If you asked most women over 60 to describe how they feel, somewhere in the answer – underneath the gratitude and the carefully maintained perspective – you would find some version of the word tired. Not sick-tired. Not age-tired. Something harder to name than either of those things. I know this tiredness personally…

Women of a certain age have already pursued so much – relationships, family, education, careers, caregiving, community. We’ve poured into everyone and everything around us. But eventually the question arrives, sometimes quietly, sometimes like a shout: Now what? If you don’t know what to pursue next, pursue yourself…

For my 60th birthday, my children did something I didn’t know I needed and now can’t stop talking about, partly because it was thoughtful, and partly because I spent an entire morning wearing a tiara in public like a woman who had either just been crowned or recently escaped supervision…

When life gets quiet (and quiet it will), 
When noise fades away and the world holds still, When chatter goes soft and the rush disappears, And you’re left with your thoughts… and your questions… and fears— Most folks get uneasy. They reach for a sound, A screen, or a voice, or some busyness found. They fill up the silence, they turn up the noise, Distracting themselves with a thousand small toys…

Being the product of an abusive father, I grew up a people pleaser. By constantly trying to please him, I learned to survive. In doing so, for years I kept lying to my inner self. We all know we should never lie to ourselves, but not only do we frequently do so…

We all have one friend like Patrice who is prone to accidents. A misstep causes a fractured hip and a torn shoulder. Weeks of pain-filled rehabilitation follow then her husband dies of sudden cardiac arrest. She discovers, through his private letters, he has carried on with another man for decades…

Many women imagine midlife freedom will feel exhilarating. And sometimes it does. It did for me – eventually, but not at first. Many women over 50 quietly experience another reality first: emotional displacement. For years, motherhood provided…

Last night, I attended a showcase by one of my current female voice students. I’ll call her HN. She’s 29 and quite talented. I brought along one of my former male voice students, who studied with me fifteen years ago as a preteen…

As women, it has almost become a cliché that we take care of the rest of the world but don’t do a great job taking care of ourselves. We’re so busy looking after everyone else that we often place ourselves at the bottom of the list. Then we sense hunger…

This past week, I facilitated another Sacred Women’s Circle for women over sixty. This is the fifth month in a row that I’ve been doing this most rewarding work. As I always view the month of May as the month of mothers, I thought that discussing mothers, mentors and matriarchs would be appropriate…