You have to earn that

I was out on my morning walk with Nike the other day, my hair uncombed, my face unwashed, when out of nowhere this young man looks directly into my eyes and tells me "I love your hair!" and than adds "You had to earn that". I loved the phrase, I had never thought of my gray hair that way. But he was right, I did earn it. It took 62 years to get this way and every strand has a story. All the stories that have made me who I am today, all the stories that have given me the confidence and the strength to go on even when things seem to be falling apart.

When I was growing up it was a fact that graying men were distinguished and graying woman were just plain old. In my early 40's my hair started going grey and with that I had a decision to make. I thought about my options; should I become a slave to my hair, subject myself to a time consuming exercise to keep up the pretence of youth? Many of my friends would tell me, "Color your hair and you will lose 10 years, easy". It was a difficult decision. There had been incidents; one where a man thought I was my then life partner's mother, and another when a woman took me for my youngest daughter's grandmother. I asked my little Sidney if it bothered her that her friend's mother thought I was her grandmother, and being the wonderful little encourager that she was, looked up at me and said, "Mommy, you don't look old. It's just that people see the white hair and most of the time only grandmothers have white hair. I like your white hair."

Today 20 years later I am so happy to see, that women 50+ in Hollywood are changing the image. Women with grey hair are not only distinguished, but also sexy, beautiful, and secure. Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Glen Close, and many others have earned their grey hair.

Because Kelly Osbourne, Pixie Geldorf and many more are sporting their grey hair, I have been noticing lots of young women on the NYC streets following the trend by dying their hair grey. Grey has become the new fashion statement. If you are a young fashionista grey hair is what's in. These woman in their 20's are choosing to go grey. Much more subtle than the green, orange, blue and purple of past days.

I would never have thought this day would come. A big step for women, we have gained the right to vote, we have burned our bras, we can be single rather than spinsters, we can be mothers without being wives, and now we've gone grey. I love it.

Some Of My favorite Summer Recipes

Everyone is talking about Diet. The Nutritional Value of Diet and that eating properly keeps you healthy and slim. Nutritionists say that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest. All this talk made me think of my favorite Italian Minestra - Minestrone "The Big Soup". It's delicious and healthy. My friend Rossella's father thought so too. He lived to be 101. He attributed his good health and longevity to eating fresh minestrone every day of his life. This soup is so good with so many different possible recipes that it's a crime to repeat it. Every time you make it it's different and every time it's delicious.


As a little girl I would go to the market with my mother and everyday and every season the vegetables were different and therefore so was the soup. I used to look forward to the new season that brought my favorite vegetables; while some children anxiously awaited their summer vacation, all I was waiting for were the tomatoes and the fava beans; when classes resumed in the Fall, roasted Chestnuts were always a favorite but cauliflower and pumpkin made that minestrone oh so sweet;

At Christmas, the traditional sweets were definitely on my list but the artichokes took first place, during Easter break I feasted on asparagus and beets.

This, like many other Italian traditions,I passed on to my daughters, and they enjoyed it just as much as I did. While living in Italy with my daughter and her dog, Nike I was able to give her that same experience I had had. Living near Campo d' Fiori going to the fresh food market in the morning meant no more than a short stroll with Nike. By the time Sidney came home from school there would be a bowl of hot minestrone on the table? in the winter, and a cold bowl in the summer. Nike enjoyed the minestrone just as much as we did and always begged for seconds!

Here are some of the recipes from my Italian childhood that are both healthy and delicious. Of course I am no chef and have never followed a recipe, as a true Italian I make it up as I go along, therefore I will give you the base ingredients and the rest is up to you. First I give you, Minestrone. It can be one of the most creative and inventive minestre. A minestra that gives you a chance to be an artist.

