Our Souls At Night, a Netflix original movie with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. I absolutely loved it. I’ve loved these two together since Barefoot In The Park, which I’ve seen dozens of times. Their characters are written with warmth and dignity, and you won’t find any old people cliches. The older you are the more you might appreciate it, but the pairing of these two who fall together like perfectly worn gloves is a treat for anyone.

My glorious 60 year old face!

I'm often asked what skin care products I use, because I am blessed with good skin. I've always had good skin, never had acne or blemishes. As a teenager and young adult, I used the very harsh, feel good face product of the 60's and 70's, Noxema. The original, in the dark blue jar, complete with smell. I washed with it amd in the winter, used it as a daytime moisturizer. The commercial, often aired during American Bandstand said "tomorrow is the best reason to wash with Noxema today". There were not the plethora of facial cleansers then that there are now, it was easy to get, cheap, and felt tingly good. When I was 20, my cousin's wife, a dark haired beauty named Helen, who was 30 gave me great advice. She told me to start using a moisturizer (a real one) every day, not to wait till I was 30 or till I began to show signs of aging. I did. I began a real skin care regimen at 20. Moisturizers didn't have SPF back then, but I faithfully used a drugstore product every day and night. As the years passed, and the beauty industry went crazy, there were so many products to choose from, some featuring SPF. I began to use pricier department store products like Estée Lauder, enjoying the more luxurious feel and nicer packaging. By my early 40's I started alpha hydroxy acids like glycolic and lactic acids for anti-aging benefits. By my mid 50's I introduced mild retinol products, stepping it up by my late 50's to 2% retinol night creams and 2% hydraquinone gel on sun damage spots. The thing to remember is your weakest anti-aging skincare is found at the drug store. The mid range is sold at good department stores or beauty specialty stores like Sephora, and for the big guns, like retinol, retinoids and hydraquinone in the over 4% range, you need a prescription from a derm doctor or skin center. I am now, at 60, considering that step, but a tube of prescription Renova is $170.00 so I am not ready to take that plunge yet. Back to SPF, I stopped trying to tan 20 years ago. I would burn over burn, and eventually developed a very light tan, but never got the tan I wanted. I started using SPF every day, 365 days a year, and still do. That didn't stop me from getting a tiny basal cell carcinoma in 2001, near my right eyebrow. I had it removed, and thankfully no more skin cancer since then. I have regular derm checkups, and I use SPF of 30 on my face, neck, chest and hands every day, and step it up to 50 in spring and summer when I am outdoors a lot. At the beach, I do mornings and early evenings, wear a big, floppy hat and huge sunglasses, and never "lay out" without a beach umbrella. So, products and protection aside, here's what helps me. First of all, genes. Having unknown family history and no blood relatives older than me, I don't know if they aged well, but I imagine so. Then, healthy living. No smoking, good sun protection, little or no booze. Eat enough healthy fats, like avocado, nuts, coconut oil. Try not to go to bed with makeup on, although that's not always easy after a late night. Remove makeup, then cleanse and treat your skin before bed, since your sleep time is when skin cells repair themselves. A good serum and night cream work wonders. I have used plain old Vaseline on my lips every night at bedtime for over 30 years. Exfoliate, gently but often. I've used scrubs since I was in my 20's. Avoid the cheaper ones containing ground apricot pits or walnut shells, go for a sandy feel. If you can't afford a good scrub, make your own with sugar or oatmeal. Masks are great, and becoming more available all the time. Not necessarily the old green fave, Queen Helene, but if that's what you have, use it. There are inexpensive one time use masks everywhere now. Once or twice a week makes a difference, and they are tailored to your needs, from soothing to invigorating and everything in between, including collagen and hyaluronic acid. If your budget won't allow it, make your own. Take what's left in your avocado peel, scrape it out and put in on your face for ten minutes for hydration. Use a whipped egg white for tightening. Milk and organic honey for soothing. Whatever you use on your face, put the last bits on the backs of your hands. This goes for scrubs, masks and treatments as well as your day and night moisturizers. Final note, and it's a hard one for a makeup junkie like me: put your money into the best skin care you can afford, then into the best foundation. Don't throw money into eyeshadows and lipsticks when the biggest bang for your buck should go into (and onto) your precious skin.

