No Tears at Sixty Years

The theme of my birthday is “No Tears at Sixty Years.”

This is the time to dry your eyes and live with no regret if ever there was a time to do this.

Like I’m fond of writing in Italian: Creo nell’ impossibile. In English: I believe in the impossible.

My life ethic is this: “Rule nothing out.”

Remodel the kitchen! Travel to Spain!

Be a risk-taker and rule-breaker at 60.

When the odds are against you has playing along in what others expect you to do gotten you anywhere worth going?

Sixty is the time to rebel the status quo and be yes a Rebel Flower.

In a future blog entry I’ll talk about Christine Platt’s belief that you should act “self-ish.” She wrote the Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living on Less. Her new forthcoming book is Less is Liberation.

In fact the less mental cobwebs cluttering our heads at 60 (or at whatever age we are) the happier and healthier we’ll be.

On tap in June: delightful digs into ideas that can bring cheer.

We Found Love Song by Song

After reading hard-hitting non-fiction I’ve turned to bubblegum books like We Found Love: Song by Song by Annie Zaleski.

It features love songs from 1936 to 2019 from Fred Astaire’s “The Way You Look Tonight” to Harry Styles “Adore You.”

With anecdotes of how the tunes were ccreated.

The 1992 Cure song “Friday I’m in Love” has been one of my favorite songs of theirs.

You can check this book out of the library for a fun short read in a couple of days.

In 1966 the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer” featured this band that was originally a set of characters in The Monkees’ TV show that I loved to watch as a kid.

In 1965 Sonny and Cher were famous with “I Got You Babe.” The section on this song detailed that Cher would be thrown out of restaurants back then because of the clothes she wore.

The 1986 Peter Gabriel song “In Your Eyes” is featured here.

I liked the Jeffrey Gaines “In Your Eyes” better. The singer performed at BB King’s pre-Covid before that music-and-food venue shut down.

Have you ever loved your outfit more than the guy who took you on a date to a nightclub who you were seeing not dating?

Not every song talked about in We Found Love narrates a rosy romance. A list of such songs includes Blondie’s “One Way or Another” which is about a stalker actually.

Spring is here. April is the month of Sprouting Grass Moon in the lunar calendar.

Time I say for casting aside the acrimony against each other. Time for using our voices to take a stand against injustice of course.

Yet more than this spring should be a time of yes rebirth and rejuvenation.

Reprising the parts of our lives that we loved that have fallen away. Rejoicing in the person we were meant to be.

Love Wins. That’s all there is to it.

Bath Bombs Not War Bombs

After this I won’t be talking about the hard stuff. I intend to transfer to other topics.

For at least 5 years I’ve known that gas-guzzling U.S. military machines are the real cause of global warming.

President Obama extended the Afghanistan war for decades. So–who’s kidding who about plastic straws being evil?

I was against the first Iraq war in 1991. The current president increased spending on the Pentagon and has bombed Yemen. Even though on the campaign trail he said he was against war.

Do we really need to be fighting wars? Funny how our government doesn’t like how Iran’s government is run and how its leaders treat their citizens.

Yet Americans are supposed to accept that our government spends billions on forever wars and cuts spending on welfare like Medicaid and SSA retirement benefits.

With the billions in arms that we sell to Israel why can’t we use that money to prop up the SSA retirement money Trust for Americans?

No one on either side of the aisle has stopped the wars. Women and children are killed in the wars so why claim abortion is a greater evil than war?

It’s OK for men to kill in a war and they’re valorized–yet women are deemed murderers for choosing to get an abortion.

I don’t think the Liberal political system is any better.

I’ve said all I care to about this for now. Coming up a return to talking about what can give everyone joy in the face of despair.

Like the cover of the spring issue of Magnolia Journal attests it’s the season for:

“Making Space for the Good & Lasting Moments.”

With all that’s going on that’s not right we can choose peace over combat compassion over judgment bath bombs over war bombs.

The Nutmeg’s Curse

It’s funny or maybe not how a common pantry staple like a bottle of nutmeg was once a resource the Dutch East India Company harvested with slave labor in the global south in the eighteenth century.

I won’t tolerate capitalist racism like that and which is still going on in Asia and elsewhere. I will tell you to check out of the library or even buy and read The Nutmeg’s Curse by Amital Ghosh. The Brooklyn author exposes the biggest culprit of climate change as gas-guzzling U.S. military machines.

Refugees flee their home countries because of the wars. Ninety-five percent are law-abiding citizens. The floods and wildfires that climate change cause are what uproot people to America as well.

I’ve been anti-war for decades. I frown on nationalism too.

The neoliberal political creed centers personal responsibility as the marker of economic security–when it’s systems and policies like neoliberalism that keep people in our place.

