FEISTY SIDE OF FIFTY RADIO
JULY 23rd – 11:00 A.M. (EST)
Feisty Side of Fifty Radio (blog radio) is a celebration of women over fifty and how boomers are revolutionizing what it means to grow older. Interview – 15 minutes.
Host: M. Eileen Williams
Topic: “How Do We Love Today?”
Information:
http://feistysideoffifty.com/feisty-side-of-fifty-radio/
Listen and Share:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Feisty-Side-of-Fifty/2009/07/23/Feisty-Side-of-Fifty-Radio

 
Today I walked by the empty and padlocked playground of the elementary school in my neighborhood. Closed for the summer! I think back to when my kids were growing up: waiting for the yellow bus to bring them back – always slightly damp – from day camp; then in later years sewing on name tags and filling up trunks for four weeks of outdoor living; and finally after dropping them off, the peace and quiet at home. But I don’t miss the cost.
It was hard for families like mine …

 
A STORY FROM THE ‘FERTILE VOID’

 
The hallmark of the beginning of Second Adulthood is a necessary but disturbing descent into what I call the Fertile Void. Like the onset of menopause, this profound upheaval has nothing to do with chronological age. It may coincide with the loss of biological fertility and it may take as long or longer than a pregnancy, the similarities end there. The Fertile Void is a place of confusion in which a midlife woman wanders without a map until she finds her new self.
The good …

When the living is easy and the rules are lax

1. Don’t even dream of “acting your age.” Now is the time for taking salsa dancing – secretly if you must. Or getting up an hour earlier – it’s light then – and writing down your most unformed thoughts. Take risks. Make a fool of yourself.
2. Make one tiny change in your routine, because even the smallest alteration shakes up the whole day – in a good way.
3. Clean house – not the cupboard kind. But get …

POEMS OF PONDS, PINEWOODS, PROVINCETOWN AND LIFE
 
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began…
 

I cited the Mary Oliver poem “The Journey” at the beginning of the Fertile Void chapter in Inventing the Rest of our Lives because it spoke so evocatively about the trepidation we feel as we enter unknown territory. The lines “and there was a new voice/ which you slowly/ recognized as your own” in particular resonate with so many women in transition.
This week as I listened to her voice on “Provincetown: …

TRANSITION NETWORK, DC CHAPTER
October 15, 2009

Washington, DC
“Why Fifty is the New Fifty & That’s Good News”
(6:30 – 9pm)
Dinner, Talk, Q&A and Book Signing
Contact: Carolee Heilman
cheilman@aol.com

TRANSITION NETWORK, LI CHAPTER
September 22, 2009

Long Island, New York
“Why Fifty is the New Fifty & That’s Good News”
(7-9 pm)
Talk, Q&A and Book Signing
*Details to follow
Contact: Ellen Bartoldus,
ebartoldus@yahoo.com

DO YOU FEEL IT? DO YOU FEAR OR WELCOME CHANGE?

Second Adulthood is all about change. It’s about a restlessness that creates a non-specific “itch” to make changes. Life in the Fertile Void, as I call this period, may feel like a free fall; it is alternately exhilarating and terrifying.
The changes you choose to make may not be as dramatic as parachuting out of a plane or as operatic as running off with the cable guy, but they will probably feel as momentous. Though some women are overcome with …

“THE HOUSE OF SPIRITS” – ISABEL ALLENDE’S REMARKABLE WOMEN- BY LIANA SIDERI

As I was contemplating “Fifty is the New Fifty,” I kept thinking of the immense resilience characteristic of the female nature, the concept of which you illustrate so beautifully. And though most of us have been taught to be in control of the many roles we shuffle daily (and of those we were never called to assume but we have), eventually we come to a point where we need to reevaluate the meaning of and the reasons for …