Everything Is Possible - through a child's eyes

Having a child in the house is a game changer. A lifestyle alterer. A blind step into the vast wilderness of space and time where no one can hear you scream and perhaps it's not safe to go back into the water after all. Am I comparing having a kid in the house to having an alien or a shark take up residence? Yes, I am. It's not bad, just different. It's good, once you remember how to do it. You find yourself using parts of your brain that have been dormant for years. You realize that everything is possible, mishaps are probable, and you don't need as much sleep as you want. My ten year old granddaughter and her mother moved in with us three months ago. With her came at least 25 "stuffies" - stuffed animals from beanie baby size to a 6 foot long snake. Or is it a dragon with a really long tail? Barbies with homemade haircuts, tiny plastic shoes and hooker outfits. Some days Barbie just wears duct tape. Maybe she's researching alternative lifestyles. Not my biz. And then there's My Little Pony, which has gone from a few pastel colored rubbery ponies with candy colored manes to an entire enterprise. E-games, episodic web shows, books, stuffies, oversized ponies and ponies that could sit on a teaspoon. The pony world is huge and complex, with the pony hierarchy understood only by little girls and the odd phenom known as "bronies" who are adult men who enjoy pony culture. The thought of that is like me seeing my dad in a Hello Kitty t-shirt. And that which has been seen cannot be unseen. But I digress. Kids are noisy,they move around a lot, especially this one. They want your attention and are not afraid to say so. Up at the crack of the crack of dawn, at full speed within minutes, there is no easing into your day when you're there at wake up time. Eyes open- BOOM! It starts. And you'd better be present in the moment or they know. You can't shortchange a kid with only half of your attention and get away with it very often. There are only so many "laters" and "not right nows" that will work. These words are not get out of jail free cards, so use them wisely. When you haven't cohabitated with children for a long time, you see you've forgotten things. Their innocence and hopefulness. You really do see things through their eyes, which is beautiful. You've forgotten the fun, the magic, the silliness and the endless laughter. Then it comes rushing back to you bringing a lighthearted joy you forgot existed. You learn to pretend again, and to think of things in new ways. Bugs are apparently fascinating, dirt is not bad and resting is overrated. It's not all rainbows, though. Grace talks to me as if I were a fossil. She loves to make fun of my "oldness" and actually asked if I was born in B.C. She claims I don't appreciate sarcasm, but I do! Just not from her! She has a temper and can be sullen sometimes. A glimpse of what her teen years could hold, I guess. She admits she likes to wear people down till she gets what she wants. Her honesty is disarming. She's bright and funny, a whirlwind of movement, emotion and questions. At ten, she can accept "I don't know" as an answer, but is surprised that there's something you don't know because of your advanced age. Shouldn't you know everything by now? I hope her creativity never dims. She is a visionary, the very definition of thinking outside the box. Her artistic talents surpassed mine by the time she was four. By six, she drew better than me. By eight, she drew better than lots of adults. She has the talent to be a fashion designer, but I don't know if she will have the determination. She is mercurial, she changes like the weather. She brings a new vitality and a long forgotten turmoil to our lives. It's never dull. She brings an abundance of love and light. And a few dark clouds. It has been an adjustment, and will continue to be. I still miss my solitude, I'm more tired. But although I hate sitting on the hardwood floor with her, the grass is fine. You have to get on the floor sometimes to do stuff. I get that. I will never enjoy bugs or dirt. On these matters we agree to disagree. And in this, she is teaching me to stop and consider my answers before issuing an immediate "NO!!!" and to think outside the box. To explore, to worry less. She is a living example of hope and optimism. She's right. In the proper state of mind, everything is possible.

