Suzanne Braun Levine
NextAvenue.org

The author at 70 catalogs how she’s acting her age

It seems as though everyone I know is talking about death. We are also talking about how, to our surprise, death seems more like the houseguest who won’t leave than the grim reaper. That’s the big difference about being over 70. Death is more of a presence — an active presence — and less of a threat than it was when we were 60. As my friend Robin puts it, when time is running out, we are blessed with the “gift of urgency.”

I spent last evening at dinner with my “post-50 posse” (that’s what I call that special group of special friends in my eBook You Gotta Have Girlfriends). We have been meeting once a month since 1989, and over the years we have come to count on each other more and more, until, like almost all the women I interviewed about their friendships, “I couldn’t have gotten through it without them” — “it” being any of the challenges, delights and disappointments of navigating a new stage of life.

Mary Eileen Williams,
M.A., NCCC
FeistySideofFifty.com

How well is your job search going? Not getting the results you’d like? If you’re a midlife jobseeker, you’re probably fed up with being passed over—watching the jobs go to younger, less experienced candidates. Yet what if you could learn a few simple, yet powerful job search techniques that would change all of that? What if you could get the skills to successfully navigate the market of today and maximize your chances for landing your next position—and, better yet, find work you will actually enjoy? If you think that’s unlikely to happen for you, think again. LAND THE JOB YOU LOVE will act as your very own career counselor/outplacement coach (minus the time and expense) and provide you with the critical tools and dynamic methods of approach that will help you land that job you’ve been looking for!

Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50

“To deny your age is to deny yourself,” Oprah said recently. Amen to that. Conversely, admitting your age is empowering not only yourself but every woman who is made to feel less valuable because she is over forty. Or fifty. Or seventy.

My mother denied her age all her life. She was beautiful and youthful-lookyouthing until the day she died at 94. By then she had shaved so many years off her age that she was publicly young enough to be my big sister. But just imagine if women of all ages had the facts and could see how glorious 94 can look.

As we pass the halfway point of life we may begin to wonder what we will do with the rest of it. We long to explore new horizons of self-discovery and experience, but we fear the wages of age — loss, decline, disappointment. Is our glass going to be half-full or half-empty? The scale is tilted by circumstances — health, finances and luck — but it is also weighted by outlook.

Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post 50

We have “Battling” Bella Abzug to thank for Women’s Equality Day on August 26. The crusading Congresswoman from New York initiated the legislation that mandated it back in 1971. Writing an oral history of Bella with my late girlfriend and colleague Mary Thom was a lesson in courage, passion, brilliance, humor, and wisdom; when I am searching for inspiration or insight, I ask myself, “What would Bella do?”

I’m not crazy about the current Dove campaign in which a police artist draws a portrait of a forty-ish woman from her description (dour and harsh) and then draws another from the description by another woman who has spent a little time with her (warmer and more pleasant looking); the punch line is “you are more beautiful than you think.”

This is not news. We have been prettier than we thought all along. When we are not comparing ourselves unfavorably to models and movie stars — who, the fan magazines show us gleefully, don’t look at all like their glamorous selves when out doing errands — we are comparing present selves with our younger selves.

Huff/Post 50

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:

by Ann Voorhees Baker
Owner of Net Markting-123

I’ve been getting lots of calls and emails lately asking about room fees, schedule of events, transportation, and how to register for Women At Woodstock.

Here in one place is a neat and tidy overview of Women At Woodstock from start to finish. I welcome your comments and feedback!

By Ann Vorhees Baker
Emerson Spa & Retreat
October 7-10, 2012

How Women at Woodstock Came About…

When I turned 50, I decided to celebrate in my own way; not with a glitzy party, not with a spa weekend, not with a blowout shopping spree or a Caribbean cruise; but with a croning.