But here I sit at my keyboard in some sort of semi intellectual paralysis, writing about “it”, which quite frankly may be one step worse than talking about “it”.
Here is my list of excuses for inaction:
• I have not found the precise articulated issue for which I would break out my sign paints and staple my cardboard box flap onto my broom handle
• I have not impassioned my friends sufficiently to join me on a quiet, well peaceful but not necessarily quiet, walk to …?
• That is another problem, I don’t know where to protest, City Hall, Governor’s residence? Washington?
• In my safe California nest I tell myself that things are not that bad here so protest is simply an over reaction
Am I missing something here? Is there some other way to make our point, to be heard, something we have not tried or have not tried hard enough to demand that the greatest minds of this nation join to start the courageous acts of building and enacting a strategy for national renewal and for regaining international respect?
A nation is a collection of peoples and people have experience with crisis and hardship in life. They reshape their lives to keep going and they find the better things that they value most are still alive within them. This process is not easy, is not what we prefer but I think there is a growing appetite to get on with it, to act upon this recovery to find our dignity again in being part of the solution so …
Why are we not in the streets?
When I speak about Fifty & Fabulous! The Best Years of a Woman’s Life, audiences often ask me, “does the same apply to men?”
I respond that I don’t know as I have only interviewed woman but Dr Tornstam’s research on Gerotranscendence is pertinent to men and woman so I assume that men have similar access to the gifts of a changing life perspective as each birthday passes.
Well, with Dr Tornstam’s encouragement and my own sense of equality and justice urging me on, I am now embarking on the research interviews to capture the perspectives and thoughts of men 50+ who are positive role models for all men in or approaching the years past fifty.
As with the women, I am looking to interview what I call the sparkling- eyed- older male species.
These are men 50+ who embrace their current stage of life and who defy many of the stereotypical negative aging messages because they just seem to get better and better every day. I do not mean physically, though they may be healthy and fit but I mean they have engaged in the age in which they currently find themselves and they are reaping the gifts of that time in life. It sometimes appears to the rest of us that they know something we don’t because their attitude so distinguishes them from their peers.
In order to cover this topic properly I will need to interview men from fifty years of age to as far beyond 100 as I can get and I will interview men in different countries hopefully spanning numerous continents as I did with the women I interviewed for Fifty& Fabulous! I need to interview a broad demographic sample, married, single, with children and without, professional men and non professionals, wealthy men and those without substantial financial assets, working and retired, straight and gay.
All interviews can be done on the phone and will last approximately one hour. I will offer the interviewees anonymity if they wish or use their names in the book which follows,as they prefer.
I am approaching these interviews as I approached the interviews with the women…I have no idea what I will find but I am curious to hear what men think about the experience of their later years.
You can help by referring interviewees to me. Everyone knows an amazing man 50+ with a twinkle in his eye. Stop hiding them; pass them on so I can share their secrets with the world.
Please refer potential candidates to www.fiftyfab.com for more info on Fifty & Fabulous! The Best Years of a Woman’s Life or they can email me at jaki@fiftyfab.com
I read this morning that Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger are separating after 25 years of marriage. A separation is always sad news, even those ones which clearly need to happen, toll the ending of a hope which was formed when the relationship began.
I am particularly moved by Maria’s situation as this separation comes just a few months after the death of her father, Sargent Shriver, and less than two years after her mother’s passing. And apparently Maria has recently been touring colleges with one of her children so on top of all the other changes… the nest is emptying even more.
No wonder Ms. Shriver recently posted a YouTube video asking people to share the three things they did to get through their own life transitions.
Transition is a kind word for the tsunami of change which this woman is facing.
It is my experience that something happens when a woman in her fifties looses both parents in a short time. In my case I felt pushed off the bench and onto the field. This surprised me as I had believed myself to be an active player before my parents died. On this new field where I found myself I had a clear unobstructed view, where my parents had once stood between me and an unknown edge now I looked out into infinity alone.
I was bewildered by this but also intensely stimulated to understand what my purpose was now? I began to ask questions about everything. Questions like the one Maria asks in her You Tube video “what is the impact you want to have?” One of the questions that came up for me was what is a woman’s role in society after menopause? I began to interview women between 45 and 102 years of age to find the answer and four years later I published my first book Fifty& Fabulous! The Best Years of a Woman’s Life.