No–I’m not always Green and in light of the fact that capitalism is the cause of climate change.

A woman I helped out as a thank-you gift gave me a plastic bottle of strawberry poundcake foaming hand wash. I took the gift and will buy another bottle for myself as I’ve come to like it.

So–ease up on yourself when you order take-out in a plastic container. Recycle the container and be satisfied you’re done with it.

The greater harm is that hot plastic leaches chemicals into food. So–transfer the food to a dish when it arrives.

I’m all for giving a Thank You that delights the receiver.

Discovering a Better Life

The subtitle of the book above tells it all about the theme: How to Discover a Better Life. I submit that we can create improved health, wealth, and happiness for ourselves by engaging in a simple joy. This happy habit doesn’t cost $3,500 and can be had for a song throughout the year.

In synchronicity, I found the book The Art of Flaneuring: How to Wander with Intention and Discover a Better Life.

Italians in Italy take a passeggiata in the evening after dinner.

The author Erika Owen gets at the penchant for fashion flair on a jaunt thus: “The nightly passeggiata is seen as an opportunity to flaunt your best style. Locals dress up and, as they pass, gossip on what (or who) everyone is wearing.”

In an early chapter Owen quotes people on their walking habits and why they engage in flaneuring.

Per Justin:

“I like to think this parallels life. The struggle makes you appreciate the beauty.”

Like other flaneurs he was aware that the issues you face dissolve as you get in physical activity.

Owen attests that for women:

“It was a long fight to win our places on the sidewalk, one we’re still battling to this day.”

Owen tells readers to check out Jacqueline L. Scott’s blog Black Outdoors to read the post “A Black Flaneur in the ‘Hood.”

For the cost of a pair of walking shoes and the right athletic gear to flaneur in this hobby is a cheaper alternative to jet-setting.

Even rolling down the street in a wheelchair can be an act of flaneuring. Or rolling down the road in a park.

Airplane Mode

Everyone should read this book which exposes the racist colonial exploration roots of modern tourism.

I’ve had no interest at all in traveling to Asia or the Caribbean Islands or anywhere that local people live in poverty.

Nor do I like going to beaches–and Coney Island is a beach right in my hometown that is famous. Why would I go to Cambodia to fry on a beach when I don’t want to glisten in the sun in my own backyard.

Plus–hello–I’m a woman so traveling alone in another country is risky.

Airplane Mode was unsettling in its reality that American tourists are really only engaging in consumerism when they travel the globe and buy trinkets and souvenirs in India and Africa.

I would be interested in reading about the demographic composition of tourists: their source of income; their mindset; why they have the need to travel 12 hours on an airplane to bake on a beach in Bali.

Other countries build new hotels to keep up with the demand for tourists coming into their lands.

I just don’t get the love of beaches and cruises and the desire to see the Taj Mahal or Great Wall of China either

Nor do I have any interest whatsoever in traveling to Paris where it’s said they don’t like Americans as we won’t learn French.

There’s a better way of spending our extra money that I’m going to talk about in a coming blog entry.

It hinges on treasuring what we have and living a life we love. Without needing to go into debt to go on vacation to escape burnout or grind culture or other toxic trouble.

For one I think a person can find the job they love and remain employed at it. Not that the paycheck is always going to be great. Yet you can love your life right where you are.

Yes choosing carefully what we spend money on–and opting to forego the Cambodian Carnival Cruise in favor of fun right at home–could be the ticket to paradise.

Buying Boycott

This was sent to me in an email yesterday:

People’s Union USA Calls For National Boycott In A ‘Feb 28 Economic Blackout’

Pamela N. Danziger

Senior Contributor Forbes

Pam Danziger reports on retail, focused on the luxury consumer market.

Feb 25, 2025,07:06am EST

Updated Feb 25, 2025, 10:47am EST

Topline

A consumer-activist group founded by John Schwarz has launched a grassroots campaign to halt spending online or instore and not use credit or debit cards for 24 hours on Friday, Feb. 28, in an attempt to disrupt the economic order and “take back control of our economy, government and future of our country,” reports CBSNews.

Key Facts

The People’s Union boycott calls for no spending on fast food, gas or at major retailers – “No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy” – beginning at midnight on Feb. 27 through midnight Feb. 28.

Purchases deemed essential, i.e. food, medicine, emergency supplies, are permitted but only in cash and with small, local businesses.

After the single-day spending pause, People’s Union plans week-long protests against specific retailers, including Amazon Mar. 7-14, Nestlé Mar. 21-28 and Walmart Apr. 7-13.

In an unaffiliated protest, Black faith leaders are calling for a 40-day “fast” or boycott of Target to protest its dialing back DEI initiatives to run during Lent starting on Ash Wednesday, Mar. 5.

