Fashion Advice for the "older" Woman

First off, purchase (I think one should say "invest in") a good drapey dress or top in a color you like from Eileen Fisher. You're done. You can wear this item when you'd like to be comfortable, yet dressed up. If you are feeling frisky (yet spry) you can wear colorful leggings with your old comfortable flats.

Now you can keep on wearing those often washed comfortable shorts and pants with basic shirts and you'll never go wrong. This is when you'd wear tee shirts from that long ago trip to the Galapagos or from your son's car racing ventures.

The big decision is about pants lengths. If you like shorts, and we all do in this hot climate, you have to decide if comfort prevails over vanity. I am referring to the varicose veins, various spots and the dreaded wrinkled knees. If you must go for something longer you'll have to decide between the capri length our moms favored (with the elastic waist, remember?), or jeans and cargo pants. Don't forget how comfortable skirts are, especially the maxis.

I read a couple of weeks ago in the style section of the NYT that this summer's true foot fashion statement is Birkenstocks, preferably the Arizona. They were wearing them in the Hamptons. Well, I must be ahead of the curve because I have been wearing them at least since Woodstock.

So, in a nutshell, that is it.

The Arizonas and the ancient cargo pants and tee shirt worked well today in the 94 degree heat as I supervised the installation of a new irrigation system for our community garden. The Mexican guys who did the work were cheerful and efficient and I think we never noticed each others' fashion. We talked about what kinds of peppers  and tomatoes were to be planted and about our kids and grandkids. We mopped our faces. I love having the chance to chat in Spanish.

After they had finished I went home to shower and jumped into a navy maxi skirt (Walmart) with a blue tee shirt (LLBean). The shirt was only lightly muddied from carrying in flats of collards to be planted in the garden. But the third graders I read to every day never noticed. They were fixated on the amazing Roald Dahl story we were reading.

54th anniversary

I am seeing many fewer hummingbirds this evening. I think they are flying back to Mexico. They have been here all summer by the dozens, but I know they will all be gone by September. We have fed them gallons of nectar and loved their small bodies buzzing around our house. I wish them well on their long journey and we will welcome them back around the first of March.

It is such a treat of our lives to experience the natural repetitions of wildlife here.

When we got married, fifty-four years ago, it was a moderate affair, as we all did in the sixties. My parents wanted a church wedding, and we did that in the local church. Then we all came back to celebrate in my parents' garden, nothing more expensive than a week of my father's pay. Lots of friends and family, good food. This was California with the swell of the end of the summer, and soon we were off on our wedding trip, camping across country to return to our colleges in the east.

In those many years since then we have lived in places from Providence, RI, to NYC, to Paris, to Washington D.C. to Florida in several places. We had amazing work! We had amazing kids! We were in this adventure of our lives forever. Mostly, we were in love with each other.

So, this evening we went out to celebrate at a local restaurant. All during this long marriage the main thread is our deep interest in each other and our constant conversations about everything. Yes, the long train has not been without a lot of acerbic talk. It has not been easy all the time.

We made this commitment to each other so many years ago - a formal marriage- and it survives with perhaps more joy than we could have imagined. We have learned so much from each other, fought bitterly at times, and we endure with the prospect of more interesting times to come.

Any two people of whatever gender have the right to what marriage guarantees (not only in the legal sense).  I think, as a married couple, you get the space to explore the deepest relationship, the freedom to struggle with change, all in a safe way because of your commitment as a couple. This is because you, as a couple, have made this decision.

Here it is About Wrinkled Knees

I promised this. My knees are thin and yes, wrinkled. They are brown from all the outdoor work I do, and for years I no longer have worn those short shorts I used to wear. Even though I am the same weight and size I was at twenty - oh, it has been redistributed!  Enough on that!

At a certain age, you just kind of let the physical changes wash over you and you wear the comfortable clothes you like and you get used to being invisible. You speak of losing a few pounds, but, really, you know you never will do that. Becoming invisible starts for a woman sometime in late middle age.

All women, and men, too, to one extent or another try to beat back the ravages of time and invisibility. Some of us try face lifts and other lifts, reductions, enhancements and various procedures to make us look younger. We dye our hair and study the strangeness of current fashion.

But, really, what can one do? Just be proud of your age! You have experience and wisdom.

Kids do not see you as invisible ; they see you for who you are. This is the great reason for grandchildren, and if you do not have them, you can volunteer where young people congregate. Little kids may pluck at your wrinkled elbows but you have to love it.

In elderly age you just have to keep on going, get exercise, eat well, and stay connected. And think of your wrinkles wherever they are as badges of accomplishment.

"My Mind Isn't Working"

I have this model of a train of information- millions of bits over my lifetime- and when new stuff gets added in one ear something has to drop out the other ear (or be parked in the cloud.) And there is all the stuff in my brain that is still there but off on a tangential siding of the railroad and I sometimes can't access it right away. I have to ask the dispatcher.

Sometimes what I can't find right away is the little stuff like "What was the name of the actor in some film I saw years ago? You know, it was about.." Other times I draw a complete blank on the name of someone I knew years back but haven't thought of in ages. Annoyingly, I can usually remember the name of their dog. I have a hard time remembering the titles and authors of the thousands of books I have read. But I can remember the plots or the topics.

With this mind thing in elderly age, I have learned a lot about myself as a sentient creature over the decades. I have never forgotten a plant and where it grows. Maybe I should have been a botanist. I always remember birthdays - but in a three day window!

I know that if I have some quiet time and address certain memories, they come back in full color.

