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You are here: Home / Archives for baby boomers

baby boomers

Goodbye Old Friends

January 20, 2016 by admin

It’s been a tough 2016 so far for us Baby Boomers. So far we have lost Natalie Cole, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and now Glenn Frey. All were in their 60s — far too young to me now. At 57, I can’t imagine the thought of having a decade or less to live.

We came of age with most of these icons (Alan Rickman came later). Bowie fascinated with his endless reinvention and enigmatic creativity. The Eagles formed a soundtrack for my restless, confused young adulthood. Later, in his solo career, Glenn Frey recorded one of my favorite songs, Soul Searchin’.

Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable, which used technological wizardry to allow her a duet with her late father Nat King Cole, was stunning. Though she grew up in his shadow, she forged her own unique style and career. When she died, I recalled how I felt at age six when I learned of her father’s death, also too soon.

Ours was the generation determined to make the world different. We were sure we would conquer aging, illness, and death. Yet here we are, unable to transcend our impermanence, just like every other generation.

The most stunning part of these deaths is the sheer weight of contributions made in life. They all leave behind an impressive body of work that will live long after them.

Most of us don’t know any of these celebrities, but their deaths hit us hard. They remind us to get busy, to make our lives as meaningful and rich as possible. Bowie managed to release one last album right before he died, and he reinvented himself to the end.

We cannot conquer old age or death, but we can let these icons teach us by example to make every day count. We could be here for decades, but we could be gone tomorrow. We might as well go for it.

—

What She Knew is now available for pre-order! Ebook will be available February 29. Release date for the paperback is March 29.

Filed Under: Life Changes Tagged With: aging, baby boomers, creativity, death of icons, living fully, music

Check Out Boomer Cafe

April 19, 2012 by admin

It’s Thursday again, which means…time to recommend a blog!

Boomer Cafe is one of my favorites. With a variety of writers submitting their work, I get to read many different perspectives of Baby Boomer life. I think even the younger whippersnappers that are aging but don’t qualify as Boomers would enjoy it, too.

Today’s offering is written by David Hemmings, who lost his job as he was about to turn 50. Check out how Hemmings turned the crisis into an opportunity.

In the meantime, I am in Day 3 of the Colorado Cleanse and am feeling GREAT! It’s just what the doctor ordered after a stressful move, and I am quickly starting to feel like myself again. Hope you have a great weekend! See you here next Tuesday.

Filed Under: blogs, Life Changes Tagged With: baby boomers, best blogs, Blogs, Boomer Cafe, David Hemmings, life changes

Book Discovery Tuesday: Let’s Talk Travel

August 30, 2011 by admin

Goats Photo
A surprise appearance on a hike from Sils to Isola.

Before leaving Houston for Switzerland, I dutifully wrote several blog posts in advance. After all, I am on vacation and want to enjoy living in this lovely pastoral setting. However, with each hike, words fly up from the ground and into my brain, demanding that I pay attention. If there is anything I have learned by midlife, it is to respect my inner promptings and let them have their say.

I have also learned that Boomers love to travel, so I’m happy to weave some of my own travel experiences within the context of A Woman’s Nest. It also seemed appropriate as we transition from summer to fall, and to our upcoming September focus on stillness. Since we talk about books on Tuesday, then, I thought I would step away from yet another book about menopause (don’t worry, I’ll come back to it sooner or later!) and talk about travel books.

Peter Mayle has his Provence. Frances Mayes has Tuscany. And Rick Steves, of course, has made a great living letting people know the sights, sounds, and activities to experience while traveling. We don’t agree on everything — he’s fond of Avignon and not as fond of Arles and Aix en Provence, for example, where we lean in the opposite direction. That said, we listen to his podcasts and watch his shows, always gathering the information he shares so generously.

Rick had to learn that sometimes what people want are the high points of a place. For some, a visit to Paris is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so they need and want the “best” art to see in the Louvre so they can zip through it quickly. Rick has met that need, but in one of his books, Travel as a Political Act, we get to see more of Rick Steves. We get to read his perspectives of not how to travel, but why. He shares how his visits over the years have caused his politics to evolve, and explains how we can broaden our own horizons when we travel.

Maloja Mountain
Another day, another breathtaking view

This was the first place I learned the term “roundtrip revolutionary.” I became one last year on a visit to Costa Rica, where I volunteered for two weeks. The term, though humorous, has a serious point to it. We may go somewhere and volunteer for a period of time, but we always have that plane ticket home, while the people we assist are fighting the good fight day in and day out to serve children, fight poverty, and bring needed medical assistance to the poorer regions of the world. I griped because I lived without hot water for two weeks (mainly because I knew that the locals actually did have hot water), but I got to come home to a cozy bed and plenty of food. I had an “off” switch for my experiences.

