We Are Beauty Unchained

Invisible? Not exactly.

We are modern women over 50.

When we speak, we expect to be heard.

When we ask questions, we listen to the answers.

We hold power.

We enjoy what we’ve earned and share what we have -

thereby making miracles.

We find wonder in small things and seek to know more.

When our soul speaks, we act on its promptings.

We are Women of a Certain Age and we are a force.

Street art image of a cat head on a woman's body

Dapper Cat image by Dee Dee (@deedeewashere)

Our Latest

Poem in which I Contemplate Extinction & Play

by

Denise Duhamel

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Editor's Note

Apocalyptic Boogie

It’s effing hot where I live in Greece. Not a shocker. It’s summer. But the heat came a good month earlier than usual, and by mid-afternoon it descends like a velvet curtain. Suffocating. Stupefying. I find myself resenting its overtones of global deep fry gloom. Petulantly I wonder, why can’t we just have a normal summer without the doomsday tinge?

Can’t a girl eat a watermelon in peace?

This sentiment of backwards longing is the birthplace of nostalgia. It was better then. Whenever then was. It was cleaner, easier, people got along, doctors made house calls, dogs didn’t bark and cats didn’t fight. No one said stupid things that they later apologized for, though it was already too late. The sky was not falling. Better.

I don’t actually believe that. I believe that each age has its terrors and its pleasures. Even its joys, if we know where to find them. And that’s our job, actually. To dance with the chaos and crisis and still admire this life, this world, in a kind of apocalyptic boogie.

It might seem immoral to experience joy in these times, when so many problems press in on us. But I don’t see it that way.

Joy is nourishment for the long walk. The one where we share what we have with those who need it, knowing there is enough. As women of a Certain Age, we have experience to draw on, wisdom that can heal, and it’s our privilege and obligation to act on the knowledge. Not buying the hype on doom, because we know better.

So today, have an ice cream. Observe the looping flight of a butterfly. Admire tall grass bending in a breeze. Stop what you’re doing and look at the sky. Savor the joy and pass it on to someone in need.

XO

Jean Shields Fleming

Editor