The Coat

It was 1982. I first saw it on one of my many lunch break trips to that magical, gargantuan Center City Philadelphia landmark, John Wanamaker. I lived and breathed for that store, as did my mother. I'd go at lunch. After work. I'd drag anyone I could with me. When I met someone there, usually my BFF Mark, it would be at the eagle. The huge eagle statue at the center of the main floor, where shellacked matrons sold Estee Lauder and the nightly organ concerts rivaled anything heard in a cathedral. One day, I spied the coat. Plum fake fur, which is now Faux Fur. Collarless, with those charming little hooks that real fur coats have. Three quarter length, perfect for my little shortness. Plush, glam, kind of punk rock looking. I adored it. It was outrageously priced as most things on the third floor were. I could never afford it, and I did not want my parents to but it for me, as they would have done had they known. I was an adult, divorced with a child. I had no business with a coat like that anyway. Not for the fashion, which was totally me! me! me! but for the crazy pricetag. I didn't even need a winter coat. I had my pea coat and my pretty, long, cream colored coat for fancy. But this coat took fancy to a whole new level. So, I visited it. Every few days, I'd try it on, prancing around in it, in my black pencil skirt and heels, or my very cool pegged pants, or.....hold on to yourselves....my parachute pants. After a few weeks it went on sale. A few more weeks and it was half price. ZING! I snatched that thing up like it was the last biscuit. Oooohhhhh how gorgeous it was! Lovely, luxe, and so "chi chi" as we said back then. I bought it a pair of matching suede heels, a plum silk blouse, a fuschia lipstick. These things were for the coat, not me. It was worth three times the price for the joy and pride it gave me. When I wasn't wearing it I would go into my closet and pet it. I'd love to say I still had it, or that I knew what became of it. I do know the lining eventually ripped. A few years later, it was gone. It went the way of the parachute pants, bowling shirts and clear jelly shoes worn with crazy colored socks. But when it was mine, wasn't I just "it"' and wasn't that fine?

CARS.....and what I don't know about them

I know nothing about cars. Less than nothing. We're talking about makes and models here. Of course I know nothing about the workings of cars, except where the key goes and where the gas goes and how to make the music come out. No one could expect me to know more. I've made a lifetime career of not knowing. I LOVE not knowing, so why start now?
     It's the identification of cars I am really rotten at. I know lots of women who know about certain cars, like them, want one. If I witnessed an accident the only things I could testify to in court would be the bumper stickers, and the vanity plate if it spelled out something cute or clever. I know a schoolbus when I see one, and I know a motorcycle, but very little in between. I know PT Cruisers because I think they're cool looking, although there seem to be less of them now. Fell out of fashion I guess. I know some Corvettes (Stingrays?) some old Mustangs and Cadillacs. I want to see a Buick 8 because of the Stepehn King novel, but would I know it if I saw it? Nope.
     I know my favorite ever, the HUMMER! I just love everything about the HUMMER. I would have one if I could. In black. Big, gleaming, scary black. Or the brightest most pristine paper white. Whenever I left somewhere to drive home in it, I would announce to everyone who could hear that I am taking my HUMMER and hitting the road. IN MY HUMMER. God, I love saying it. My first and only brand new car was a 1978 red Dodge Aspen with a cream vinyl roof. My parents warned us about the vinyl roof. 'The monkeys at Great Adventure will rip it up!' they said. Having been to GA only once, why did they think I'd be fraternizing with monkeys? Although the thought is a thrilling one, it is not one I had entertained.
Over the years, cars came and went. The old boat of a brown Oldsmobile named Dorothy. So named because when we turned the key in the ignition, she wheezed and whined, protesting so much that we'd scream 'Surrender Dorothy!' and disolve into shreiks of laughter.  A cute little pale gold Ford something, named Kitty after the 91 year old we bought her from. 8 years old and barely 14,000 miles on her. My white Thunderbird, the first car I bought myself, by myself, for myself.  A silver Skylark named Bubbles' The rotten little wreck of a disaster we bought two years ago and had for 5 months. Paid $1800 for it, put $2000 into it, jumked it and got $200 for our trouble, Even the charities that take cars didn't want it. Car had bad mojo.
So, would I know these cars, and the many others I've had if I saw them again? If they were in the color I had, yes. Other than that, no.However, I will know the glorious, gas guzzling, show offy, larger than life HUMMER when I am senile, half blind and in the home. Cause I just love that car, the HUMMER.

