Reclaiming our sexuality as we age is a feminist act and another way of undermining the patriarchal pressures that have forced many women into early sexual retirement for far too long. Being a woman in our hyper-sexual society is complicated. It often feels like we’re tossed between two equally-challenging extremes. As young girls, we’re sold […]
They are well past child-bearing age, they are divorced, and they are no longer desirable to the mainstream male gaze. And yet Grace and Frankie seem to be having the best time of their lives. When Grace and Frankie first came out in 2015, the show was thought to be a one-trick pony appealing only […]
Sometimes, all it takes is a moment of true presence with another person for a profound shift to happen. The scene: mid-October, 2015, New York City. The World’s Largest Eye-Gazing Event. I’m a helper for the event, and I’m set up in Herald Square, in front of Macy’s. I carry a sign that reads: Where […]
They are beyond what most people would consider their prime, and they are both anxious about being unattractive to the other person. You know, like most of us feel at one time or another. Sunday night was the wedding of the year, as far as I am concerned. The butler and housekeeper of “Downton Abbey,” […]
If “adulting” is synonymous with being responsible for your finances, doing your laundry before you run out of clean underwear, having health insurance, and changing your oil on time, well then, we’ve set the bar really low. No one knows how to “adult.” That’s the set up and the punch line to the joke that […]
People tell me I’ll regret it if I don’t plan something big for my 50th birthday. I’m about to turn 50. Like my 12-year-old son, I’m experiencing changes in my body that are, at best, confusing, making me feel like an amateur at things like hair removal and feminine hygiene. My girly hormones are in […]
Some days you can just live in your body and give yourself space to be not OK at all. It’s completely OK to look in the mirror and be sad that your stomach is a curtain for your pubic hair. I was a precocious kid: intelligent, insightful, nosy, bossy. I was the teacher’s pet, the straight-A kid, […]
Trump believes he will never experience an accident, diagnosis, or any indignities related to age. He thinks his money will insulate him from chaos, from these eventualities. One is left to wonder how he will look back on his recent antics and regret them. The title says it all. Donald Trump’s book Crippled America: How […]
I need to understand why people I love and admire no longer want to be associated with the cause that saved my life. Dear Ms. Streep, Allow me to start with a cyber-curtsy, which I believe is the protocol when addressing a queen such as yourself. There are no words to describe the depth of […]
I want my daughter to see aging as the expansive process it can be. I want her to remain curious about, and not just terrified of, what’s inevitable about being alive: It is all temporary. I was present for my maternal grandmother’s death. It happened while she was in hospice care at my mother’s home, […]
Perhaps we hold certain stereotypes that prevent us from recommending mental health treatment for our elders. Do we believe change is only possible for younger generations? A few years ago, my mother-in-law, Joan, developed an infection following a root canal. Her dentist prescribed penicillin, which triggered an awful allergic reaction—she actually stopped breathing. “Joan, stay […]
While my heart ached for the loss of that carefree nature it also softened with the comfort of knowing I had lived that part of my life fully, perhaps longer than most. I am lying on the floor of my daughter’s room holding her little hand through the bars of the crib while she attempts […]