I think a lot about Rick’s book as I wander through the mountains of this part of Switzerland. One has a great deal of time to think in the hours on the path. I realize that with each trip, I learn more about a part of the world that is foreign to mine in many ways, and that’s a good thing. Here, German, Italian, and Romansche cultures blend together. A lake can be a luc, a lej, or a loggia. Our town is Sils or Segl, depending on what sign you read. English isn’t at the top of the list; it’s about midway down. On the path we greet fellow hikers with “Goetze” (roughly, as I understand it, God be with you), but some say Bongiorno, and we even hear a few Bonjours. In this tiny area, many different peoples coexist with relative ease.

The idyllic nature of this area is broken by the sound of construction. Others have discovered Sils’s charm and want to visit or live here. The locals try to deal with demand vs. the need to keep the charm and purity of the town. As with many tourist areas of the United States, the tension between progress and preservation requires much debate. It will be interesting to see what happens to Sils over the next five or ten years.

As I ponder Rick’s book, I also think about the stereotypes that we have, sometimes unintentionally, that travel allows us to release. One big example is that I learned on my first trip to France that the French are no more rude than any other society. In fact, I find the French to be interesting, engaging, and friendly people. And the Swiss are not dressed up looking like Heidi or the kids from The Sound of Music. I haven’t heard a single yodel. Instead, I see people, more or less like us, who are generous to share their favorite places to hike.

I also recognize that life here is different from, say Zurich or Geneva, where picturesque landscapes give way to urban sprawl, where spaciousness gives way to crowds. I’m far away from the public restrooms of the city with their bluelights that make it harder for an addict to find a vein. Even this gorgeous and prosperous country has its share of problems.

Yet we are here, and we continue to learn. We continue to look at travel as both personal and political. If you also love to travel and want to know more about a place than its highlights, then I highly recommend Travel as a Political Act by Rick Steves. You’ll be thinking about it long after you have finished reading it.

Silvaplana
A view of Silvaplana.

Filed Under: books, travel Tagged With: baby boomers, Frances Mayes, hiking, Peter Mayle, Rick Steves, switzerland, travel, Travel as a Political Act

Blog Discovery Thursday: Baby Boomer Cafe

August 25, 2011 by admin

I fell asleep to the sound of thunder, a rare sound these days in Houston. Our high temperatures have hit at least 100 degrees every day in August with no end in sight. I stepped outside this morning to find the ground somewhat moist–the thunder did not portend a storm for our area. Still, I’ll take whatever relief I can get.

Today I am rewriting the first scene of my upcoming novel, Change of Plans, and will then send it back to my editor for review. While I’m working on that, I’ll share with you a blog that looks really great. Thanks to my hubby for finding it for me!

The Boomer Cafe has been around for twelve years and features writings by Boomers and for Boomers who want to maintain an active lifestyle. From humor to finances, Boomers can find plenty to read about. Plus, you’ll enjoy the comments that readers share. It’s a lot of fun! Check it out when you get the chance.

Filed Under: blogs Tagged With: baby boomers, Boomer Cafe, Boomers, Change of Plans, nadine feldman

The Generation Gap: Generation X Versus Baby Boomers

August 24, 2011 by admin

A recent article on the Huffington Post has caused my head to spin. It even woke me in the night and caused me to totally revise my already-prepared blog post for the day. This post is fresh and raw, so it may not be as polished as I would like. So be it. Sometimes I need to be with emotion when it arises.

The article in question, written by Susan Gregory Thomas, raises issues that Generation X has with their Baby Boomer parents. In it, Thomas describes how touched she was when Erica Jong issued a generational apology for the mistakes made by Boomers. In receiving this unexpected affirmation of what Thomas had written about in her book, In Spite of Everything: A Memoir, Thomas discovered the power of apology to transform her own beliefs and to open dialogue between generations.

In typical Baby Boomer fashion, I was shocked to learn that we are no longer considered the cool people. When did that happen? I started poking around on the Web and discovered that this generation gap has been expressed many times by many writers. Time Magazine, back in April 2008, called Generation X the “Ignored Generation.” Oops. Apparently I’m one of the Boomers guilty of ignoring their plight.

I haven’t read Thomas’s book yet, and I’m not sure I will. That remains to be seen. In fairness to her, she gets great reviews on Amazon. However, I feel compelled to comment on the article itself and my own observations of its content and the emotional responses it generated. More upsetting than the article itself were the comments, some of which were openly hostile. I also feel that the article is to some degree unfair.