You start by boiling water in a deep pan, to this water you add onions, garlic, carrots, celery, potato, and beans. After about 15 minutes add tomatoes and all the wonderful fresh and in-season vegetables you can find. The more the merrier. I always include chile peppers, not only do they help your circulation but you may never need to spend another penny on viagra. http://www.academiabarilla.com/italian-culinary-tradition/spice-herbs-dressings/peperoncino.aspx. Once all of your vegetables are in the pot, cover it and let it cook for another 15 minutes or until it's done to your liking. Spices are optional and encouraged.

Before serving put a little "first cold pressed olive oil" in the bottom of your bowl and add fresh parsley on top. Sometimes I also grate some Parmigiano Reggiano on top. You can have it over pasta, rice, barley or toasted bread. Toasted bread should be added at the bottom of the bowl with the olive oil. Any combination you choose is delicious and this is one plate that never gets boring. It so much resembles life and all the changes that it brings. 10cc thought so too as they wrote a song about it "Life is a Minestrone" 1975 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKG6CJWISVo

You my ask yoursef what does this have to do with life changes. Everything, changing your diet for the better is always a step forward.

Stay tuned for the next recipe.

Acceptance

After reading "Unbreak My Heart" in Ann Munday's Musing http://annmundaymusing.blogspot.com/2010/06/unbreak-my-heart.html?, about the Five Stages of Grieving, I started thinking about these stages; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, and what they really mean to me. The first four stages seem to be automatic, a natural process and easily recognizable. The final stage is the most ambiguous as well as the most difficult to arrive at.

I have had many friends who have suffered the loss of a loved one, through their stories, ones that I have heard, and my own experience, I realized that Acceptance is the most difficult of these stages and for some totally unattainable. That's why there are so many songs sung, so many poems and books and blogs written, so many movies produced. We need to adjust to the loss, make it a part of our life. If we don't go through the last stage all the other stages keep coming back. it's like being on a treadmill unable to get off.

So what do we do, we try meditation, we read what Buddah and the Dalai Lama have to say, we try new interests, we surround ourselves with family and friends. We try everything possible, but to no avail. We still miss our losses, they will always stay with us. We have to find a way to incorporate them into our lives. These experiences make us richer, more understanding and compassionate people. I grew to understand that Acceptance is not stopping the pain, it's merely learning to live with the pain and the loss.

So how do we deal with the loss of a loved one, the loss of our home, the loss of our careers, the loss of our finances and the pain that comes along with it. Of course we all have our different ways of dealing with them. John Lennon conveyed it well - that 'Whatever Gets You Through The Night', 'is all right',meaning that we must do whatever works for us to get us through our pain, and from my mother's generation a similar directive from Eduardo di filippo, Italian playwright and philosopher, who ends one of his plays with "Ha da passa' 'a nuttata," which translated is, you got to get through the nights.


For example, my Zia Mara, lost her daughter through leukemia over 30 years ago, when Ines was still in her teens. Every night from the day of her death to this day, she writes beautiful letters to Ines, telling her all that is happening in her life and in the world, she tells her how much she and everyone loves her. My aunt saves these letters and she is convinced that through these letters she is communicating with Ines. This is how my zia deals with the loss of her daughter. Is this acceptance?

Growing up I have had several friends who lost their mothers at a young age and yet all of them felt that their mothers were right there protecting them. Still, these women today, in their sixties, are missing their mothers. Yes, they have had happy lives, have succeeded in their careers and had wonderful families of their own. Yes, they all spent many many years in therapy. So, is this Acceptance?

As I have learned through my life experience, our loved ones will never be forgotten, we have a special place reserved inside of us for the special people who have touched us. Our life is still beautiful, but there will always be that empty space that no one can fill; that space reserved for that special person. This to me is Acceptance.

"They Fuck You Up"

This morning while sipping my tea on my balcony, I started singing Julie Andrews song "the lusty month of May" from Camelot

" Tra la! It's May!
The lusty month of May!"