That was my transition and today I realize that transitions are endless and that we will cross them best when we listen to the questions that arise, reflect and let the answers inform our next steps.
Women 50 plus are transition specialists. Which is why my wise mentor, Joan Erikson, did not hesitate to remind us that we must be willing to begin again and again over the course of a lifetime, and when you think about it that is exactly what we do. Because we know life moves in a continuous cycle that we are intimately attached to, a cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth. This cycle moves our body rhythms every month. We see it in the children we raise, the communities we grow, the relationships we nurture; we are creatures of the changing life cycle. But even so there are times when the shift within the cycle is enormous. Life past fifty may just be one of those times as the structures we were shaped by and we have shaped start to alter even crumble, our families of birth, our families we birthed, our work and friendships and intimate relationships are all up for grabs in the changing world around us.
Change is not variable it is constant. The variable is you—your acceptance or resistance of that change.
We have lots of practice beginning again and again. We have been married, divorced, and remarried, we have birthed and raised and then empty-nested, we have been hired, fired, and rehired, born in one country, raised in another, and living in a third. We have sometimes failed and sometimes succeeded but always kept going. We have endured loss that has changed the landscape of our lives and hearts forever, and still we have kept going. This is what women do because it is in our nature to flow with life. Oh sure we have moments of resistance, moments when we just feel too darn tired to get up and keep going but through history we have kept up the fight to look after the world, one person at a time.
But now perhaps as we walk out on the terrain of our life past fifty years, maybe it is time to look after ourselves first. Is this selfishness? No this is what we come to with the wisdom of years lived. When this happens and we give time to our self discovery, self-knowledge and wisdom speak clearly and from open hearts—the results are simple, direct, powerful, and kind.
Maria has asked for help with change and transition and here is my three point list for all the Marias out there who are feeling the change happen:
1. Check in with yourself; find out how the girl in you grew up.
In the busy “doing” we can lose track of what we have become. We will be wonderfully surprised by the talents and skills and wisdom our life experience has grown. Don’t forget to include your values and beliefs in this self inventory. Some are forever, others we may have outgrown and they just don’t suit us anymore, we have in our wisdom formed new ones without even realizing this change has happened. The struggle to keep up to the old ways while living unaware of what has changed within our perspective is confusing at best and exhausting at its worst moments.
2. Take a look at the evaluative scale with which you are assessing your current and future life.
Is it a scale which suits the stage of life in which you now find yourself or are you using a scale which served you well in the past, say in your thirties and forties but just is not appropriate for the fifties and on? Thirty year olds who evaluate life to ten year olds criteria- eat way too much ice cream and skate board to work, OK that sounds pretty good but the chances of settling a good job and beginning a family are slim. Each stage of life has its own unique energy and if you are going to tap into that energy flow you need to be evaluating your success with criteria which is appropriate to the time.
3. Assess your attitude towards, and the perspective you have, on life at your current age.
When we are younger we often look forward to the next stage of life so when change happens we approach it with a more positive view because we are positive about the future in which it will play out. A funny thing happens when we turn fifty …all of a sudden we no longer look forward to our next birthday, we try to postpone it perhaps even lie about it! We are then filtering all the events of our daily life through a perspective which is negative because we view our future negatively.
All the effort that goes into fear of aging and strategies to delay it is energy misspent—but still spent. It will exhaust you, and you will end up without the resources you need. If we don’t have a positive outlook on the destination, where do we get the energy to keep going?
Ask yourself, “What is it I am resisting today besides my age?” You may find it is the very change that will free you.
In her call for tips on how to manage transition Ms Shriver says “it is stressful not to know what you are doing next”. Yes it is but those spots of indecision and lack of direction are also rest spots designed for your reflection and to regroup your strength. I believe that is why Nature has generously given women this significant physiological event, menopause, to mark the gateway into the rest of our lives. Yes, those hot flashes are really warning lights. Perhaps the word menopause was originally created to suggest a time to pause for a moment—to think, evaluate, and assess. Without menopause we might slip into the 50+ years without realizing we are on the threshold of a new era and we have some preparation to do, we might keep going without taking this time to harvest the knowledge that will nourish the rest of our lives.
Perhaps the energy drain of grief is yet another rest spot presented to us so we can pause.