The Power of Women’s Anger

I recommend everyone read this book not just women. Men who don’t want to reinforce misogyny by remaining silent when other men degrade women should read this.

The truth exposed in Rage Becomes Her–like the reality Kathleen Hanna expressed in Rebel Girl– is not invented fiction. Not should this treatment be tolerated in everyday life.

At the end of the book the author itemizes a list of things women can do to use our anger in constructive ways.

A Colorful Way of Living

I recommend that everyone buy and read the book above. I checked it out of the library and read it in 3 hours.

The cofounder of the Vera Bradley lifestyle brand wrote the guide. Round about 12 years ago I bought the Vera Bradley messenger bag seen in the second photo.

I will quote from the book in this review:

“Look for ways to put beauty where it doesn’t exist,” Vera would say.

“That very colorful way of thinking evolved into one of Vera Bradley’s driving principles–We create beautiful solutions.”

What beautiful solutions–to living our lives; to how we connect with each other; to what we think and feel–can we design and refine?

Creating memorable experiences like the Vera Bradley team does is the second way to craft happiness.

How about for a dinner party use cloth napkins and a ceramic pitcher? Change the tablecloth and use a different centerpiece each season.

Little touches can make a big difference.

There’s beauty everywhere if we open our eyes to see it.

Today more than ever in America it’s time to do what I coined: Take a B.I.T.E. out of life–to express Beauty Individuality Truth and Empathy.

A colorful way of living is the best way of living if you ask me. Accepting and embracing all colors and creeds of everyone living on earth.

The cofounders of Vera Bradley had an Aha moment about designing colorful bags after a layover in an airport when they rued the drab neutral colors of the luggage women carried.

Vera Bradley was Barbara Bradley’s fashion model mother.

With $500 in seed money they built a brand worth half a billion today.

Per Barbara Bradley everyone should Be Nice. If being nice is good enough for her I’ll take this from other people too.

We should not be afraid to show our True Colors. We can do this in style with a Vera Bradley handbag.

Cheers! to living colorful and loving colorful and laughing colorful.

Breaking My Fashion Vow

The green sweater that I bought in a PXS arrived in a PM a petite medium not extra small. So I returned it for a credit. Even in a PXS I wouldn’t have kept the sweater. The color green was not attractive and the metallic threads in the sweater looked like tinsel. So I sent it back.

Owing to donating a second sweater to the thrift shop I bought a different metallic sweater in a PS. Too big I sent it back for the PXS. I have the opposite effect of most women in feeling like I’m The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

The older we get us women can literally shrink and get shorter if not slimmer. I’m only 5’0″ tall. I would not like to think I’m going to lose an inch or two in height.

This week I had an epiphany: that every clothing item we buy should be a “Wow!” I call this refining our approach. Engaging in “collecting” clothes not shopping for them. Buying an item after careful and measured consideration.

I wasn’t the one to invent the concept of having a Word of the Year. Another Fashionista did. Yet I’m picking up on this. My Word of the Year is Refine.

To refine how I shop and what I buy definitely. Also to refine what I expect from people and to refine what I think I’m capable of.

Holding everyone to an impossible standard–even expecting yourself to live up to this ideal– is going to cause all of us to be unhappy and resentful.

Far better to embrace a fluid way of life where we accept the changeable nature of who we are and how we live and of others along these lines too.

For one I bought 2 fancy sweaters at a reduced cost. Paying $56 total. I also bought a red handbag when I discarded the 3 pocketbooks.

We can get bored wearing the same clothing items over and over. The winter is cold and can be dark. It can cause seasonal sadness. Buying “things” won’t improve our mood per se. Yet getting two new clothing items can give us a lift when we wear them with clothes we already own.

I rarely buy more than 2 clothing items each season anyway. This is why we should fill in the gaps in our wardrobe with stunners that we’ll look good and feel good in. Again collecting not shopping impulsively.

Buying 2 “Wow!” items instead of 5 or 6 mediocre “Okay, I’ll take it” items after a casual shopping trip to the mall or after an online spending spree.

Heck–I also bought a denim midi skirt. Out out is going in the garbage a cotton knit ankle skirt I’ve had for too long to remember how long.

As I approach turning 60 I’m struck with the idea that a woman–everyone of any gender gender expression really–should be good to themselves as they get older.

Post-50 is not the time to settle for less. It’s the time to expect good things for ourselves. Not impossible feats. Good things. There’s a difference.

So understanding that each of us is doing the best we can with what we were given. That maybe when you meet the love of your life it’s OK to want to buy a fancy new frock to paint the town with this person.

I’m padlocking my pocketbook after these purchases. The dilemma I have is what kind of gift to get myself for my 60th birthday.

I’m thinking jewelry.