As I sang to myself I realize that both of my parents were born in May and my mom's birthday was coming up soon. I started thinking back to my life as a child, a young adult, a single woman, a mother and wife, and then single again. Back in 1971 I read Philip Larkin's poem whose title I have never forgotten and sums up the 70's and all that went with it. This is when I realized not everything is like Camelot.

"They Fuck You Up"

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

My generation can relate to this poem, but the new generation, my daughters and their friends do they feel the same? Do my daughters blame me for their problems? Our parents had children at a young age, so my generation, we waited. I had my first daughter at 35. I waited until I had my life together , until I was a responsible adult, independent, and self-sufficient. If you ask my daughters though, I could have spared myself the wait. I was curious how the new generation related to this poem, so I asked my daughters. I guess Philip Larkin's poem is timeless, because they agree with it just as much as I did. The only difference is that this generation's reinvention of parenting is to have children at a younger age. I have two nieces both younger than 35 with two kids each and this seems to be the trend today.

Although parenting might be easier now with the parenting blogs, books, and DVD's, I'm sure even in 200 years there will be a teenager who will find this poem and have a very similar reaction as mine and my daughters'. In the words of Rita from Showtime's Dexter,
"You're a parent, you'll do damage"

Easter In Terracina

Here I am for the first time in my life celebrating Easter with friends in my summer home in Terracina, Italy. My family (daughters, mother, sister, brother in law, nieces, their husbands, grand nieces and nephews) all in NYC.

My friends and guests came from Rome, Florence, Venice and Priverno to spend time together. My apartment is filled with laughter, good food, wine, grappa, home-made limoncello, on and on. Our breakfast, cappuccino e bomba con la crema were consumed at our favorite bar on the piazza where all in one place we could see and feel history spanning from the Roman through modern times. My long walks on the beach were used for introspection and assessing my past, planning my future but most of all enjoying and living in the present, that instant moment which soon would become the past.

Because most of my guests were not from Terracina, I showed them my favorite sites among them the town orphanage, the best villa ever. We decided to take a guided tour of the centro storico. The guide a handsome, distinguished man, an historian-archeologist shows us a statue of a Roman nobildonna (might be Caelia Macrina) recently found while excavating the Roman Theatre on the Piazza Municipale. A Roman woman - Caelia Macrina from Terracina. Having lost a young son, in his memory, founded and funded an orphanage for boys and girls. The sum was so large that the impoverished children were well taken care of long after she had died and her tradition is still carried out today.

I was so taken by her story that I quickly went to the best bookstore in town trying to find out more, after all she is a woman after my own heart, but no books were written about her, no pictures, the statue was headless. I searched the internet but not much there except

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/search.php?psgroup=14

“Caelia Macrina
Flourished circa A.D. 150, Tarracina, Italy
Little is known about the Roman woman Caelia Macrina except that some time in the second century A.D., in the town of Tarracina southeast of Rome, she donated a large sum of money for the construction of a building and for a food fund to support 200 impoverished children. A dedicatory inscription originally attached to the building reveals that Caelia's welfare grants were somewhat unusual in that they were more generous to girls than was typical of the time.”

A few years ago, I was there at the Brooklyn Museum to see the exposition of the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago and did not take note of this woman Caelia, so admired by me at this very moment. Seeing her statue, the place where she lived, the building she funded was very emotional and memorable. This guided tour has opened a new world of interest of the Roman women and their roles they played in molding who we are today.

