In Praise of midlife love -- is that a thing?

Delivered to my email today from Poets.org, this love poem by Sarah Browning entitled "Praisesong." A contemporary poem about lovers in midlife -- how refreshing. Here are the first seven lines:

"Praisesong" 

by Sarah Browning 

At the coffee shop you love,
white mugs heavy on the table
between us, young baristas—
spiky haired and impatient—
cannot imagine how two people
so old to them can feel so wanton,
coffee growing cold between us,
middle-aged bodies growing hot
under the other’s gaze. Even now, 

Anyone over 40 knows that seeing poems, movies, and romance novels about mature lovers is far too uncommon. Even more rare are romantic narratives in which one partner is a woman in midlife or an older age group. Fiction in which some man over 40 finds a woman in her 30s or 40s who loves him are much easier to find. Is that because it's also more common in real life. Still, I wonder sometimes that perhaps not only do younger people avoid stories about older people in love but older people also don't care to read or see such stories.

Humans like to identify with their fictional heroes and heroines. Is it possible that as much as we in the AARP crowd like to complain about a dearth of stories about people like us that we, too, don't want to identify with lovers over 40? Is it that we don't want to imagine wrinkled bodies in passionate embrace?

I don't see many romance novels marketed to people over 40. On the other hand, I don't look for them regularly, and I wouldn't want to read anything as formulaic as those I read in my youth. When I was young and dumb, I could suspend belief much more easily than I can now.

In any case, the movie and book Our Souls at Night as well as the Netflix series Grace and Frankie are doing well. And I think Nora Roberts may have a few books with older heroines. There was also the series the Hot Flash Club by Nancy Thayer. I wish she had written more of that series. The women were real and the stories were both poignant and amusing.

My commentary here is based purely on personal observations. I should probably research this topic to see if my intuition proves accurate.

Blues and the Music of Aging?

After listening to the blues channel a bit this morning, I'm starting to think that's where you go if you want to research the poetry of aging. Bettye Lavette's "Talking Old Soldiers," for instance, is a brooding piece about a forgotten man whose friends are all buried now at the local graveyard. I also heard James Armstrong's "Blues at the Border" in which there are the lines "You see the world has changed. We got blues at the border."

I say that the blues may be the music of aging, but with the caveat that both these songs are by baby boomers. The blues covers all kinds of misery and joy, and in aging, just as in other life experiences, there's both. And as I close this, I hear Joe Hinton singing the classic, "Funny," also known as "Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away."

Ay! What a week!

My eyes ached. I thought for a moment I had crashed and burned. Aging, damn it, was getting the best of me, and I was waking some days with that blue moon in my eye, but I made it through.

Sorry for speaking in code, people, but I've learned discretion can save a body trouble.

Time to go back to the gym, too. Missing so many sessions kicked me into the stress pool.

Playing Alabma 3's "Woke Up This Morning" ... again.

How Many Hits Will this Poem Get from Sex Surfers?

Sex and the 50-Year-Old Woman
By Nordette N. Adams

With a body like Helen Mirren's--
never burdened by babies stretching
skin to an alien curve--she is much at 50
the same as 30, bold and glistening,
fevered with lust.

With a body like Venus of Willendorf,
stretched after bearing fresh blood,
she forgets her name, contemplates
skin alien as cratered moons cooling,
damp and mysterious--the unexplored cave.

© 2010 Nordette N. Adams

The Poetry of Reading Too Many Political Blogs

Mirror on a Warm Spring Evening
By Nordette N. Adams

I have lived half a century on this
green earth, once drizzled with God's love,
now brown, cracked, and withering.

The sun beats her flesh in early spring
like an angry lover, drunk on power.
The oceans eat her toes and fingers like acid.

I look ahead at the unknown country, and back
at the trodden path but like a nomad wracked
by senility forget why horizons comfort.

Vines grow gray and thorny in the distance,
surviving on unclean rain. A breeze rustles
brittle leaves to hiss a viper's song.

I venture into the dark wood, seeking
the River of Life, parting the wiry bush,
eye out for the clearing where I may recline.

The world is like an old woman, carrying us--
a stubborn, ungrateful child, a smart-mouthed
creature--we who shun playing well with brethren.

She has purpose but has been thwarted
by greedy mouths of those she loves,
shucked by her nature, her giving roundness.

© 2010 Nordette N. Adams

Aquarius from Hair via Fifth Dimension: I'm Dating Myself

I'll be turning 50 in less than 10 days. I was born under the sign of Aquarius. But that's not why I love the song Aquarius from the musical Hair, which has been revived on Broadway. I love it because it's so mystical, blooming hope.

Also, it reminds me of happier moments of my youth. My mother took me to the original Hair after the road tours started and I recall the big deal it was back then because at the end the actors get naked on stage.

After blipping the song, I thought how much I love it and tweeted that it's time to get the MP3. The video above is the Fifth Dimensions version, the one that stayed on the radio for a long time when I was a child.

Teddy Pendergrass Dies at 59

Multiple news sources, including The Root, report that R&B legend Teddy Pendergrass died yesterday of colon cancer at age 59. The Philadelphia, Penn., native passed away in a Philadelphia hospital.

