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Dear Young (under 50) 'uns,
Listen kids (assuring you that my use of 'kids' is a term of endearment, warmth and affection, rather than a dismissive, ageist reference), it's your Elder Blogger and cronemudgeon Grace Davis here, asking you to please let go of your irrational fears of aging.
Really. Give it up. It's a waste of energy and estrogen.
It's also a stressful preoccupation, that unnecessary psychic turmoil about "getting old". All this hand wringing is showing up on your blogs, creating traffic jams along the Super Information Highway with agonizing posts on the tragedy of deepening frown lines and that you're so ancient you can remember laser discs. My dears, when I read these laments, it's all I can do to keep from responding in your comment sections with the friendly but firm reminder that aging is far superior and definitely preferable to its grim and final alternative.
Perhaps what you require, my younger sisters, is inspiration and hope for the future. You could probably also use a swift kick-in-the-behind, and who better to execute that than the following women whose blogs and lives will make you feel that you can't wait until you turn 50. Or, 60. Or, 70 and beyond.
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NOT DEAD YET - The diary of an oldie who refuses to go quietly.
Now there's a blog title, most worthy of the all caps formatting. NOT DEAD YET is British blogger Judith Taylor's musings on "...thinking, feeling, learning and changing - oh yes, and about laughing; and it's about filling my life with new people and making each new day interesting."
Judith writes with disarming and charming candor, as in her response to a Q&A posted in May:
What is the favourite thing of each of your senses?
Sound: the sea or running water; morning birdsong;
Sight: green growth; country landscapes;
Smell: it’s a tossup between freshly baked bread and roasting meat;
Taste: halva; anything nutty, but it is halva which gets me eating
compulsively, in the way that I understand many people eat chocolate.
Touch: a man’s naked body against mine – at least I think so, but it’s been a long time!
Judith's initial focus of NOT DEAD YET was to lend her voice to the experience of aging. However, she found that her writing transcended age and time:
I started writing this blog 18 months ago under the banner of old age, because I too wanted to dispel the common perceptions of old people. But I have moved on since then, and I am beginning to wonder if I would do better to write as a woman of undeclared age, so that I should be seen purely for who I am, and not as a surprise or an exception to what people expect. Leo, one of my visitors, commented: "Congratulations for your blog and your age! you just seem a 30 old woman ;)" Doesn't that prove something?
*****
The kottke.org, for the rest of us - Ample Sanity- serves up wry wit and plentiful links to random and curious items of the arty/foodie/techy/game-y/musical/newsworthy variety. Ample Sanity is the blogchild of Annie, self-described "Baby-boomer, writer, humorist, (ex)actress. Current Industry: Non-Prophet. Blog+Portal=Blortal."
"Blortal". I like it.
What I like even more are Annie's morsels of observations and reports, often served alongside the links or in a single post. This particular snippet makes me long to drop by her house just to hang out, drink coffee and watch what happens:
I'm constantly doing weirdo things, which is why i'm always late to the blog party. And no, it's not a second childhood, smartypants. Still the first. This morning i was listening to music, played with a wooden catch-ball toy, whipped up some homemade tapioca pudding (which i dyed blue and sprinkled with nutmeg), and drew a picture of a mouse on a surfboard on the hallway wall (good wallpaint, washable fingerpaint). Sniffed a new tub of cosmic catnip for a bit. Makes BigFatKitty mighty laid-back but did squat for me. And i tried to make me a caftan from an old sheet. Looked like i was sporting a lop-sided pup tent. So tell me, what have you done lately to thwart routine?
*****
And, to dispel the highly erroneous myth that with age comes the end of adventure, I present my friend and blogger of Cousin Lucy's Spoon - Some kind of memoir from by an American-Israeli, Savtadotty who, in mid-life, left the familiar comforts of the States to live as a happy expatriate in