We can take that pause any time we need to ladies, sip tea or wine, hold up in a hotel alone and spend some time in good company… ourselves.
And then… in the words of Maria’s favorite poet, Mary Oliver, from her poem, from The Journey, (Listen to Ms Oliver read The Journey at the Women’s Conference on YouTube)
”One day you finally knew what you had to do and began….”
Ms Oliver goes on in that poem to say that as “you leave the voices of others behind”, as we grow more and more into our own way we begin to hear a new voice “which you slowly recognized as your own” That new voice will always be with you as you go on and begin again and again “determined to do the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.” …your own.
We celebrate every woman in transition, making her way to a new future and we can’t wait to see what that future brings to her and the world around her.
Please share what you have done to manage life’s transitional moments and maybe Ms Shriver will find our words.
Twenty nine years ago my alarm rang at 4:30AM and I jumped from bed and seated myself before the TV to watched Charles and Diana perform the royal wedding waltz.
I was in the first decade of my own marriage to an indulgent man who was unsure of why I would want to get up at 4:30AM to watch these people I did not know but he was supportive as long as I closed the bedroom door and did not disturb him. I made myself English Breakfast Tea and celebrated this special day by drinking it from a fine English bone china cup, complete with saucer, forgoing my usual crass colonial pottery mug.
I had a lovely morning enthralled with the pomp and circumstance, loving the carriage ride and the balcony kiss. I sighed over the yards of silk and puffy sleeves but was a little unsure about the hairdo. I still claim the urge to criticize the “do” of a fellow female as almost forgivable.
I was working on an operating system which was informed by young romantic optimism and I believed this marriage, like my own would last two lifetimes. It turned out I was incorrect, both about the future of the royals, and my own future.
I remember at one point I was so immersed in the lives of this other couple that I found myself merging our futures and imaging the day that I would watch the weddings of their children.
So that part came true. This week I did watch the wedding of William the eldest son of Charles and Diana.
Once again I rose to the alarm at 4:30AM leaving behind in the bed my second husband who was as bemused at my interest and as tolerant. This time I was in a hotel room in New York City so the only request was that I watch the event on my computer with headphones so as not to disturb his sleep.
The tea 30 years later was herbal as caffeine has necessarily left my life to save my digestion. It was made in a hotel coffee pot and sipped from a complementary mug, lost elegance but found practicality.
I reveled in the pomp and circumstance as before. I thrilled at the carriage, I sighed at the sweet stolen looks between the obvious lovers. I judged the dress as tasteful and elegantly timeless with the same matured sense of style which forced me to admit that Di’s dress was a frilly, cake like confection that was not my favorite.
So pretty much the morning progressed as the one almost 30 years before had, OK, new husband, new technology, and new stomach but those are the circumstances external to the actual experience of watching the wedding.
Eventually my mind jumped ahead again to the future and I speculated on the wedding(s) of Kate and William’s children and how I would enjoy watching those too …when suddenly it hit me…given my current age, the average age of marriage and some other statistical variables…I will most likely not live to see the weddings of the next generation of Windsors. I was sad at first; sad to think I would miss something I had just assumed I would experience. Then the wheels started to turn in my head and I calculated what else I would “miss”, for example, my grandchildren’s weddings.
My own mortality, which quite frankly on an average day, other than when I am negotiating the freeways of LA, I don’t give much thought to, was presented in such strange circumstances for my consideration. There it was before me… The End.
Perhaps on that day in July 1981 the newly married Princess Diana also fast forwarded to her children’s weddings and imagined herself at the events. As it turned out this was not to be and I can’t imagine that possibility occurred to the young bride. She was only just twenty years old.
I will be sixty in a few weeks and so our respective view on events some thirty years hence are understandably very different.
Mine includes the possibility that I will not be in the picture while the young Princess like my younger self, most likely focused only on what she might be like when she was present in that future scene. Both are fantasies, unknown, unknowable speculations but somehow our minds are able to contend with the scope of potential in the unknowns of our presence but not with the infinite unknowns of our absence. The former is fun, a form of entertainment while the later is frightening or at least saddens us.
I realize that I simply cannot get my mind around the vastness of my absence… where will I be, what I will be, the questions and possibilities are endless. So if not my mind, with what do I cope with this thought which, it seems, will likely come again and again if I continue to do this speculative math over my remaining years?