First, dividing us up by generation is limiting and problematic. Generation X includes those born from about 1965 to 1980, making them anywhere from 31 to 46. Therefore, some were raised by Baby Boomers, and some by the Silent Generation that preceded them. Some Baby Boomers have given birth to GenX, while others are raising Millennials. This complicates matters. We can’t assume that every great mom was a Silent and every lousy mom was a Boomer, or vice versa.

Second, not everyone in the Baby Boom generation grew up with the same thoughts, feelings, and politics. Look around at our current political climate, and you’ll see that’s true. Not every Baby Boomer was a hippie living in a perpetual drug-induced coma. We know that stereotyping race, gender, or religion has its flaws. If we do not apply that same recognition to a generation, our reasoning and conclusions also become flawed. Socioeconomic and other factors must be applied to create a clear analysis.

Third, I do not buy in to the reasoning that Thomas points to, from a 2004 marketing study, that concludes Generation X to be “one of the least parented, least nurtured generations in U.S. history.” Really? Have you ever visited the Tenement Museum in New York City? There might be some ghosts of the tenements who would find this conclusion odd. Children often worked, and moms, with no labor-saving devices and often working themselves, weren’t exactly available to act as full-time nurturers.

Further, where I grew up, I and my fellow Boomers were expected to start earning money as soon as possible. Some of us babysat while others worked in the corn fields. I was, by the Generation X definition, a latchkey child, though I never thought of it as such. Mom worked outside the home, and we handled the housework as well as lazy teenagers are capable of doing. I don’t remember feeling deprived. We were pissed off and sullen because of our age, but I actually thought it was cool that I had a working mom.

Finally, an old song by Mike and the Mechanics begins with, “Every generation blames the one before.” This has been true since the beginning of time. Thomas ends her article with a mention of her oldest daughter, who is starting middle school. Ms. Thomas, you need to be prepared. Your daughter will transition into the teen years, and then she will grow up to blame you for her problems. Why? Because it happens in every generation. She will decide that you made a mess of the world and are leaving a big mess to clean up. She will be right, just as you are right in some respects. Despite your best intentions, your generation, too, will come under scrutiny, and that scrutiny will make you cringe. This is why it takes several generations to understand history–we need to be removed enough from the emotions of it.

When Ms. Thomas spoke to Erica Jong she expected harsh judgment and instead received compassion. Perhaps Ms. Thomas will let go of other judgments about Baby Boomer women once she gets to know their stories better. The Boomer Women I know are often kind, loving, and supportive. While Baby Boomers weren’t perfect parents, they weren’t always so horrible, either. Sure, there are lemons in every bunch, but most were hard-working people who did the best they could and sometimes had to make hard choices that others blithely criticize.

I write about Boomer issues here because I am a Boomer, and that’s what I experience. Still, I try to recognize that within our generation, we are a diverse group of people with a wide range of attitudes and beliefs. Some are good parents, some are not. Some are divorced, some are not. Some divorces work well with families, some do not. That’s life. At some point, we have to lay down our blame and get on with the business of living. Yes, we should work out unresolved grief and anger, but at the same time, our adult choices are ours. We can stay stuck in the past, or we can move on and find joy in our lives. We cannot look to our older generation to be what we wish they were or to give us that joy; we have to find it for ourselves.

 

 

Filed Under: women Tagged With: baby boomers, generation gap, Generation X, GenX, In Spite of Everything, Susan Gregory Thomas

Thursday Blog Recommendation: National Association of Baby Boomer Women (NABBW)

August 18, 2011 by admin

Good morning, everyone!

I love Thursdays, because I get to share other websites that both inform and entertain, providing you, the reader, with much more content than I could provide alone. In recent weeks as I have revamped this blog, I have found genuine pleasure in finding resources to share. We Boomer women are forming a remarkable presence on the World Wide Web, with plenty of thoughtful insights and fine writing.

Today’s website is a real goodie! It’s the National Association of Baby Boomer Women. Here you’ll find a gathering place for articles of interest on women’s health, finances, humor, and more. the NABBW provides a staggering amount of information in an accessible format.

If you want to join the NABBW, you will pay $75, though there are ways to get discounts on that fee. However, I am currently at the “free” membership level, which allows me access to a wide range of information. So, you’ll have an opportunity to check it out before forking over any money.

Enjoy! I’ll be back Monday with more news and musings.

 

Filed Under: blogs, women Tagged With: baby boomers, NABBW, nadine feldman, nadine galinsky, Nadine Galinsky Feldman, National Association of Baby Boomer Women

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