"Frances" By Viky

Estate 1999. Un piccolo bar in una piccola piazza di una piccola città sul mare. Al tavolo , sola ,prendeva un caffè o una granita: alta, abbronzata, i corti capelli bianchi.
Ci scambiamo un saluto un sorriso una battuta. Entriamo subito in confidenza e parliamo di tutto : figli, mariti, film, libri.
E' simpatica, gentile, generosa, sensibile, estroversa.
Ci troviamo bene e quando devo iniziare una lunga ,fastidiosa cura per i miei denti, decido di farlo a Roma così abbiamo modo di vederci ancora, dato che lei nel frattempo ha preso un appartamento in via Monserrato, vicino all'isola Tiberina dove mi devo recare regolarmente. E' l'accasione per tornare un po' ragazze, bighellonare tra i vicoli, andare a cinema, un concerto. La seduta dal dentista è solo una parentesi fastidiosa e poi via tra i banchi del mercato di campo de' fiori, in un bar per un gelato, una tazza di cioccolata...
Passa qualche anno poi tutto cambia : il compagno di Frances si perde per un'altra donna e lei deve tornare in America per affrontare avvilenti battaglie legali. Non perde la sua grinta anche se la sua vita è diventata difficoltosa ,ha impegni gravosi da affrontare ed ha poco tempo per tornare in Italia.
Vado ancora regolarmente a Roma ma mi manca la sua compagnia , i suoi entusiasmi, la sua verve. Passo nei luoghi in cui giravamo insieme ridendo e penso a lei così lontana e diversamente impegnata. Mi manca.....spero non per molto ancora......

"Frances" by Vicky

Summer 1999. A small bar,in a small piazza, in a small city by the sea. At the table, alone, drinking a coffee or a granita: tall, tanned, with short white hair. We exchanged a greeting, a smile, a joke. We quickly become close friends and we talk about everything: children, husbands, film, and books.

She's likeable, kind, generous, sensitive, and outgoing.

We enjoy each other’s company, so when I start my long and fastidious cure for my teeth, I decide to do it in Rome so that we can see each other more often, being that in the meantime she has bought an apartment on via Di Monserrato, near Isola Tiberina where I have regular dental appointments. It’s my occasion to go back and be a girl, to loiter between the alleys, to go to the movies, to a concert. The dentist appointments are only an annoying parenthesis and then we go in and out between the market vendors of Campo de’ Fiori, in a bar for an ice cream, a cup of hot chocolate…

A few years later and everything changes: Frances’ partner gets lost to another woman and Frances must return to America in order to face disheartening legal battles. She doesn’t lose her mojo though, even if her life has become problematic; she has arduous engagements to face and has little time to spend in Italy.

I still have regular appointments in Rome but I miss her company, her various enthusiasms, her verve. I pass by the places we used to roam together in laughter and I think of her, so far away and otherwise engaged. I miss her….and I hope not for much longer now….

"GETTING OLDER WHILE GETTING YOUNGER" by Heloise

In today's world if you are over 50 you need to get an avatar.
The technology of today is growing more sophisticated minute by minute and it is a major challenge.

Just ten years ago if you were looking for a job, you would call a real person who would actually speak to you. You would then use the only piece of technical equipment on your desk, the fax machine, to send your resume to that person or you would mail it. A week later you could call, you may not get the interview or the job but at least you were not ignored.
Fast forward to today. Humans no longer exist you must do your job searching on one of the many sites, whether job sites or social sites. You think you are applying for employment, but most likely will immediately start being bombarded with offers from non-humans from re-doing your resume for a price, to being asked to throw a fist full of money to one of the rabbits that promise to post your resume on over 1000 sites at once.

If your experience is in clothing like mine you watch the jobs and companies disappear, while you watch e-commerce grow larger by the day. I, of course, know enough about computers to buy on these sites, but I now have to face the new challenge of learning how to sell a product on an e commerce site.

I had my first interview for employment on an e-commerce site recently, and once I got pass the fact that the owners and staff were all younger then my children, which is a humbling experience, you realize how exciting this type of retailing can be.
I must learn the new technology by getting younger in my thinking. It was a positive interview, and this time I met real humans, not machines something that has not happen in a while.
I do not know if a job offer will come from it, but I will hope so.
In the meantime to all of us women of a certain age, with working experiences that often do not translate to today's world, take heart,we can continue to fight age, we will color our hair, get botox, social network, and learn not to be afraid of computers.
We will learn new technology, and we will be our own avatars in this new world.