Dr Lars Tornstam in his work on Gerotranscendence describes how the boundaries and rules of logical conforming thought can break down as we age and the mind can expand with comfort into the realm of mystical thought.
I have faith that in the misty fields of such new horizons I will find the ability to accept my eventual absence as inevitable and natural. I will find new tools with which to view my life just as I moved from viewing the images through the big bulky box of my 1980’s TV set to my slim notebook computer in 2011.
The changing perspective of our mind is the gift of aging which I believe can enhance our ability to accept the changing circumstances of age. A gift available only when we fully inhabit our current age and give up our resistance towards it. Even as I write this and remind myself that my perspective will evolve as my body declines I am comforted by the naturalness, the seamlessly perfect design of this.
So no pressure from me, your wonderful, young, royal highnesses, have your children if and when you wish and if I can tune in to share their special day with you, so be it and if not… so be it too.
Your loyal and grateful subject,
Jaki Scarcello
P.S. Duchess Catherine, you looked FABULOUS!
Conscious TV has produced an MP3 of the interview we did together just as Fifty & Fabulous was being released in the UK.
The MP3 is now available on Amazon.uk at Jaki Scarcello – Women of the Harvest
When I asked the question, “What is a woman’s role in society after menopause, I embarked on a journey which took me deep into the lives of some amazing women. I eventually tagged my interviewees as The Women of the Harvest because they took me by the hand to the Open Field, the space which opens up beyond fifty and in which experience and potential form a perfect fusion. This is the most fertile ground a woman ever knows.
The Women of the Harvest teach us that life after 50 is a stage of human development not a stage of decline. They urge us to enter that stage by re acquainting ourselves with the person we have become over the years on our way to 50 and to reap this self knowledge and use it to nourish the rest of our lives.
The Conscious TV interview focuses on my spiritual journey and how that informed my writing and I believe opened my heart to the voices of the women I interviewed.
If this aspect of Fifty & Fabulous resonates with you will enjoy listening to this interview.
May I suggest using it as a walking companion in your iPod or as a de-stressor when stuck in traffic.
I am most grateful to Conscious TV for helping to spread the word about positive and fearless aging and hopefully presenting the Open Field to many others.
If you prefer video …the interview is still available to watch on this website but if you prefer your wisdom mobile…the MP3 is there for you!
More Magazine is currently running its 2011 Beauty Search Contest. You can vote on line for the woman you think best represents the word beauty. There are many worthy candidates entered and each makes a statement about beauty 50+. Today I want to present my favorite to you and to invite you to participate in this contest as an exercise to rethink the meaning of the word beauty as it relates to women and the media.
Dr Helen Harkness has been convinced to enter by a friend and former client who obviously has an eye for true beauty. I am sure Helen was at first reluctant and she is quoted as saying “I no more consider myself a beauty then I do a little old lady in tennis shoes.” However, this contest is about inner beauty, accomplishment, mission and value. Not just outer beauty so let’s remind Dr. Harkness about the meaning of beauty and help her to win.
Below are the details about how you can vote for Helen.
A vote for Helen is a vote for a Woman of the Harvest.
A vote for Helen is a statement that you understand how beauty is a living thing and as such it grows and evolves at every stage of life.
A vote for Helen is a thank you to someone who confirms for us every day that life 50+ is a stage of human development in which we can engage with great passion and grace.
I first met Helen on the phone and I was convinced that she was a poster child for the Fabulous 50+ Woman. When I met her in person some months later it was the twinkle in her eyes which first caught my attention as she approached me. That I said to myself must be Dr Harkness. I was bowled over by her energy, compassion and lust for and commitment to life.
In her biographical piece on the More website Helen talks about her work helping adults to redesign their careers “…to help them work through that process to find their passion and a way to pursue it to reach inner contentment – this continually fills my heart with happiness. If I am more beautiful now, I believe it is because of the reflection of the beauty around me when people find their way to personal fulfillment. “
I believe Helen has just described one of the world’s most potent beauty secrets. This “product” is not free however. In Helen’s case it costs many hours of dedicated time and effort. Helen still works full time helping others to find their way to meaningful work. And who better to lead the way on that path than someone who lives the experience of work which fills your heart and soul.
I think Helen’s beauty grows each day in a face which has lived and which has harvested from that adventure the invigorating joy of personal contribution and of full engagement in life.