What I do know and remember is the compelling stuff of the everyday life I lead.  In retirement one has many appointments and places to be, people to see and things to do. I keep a calendar of all this stuff, write it down, just as I did as a working person. I have learned the names and circumstances of a whole new circle of friends and acquaintances. So, I have forgotten the actual day of a birthday or two? No matter. I can be forgiven.

I was at first charmed by Lumosity, purporting to 'train your brain', and I loved the tiny games and the competitive sport of it, but lately I have abandoned it in favor of the hard work in the school garden, and in our own as well. I am well into Rosetta Stone Spanish after having finished Pimsleur 4.  It takes a long time to learn a foreign language, spoken and written. I really need to know this as I work with folks who only speak Spanish. I have plenty of opportunities to practice!

So, no, I'm not losing it. Taylor Swift is not a plant and she wasn't close to my generation and as far as I know doesn't  sing anything I like.  I can let her go out the other ear.

About Ferguson

I said I would write about my wrinkled knees. Those knees marched in many demonstrations for ideals I believed in. I dragged my toddler oldest child into crowds where there was tear gas!

I was never more alive than I was during long nights when we, like minded young people, hashed out ideas for educating our young. I was never more alive than when we canvassed for and fought for our candidates we believed in. Nothing was too hard!

The young people taking to Tahir Square in the Arab Spring, the others all over the Middle East gave us hope for change.

Something life changing happens when young people are strongly pulled together about an issue. Maybe, as with the folks who took over so many public spaces in our cities a few years ago - the Occupy Wall Street- they are so fervent for a brief time and then it dies down. But those participating are never to be the same.

I think that change happens when a fragile eggshell of unrest, distrust, and long times of hurt breaks in an instant: The shooting of young Mr. Brown in Ferguson.

Now! That community has a galvanizing moment to effect change. America has generally left young black men behind and this is gnawing. Yes, hundreds of nonprofits and idealists and our president have tried to address this issue. But the interior of that fragile egg containing so much anger has been incubating for generations and is bursting. It is unlovely, not what we think of as patriotic American.

I have no idea what will happen in this case. Soon, the high emotions will calm down and there will be task forces and blue ribbon panels and investigations and many pundits explaining everything.

But I do know that the lives among those in Ferguson who demonstrated, thought about what was happening, and endured the broken glass and disrupted civil life, will never be the same. For two weeks they were ALIVE! What will they do with this stuff they have learned?

Unexpected Joys

It's a whole wild ride being retired. Who knew that I would be honored each evening for dinner with a lovely meal?  I did not have to shop for it or cook it. In harvest seasons I provide vegetables from my garden, and in the morning, in season,  I leave the day's bounty on the kitchen counter. My husband, Andy will use what I have picked.

In retirement he has become a four star chef. I come up from my studio with no idea of what's for dinner. Entering, I smell the wonderful odors of whatever it is that will soon be on the table.

This is tonight's supper: a cold salad with shrimp that he knows I love, on a bed of spinach and tomatoes and mushrooms with an incredible garlic sauce on the side, lovely bread.

We talk our heads off at dinner. Always politics! For so many years he wasn't even home at dinner time and I cooked basic for the hoards of teenagers when I got back from work.

Now, we are foodies, thinking about what's fresh, what's local, what's nutritious. And how do you make great food?


After we left our work and moved here to a 300 acre ranch, we find that there is a lot to do!  The pastures must be mowed as well as the 2 acre lawn around the house, the gardens tended, the pool deck kept clean. We have a few wonderful local people who help out with some handy-man issues, and house cleaning, and as we age we know how much more we will depend on them.

For now, we're good. This week we bought a new "used" golf cart. Our old one that has done ten years of duty is not reliable. This new one will be able to take four people on rides through the pastures, and, in time, will ferry us between our buildings. The ancient dog will love it.

Retiring to a new place means having to make a new community of friends. For us, this is always an ongoing development and we love having folks nearby who at the last minute are up for coming for dinner when there is excess tuna.

And the primary joy for me is having the wide scope of the natural world to discover, learning which wild flowers bloom where and when, watching all the life in this peaceable kingdom - cattle, deer, turkeys and cranes all together. I love my night forays down to the pond to see how many alligators are there.

So much of this is bliss. But next blog I will speak of wrinkled knees.

Still spry at seventy-four

O.K., you folks who have been reading my GrandmaMolly blog for so many years. Here is a new direction and I hope many of you will comment and give me feedback and tell your own stories.

A short back story here: Used to be that in every situation I was the youngest person there. And then, not so suddenly I realize that I am the oldest person there. Yikes! Where did all that time go? I am still in that fifteen year old body but with major wrinkles!

Of course, I was working and totally immersed in it. At sixty-five I retired from being a school director and teacher. I did not actually look forward to being retired but my husband also retired at sixty-five so we went into that unknown territory together. We settled in the homestead on our ranch and have been perfecting it with lovely gardens, our home grown veggies, and the amazing far rural life in the Green Swamp, far from civilization.

This journey for both of us has been interesting and revealing.  We have been fortunate not having to scrabble for an income to support us. But what are we to do to sustain us?

Quickly, I settled in to writing a memoir of my education work and I loved getting up each morning to work on this. I now have a "room of my own", a studio where I now write and make art and dance to my own music.

We traveled the world, as most prosperous retirees do, and loved it. Now, we are not keen on all the necessary arrangements that have to be made for complicated travel, though we do it sometimes.  In the meantime, our grandchild count rose to eight, so we spend a lot of time (and money!) seeing them in their places and ours.

We are fairly content, always intellectual partners, comfortable most of the time in a long term marriage.

So, lots of topics to address- physical aging, health, our volunteer activities.