Blackbird Deconstructed

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
        This song, this two minutes and nineteen seconds of loveliness, was written by Paul McCartney in 1968, although it is credited to Lennon/McCartney. It's on the Beatles masterpiece The Beatles, known as The White Album. It begins with birdsong and tapping (Paul's foot) and features the sweetest melody imaginable.  Paul credits the J.S. Bach piece "Bouree" as the inspiration for the guitar accompaniment.  The lyrics were inspired by the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. as Black people struggled for the same opportunities afforded whites just by virtue of their skin color. I think of a time even further back in American history, the enslavement of African born men and women brought to this country and sold like livestock.
It was not until 2002 that Paul publicly discussed the meaning of the song and the symbolism of the blackbird. Puff The Magic Dragon was probably not about a fire-breathing beast, and 25 or Six to Four was not about the time of day. The Blackbird is someone held captive in a situation or a place. A fledgling, unable to take flight. The Blackbird is the beaten down, the battered, the hopeless.
This song inspires a lot of artwork, especially in tattoos. Maria has a beautiful backpiece picturing a blackbird and a part of the lyrics. She broke free from an untenable situation, the betrayal of a few lifelong friends. She never looked back. The tattoo is more than pretty ink, it's commemorative of a life changing event, a pivotal point in her life.
The light of the dark black night is freedom. From oppression, from the prison of our own making, from what we will no longer bear. We may not be able to see what's ahead, but it's better than staying
where we are. 
Blackbird fly. Into the light of the dark black night.

Singing

I have always sung. I was in every choir and chorale in school, as well as one of the lucky singers in our eighth grade Octet. I even sang in nursing school at Christmas. Then, singing in the Catholic mass, I had a solo and found myself so nervous my voice shook with fear. I had not expected that. That was the last time I sang in public till the Ren Faire. And then, I was not singing alone, although people could hear my voice and isolate it from others. Don't get me wrong, I never stopped singing. I'd sing in the car, in stores ( once in a drugstore at Broad and Chestnut in Philadelphia, a man in the next aisle over was singing "Chain Gang" with the store's radio, and I chimed in. We sang the entire song together and never saw each other ). I sang with my husband, with my child, with her husband, and to my grandchild. Maria and I sang at Sing Along Sound of Music, with 300 other people.   Two years ago my son-in-law asked me to sing on a project of his. It was a thrill singing into an expensive microphone, wearing headphones, hearing myself and liking it.

Then Maria brought me to karaoke in Delaware this past fall. She had gone before, and has a spectacular voice  and very little fear. She said I could do it. And so I did! We sang a duet, I told her to stand close to me and not let me fall. I expected to faint from fright. I actually took a Xanax that I had left over from an old prescription the doctor gave me for a funeral. I shook, I was barely audible, but I sang. Two weeks later, I sang by myself. Found my own Saturday night karaoke in PA and never miss a week. I sing duets, sing alone, sing lots of songs and lots of styles. I may or may not have one drink, never more, and still feel that I need to tranq myself to get the nerve up, but I don't. I am rarely nervous now. We went to a new place recently, I expected to have stage fright....never happened. I like singing harmony to someone's melody, or vice versa. I have always loved picking out harmonies that work, even as a child. I like singing "hard" songs, love a challenge, will not sing anything I consider too easy. I also love singing gut wrenching, emotional songs. Only Maria and possibly Michael can understand what it means to me to finally be able to let people hear me sing. I went to karaoke with friends once, 12 years ago, suffered through the drunk girl's anthem Girls Just
Wanna Have Fun. Cringed as awful singers banged out top 40 songs, wrecking every note, and never,
 ever said " hey, I can do this". I was too afraid. Now, I will tackle anything I have the desire to, and if I don't know a song 100% I'll run through it once or twice that afternoon, or in the car in the way, but I don't practice.  My new and lovely friend Lisa told me it's more important to feel the song than make sure every note and every breath is perfect. I have never been a technical singer, so that was great advice for me. 

It's very gratifying, especially after all these years of keeping it in, to get compliments from strangers
on my voice. As with other things in my life, I sometimes wonder why this happened for me at this age and not sooner. But, as a late bloomer, I know why. It wasn't time. Now it is. 
God respects me when I work, but He loves me when I sing!