A vote for Helen is a vote for what beauty really means to us all!
Go to https://www.more.com/user/register and register your account. Takes about 30 seconds.
Then search for her name to vote for her or come back to this communication and Click here (directly to Helen’s profile) and then click “She’s Got my Vote”.
You can vote once every day! The contest ends April 15th, so start voting now and vote often and share this with your friends please.
Inside Aging Parent Care has featured Fifty & Fabulous! The Best Years of a Woman’s Life on their website- Caregivers Wonder “Who Am I Now”- by Carol January 25/ 2011.
Founder Carol Leavenworth encourages caregivers to find themselves again in the pages of Fifty & Fabulous, “For those of us who have spent a decade or more of the middle years in caring for aging parents and find that we have zipped right past midlife to retirement age, this is a book that will aid in the necessary work of taking stock at this time. Post-caregiving, the question, “Who am I now” becomes paramount, just as it has at earlier developmental passages. Thanks, Jaki, for sharing with us your buoyant vision of growing old. ”
It is interesting that Carol uses the question “Who am I now?” as that was the question which popped into my head as I hit 50 and I credit it as one of the “pushes” which moved me to begin my interviews with women 50-102 and finally to the writing of Fifty & Fabulous.
“You read the most amazing wisdom on the Internet. I found this on a blog recently: “Women give themselves away to functions, husbands, children, and work.” I think this quote speaks to what the Women of the Harvest uncover as they begin the work of reaping their crop of wisdom. They not only discover a new season in their lives, they discover themselves, long ago dropped on the field of responsibility and service to others.”
If you are caring for an older relative or friend you will find this blog, Inside Aging Parent Care, an excellent resource and Carol’s view on Fifty & Fabulous may “push” you to the very worthwhile discovery of your own self knowledge. After fifty, self knowledge is the harvest of your wisdom and it can nourish the rest of your life. So if you have been “giving yourself away”, find that self again and bask in what you have become, it will re energize you and everyone around you.
Inside Aging Parent Care hopes to “relieve some of our caregiver stress through sharing and listening. At best we may find a way to redeem our fears about the inevitable end of this road in the hopes of rising above negative attitudes about aging and death.” I highly recommend this website and the work and passion of Carol Leavenworth, her sister Judi Leavenworth and Bill Shanks which, first came to my attention when Carol responded to the NY Times article on Dr Tornstam, Aging’s Misunderstood Virtues. Carol has been a Dr Tornstam and Gerotranscendence fan for a while now. ( Check out The Rogues Gallery on fiftyfab.com). Like me Carol discovered a whole new way of looking at aging through the research of our favorite Swedish professor and as a Jungian analyst Carol found that Dr Tornstam’s revelations rang true for her. You will be moved by Carol’s personal experience of Dr Tornstam’s work, click here to view..
I am particularly encouraged by the support and encouragement of a woman like Carol and Inside Aging Parent Care because these are people who work every day with some of the struggles and realities which may come with aging. Carol’s belief in the message of fearless aging in the face of those realities is proof that the outlook of fearless and fabulous aging is not just for those lucky seniors who have their health and wealth and a well established support networks, it is easy to have a good attitude to life when things are going well. Your attitude informs your response to life, it is the filter through which you view and experience life. The quality of your life is not determined by circumstances but by the attitude with which you receive whatever those circumstances may bring.
If you are a caregiver, thank you for your generosity of heart and time and may the experience fill your own senior years with the gifts of self appreciation and wisdom.
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Well here it is again, another day which celebrates the passage of time.
Just like a birthday, New Year’s Eve is a day of celebration and reflection but also a day to promise ourselves renewal. This promise is made in the form of a resolution and each December 31st we resolve to accomplish something worthy like weight loss, fitness, learning a language or finally getting that dream job.
We are optimistic and self disciplined in our resolutions. Few women resolve to eat more chocolate, read more romantic novels soaking in the bath or spend more time in the waffle butt lounge chair by the pool.
I think New Year’s resolutions are a great idea because I am for the most part lazy and lacking in self discipline …so if it were not for December 31st, I would float into the next 12 months of my life without direction or purpose but this year I am going in a different direction.
In 2010 I celebrated the publication of my first book Fifty & Fabulous! The Best Years of a Woman’s Life (Watkins 2010) and I began a new journey into the world of the published author. It was a lot of fun and quite a learning experience. I was supported by my family who cheered me on and by the words of my readers who have found my campaign for fearless and fabulous aging inspiring.
My book shares the voices of women between the ages of 45 -102 from 5 countries who have embraced aging and reaped in this time of “grown up life”, a wondrous assortment of gifts.
I have discovered through my study of the women I call “Women of the Harvest” that role models like these can change your entire perspective on life. They can introduce to you a way of looking at your own aging which is freeing, stress reducing and intellectually stimulating. This perspective makeover, which will lift your spirits, is permanent so there is no need to book another appointment in six months. It is very inexpensive; just find an inspiring older woman and chat (well it might cost you a cup of tea or a martini). It is wrinkle free, meaning that when you find acceptance in aging, your face will relax into a smooth smile.
So today instead of listing my resolutions I am going to take the risk of beginning 2011 without the structure of promises made to myself. Instead, I will share the wisdom which has buoyed my life and lit my path since it was revealed to me because we think that we will make the most of getting older but we never dreamed getting older would make the most of us.
“Life slows us down as we age, not to take the sprint from our last mile but to bring us back to wonder.”
“Finding your way home begins with finally accepting first yourself and then the world around you.”
“The longer we live and the more we experience, the less able we are to fit things into neat packages, so eventually we live more comfortably with ambiguity.”
“I feel this space starting to develop in my life. I find myself driven to arrange things so that there is more time between events, to give this space the room it may need to develop.”
“I have found freedom in the failures of my life.”
“Time makes better use of me.”
“I don’t have to be right all the time anymore . . . life is bigger now.”
“I am old enough and wise enough to do dumb things”
“One does not close down as one gets older; instead aging for me is about the discovery of life that is not the fertile woman.”
“As you lose things, physical things and roles in life, the essential person becomes more apparent.”
“In growing older you grow from limited vision to limitless vision . . . so many boundaries disappear.”
“Life is a journey from and to freedom”
Happy, Fabulous and Fearless 2011
“ I have a very strong feeling of connection with everything that is alive and the importance of now’
Hedda 100 years wise
OK I have to admit when it comes to older women I get inspired pretty easily. I am a pushover for a stunning aged face which beams light and joy and wisdom. I can spend hours listening to a 90 year old tell me why this is the best time of her life. So when I discovered this film “The Beauty of Aging” by Laurie Schur I was elated.(click here for more info)
I sometimes think that I am making up all this stuff about “the gifts of aging” Because no matter how much I talk about it seven other people try to tell me it is more important to postpone my aging, protest against it and work to and defy it. Well now we have cinematic proof that what I am on about in Fifty & Fabulous! and what the infamous members of the Fiftyfab Rogues Gallery have been trying to tell us for years, is true.
There is available to us a developmental possibility which begins at 50 and really ramps up at 80.
…and The Beauty of Aging will show you just how worthwhile the pursuit of that possibility can be.
Ms. Schur’s masterpiece is not about about “sweet old things” far from it, to quote Fifty & Fabulous, “Don’t imagine that I am describing a docile porch swing full of blissed-out 90-year-olds. These gals may well be the cantankerous, rowdy ones. That sparkle in their eyes is pure energy, and remember, they don’t really care if you approve or not!”
The Beauty of Aging is described on its website as:
a film about perspective
a film about loss
a film about sex
a film about attitude
and then the real surprise… a film about life after 80
Why is this film so important? Because the message is clear…aging is not just about physical decline and loss. Our senior years, no matter where you draw that line, is not a second class stage of life. It is a unique stage of human development that is available to us as a rich time of opportunity for exploring life and ourselves in a way which we have never explored before.
If this message is heard and adopted as a norm then we will improve the quality of life of those 50+, increase the quantity of wisdom available in our society and provide our youth with boundless hope for their future. Do you think this may be a worthwhile pursuit?
But beware you can show up for your senior years and miss it all. Your attitude, your fears and a negative perspective can blind you and leave you tired, worn out and bitter about what did or did not happen in the past and about what is or is not happening now.
The Beauty of Aging offers an alternative view on your post 80 years. My experience tells me this view is the truth but you need to decide for yourself. This film, like my book does not offer the magic secrets for how to attain that view but it introduces you to some amazing women who have it.
Just maybe it will rub off on us all.