Dan DeLuca, the Philadelphia Inquirer's music critic opens his piece on Pendergrass, saying:

... the gruff-voiced Philadelphia soul powerhouse who belted out hits like "The Love I Lost" and "If You Don't Know Me By Now" as lead singer of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in the 1970s for Philadelphia International Records and went on to forge an influential solo career as a seductive bedroom balladeer, has died. (PI)

MTV has a write-up of the singer's life, which includes how he influenced the work of other performers such as Kanye West and Jaz-Z. It also quotes a tweet from singer Tyrese, "who showed a twitpic of him with the soul legend at Pendergrass' wedding (and) wrote a series of messages."

"I'M SAD," he said. "I was just informed from Teddy Pendergrass' wife that Teddy is no longer us with us ... Rest in heaven." (MTV story quoting Tyrese on Twitter)

CNN reports on the singer's death as well. However, its story posted at 1:32 a.m. today makes no mention of cancer:

His family did not reveal details about his illness, but said it was related to complications from a 1982 car accident, Barbaris said.

"His beloved family surrounded him. The world has lost one of its greatest voices and performers," a statement from Barbaris said.

"His family is devastated. He has three children and, even though it was expected, it still hurts," she said. (See photo gallery at Essence Magazine's site, The amazing Teddy Pendergrass.)

The crooner, who many affectionately knew as just "Teddy," started in music with a group called the Cadillacs in the late 1960s and was still with the group when it merged with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, according to his official Web site. (Read more at CNN)

Like Essence, the Washington Post has a photo slideshow of Teddy P. The paper also reports the same news from The Root via the Associated Press:

Pendergrass was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2009 and had undergone surgery in June of last year. According to son Teddy Pendergrass II, the R&B legend had a difficult recovery. "He will live on through his music," Pendergrass said of his father in a statement. (AP)

I am saddened and also surprised because I didn't know he was struggling with cancer. A fan of Teddy P., I added his hits to my MP3 player in November, seeing that I hadn't moved his work from CD to digital in my collection. I realized it while listening to "It Don't Hurt Now" on Blip.FM, after which I tweeted the song.

I have my share of warm memories of listening to Teddy P. Here are some of my favorites.

"Wake Up Everybody," 1975, performed with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes was an R&B hit that reflected the changing times and call to action of the black community in the 70s.

Grammy-nominated "If You Don't Know Me By Now," 1972, was also recorded with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.

In 1978, I may have been standing at a record store when the doors opened for my copy of his album Life is a Song Worth Singing. Back then I bought music I liked almost as soon as the songs hit the airwaves, and I wore out "Close the Door," and "When Somebody Loves You Back."

He was one of the few singers who could talk through sections of his songs and I found it believable, not disturbing to the flow or phony.

When his Rolls Royce crashed in 1982, reportedly due to brake failure, and as a result he was paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair, I felt like somebody I knew personally had been injured. With others, I thought that was the end of his career, but he soon made appearances again. Per Wikipedia and other sources, he performed at the Live Aid concert in 1985, and also according to Wikipedia, he recorded a duet, "Hold Me" in 1984, with a then-unknown Whitney Houston.

Now I'm remembering more songs by Pendergrass that I've loved both before and after 1978 that I liked and purchased. However, I'm not the only one recalling Teddy Pendergrass today.

Marvalus at Conversations with Marva recalling Teddy under "Come on and Go With Me." She remembers that her mother was "in love" with Teddy Pendergrass.

Natasha at Young, Black and Fabulous informed readers of the singer's passing, and immediately received comments from those who appreciated his music. And at MrsGrapevine, the blogger writers, "My heart is broken.

My Old School Friday people know how much I love Teddy Pendergrass. Words just can’t express what his music does to me. In spite of the car accident of 1982 that left him paralyzed, he was one of the sexiest singers in my mom’s generation. My mother said, at concerts women would literally throw their panties on the stage. (We can’t relate to that because none of today’s artist have that much power with their voice). (MrsGrapevine.com)

Finally, here he is performing his Joy live. He was nominated for a Grammy in 1989 for best male R&B vocal performance on this one.

Echoing Tyrese, may Teddy P. rest in musical heaven.

Also syndicated at BlogHer.com.

Dance! Boogie Wonderland: The Only Way to Time Travel

I watched this and was hurled back to a disco dance floor off the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. The only way to time travel, Earth Wind & Fire with The Emotions, Boogie Wonderland, 1979.

Who Wants to Live Forever? Queen in Midlife, O.K. Sometimes I Quote Myself

Just read a great post at Midlife Bloggers, "Eternal Youthfulness: Is it a Myth? Do We Even Want It?" by Elaine.

My comment on that:

What I think we really fear losing about our youth is the sense of excitement towards our unlived years; our thirst to do what we’ve only imagined. Life after forty smacks a lot of the same ole, same ole. (from the MLB post)

I’ve noticed this as well. Movie plots are all repeats, new novels are rarely novel or unique, and I’ve heard those jokes before. It takes work to keep the passion flowing and a zest for life, to dig yourself out of a rut. :-) But you also have the advantage of wisdom and being more discriminating about what seems new to you before you try it.

Would I drink? Writing on vampires recently puts a whole new twist on my thought process about that. And, while not a vampire show, a line from the Highlander theme by Queen keeps running through my mind, “Who wants to live forever? Who wants to liver forever?” Hmm. Eternal youth with eternal energy and fantastic health maybe great, but I wonder if the price would be to never learn the right lessons. Enjoyed the post.

Follow me on Twitter @nordette_verite

Somedays I'd welcome a quick end, and others, I wish I could gone on forever.

OSF: I Love You, Baby (Old School Friday)

This week's theme for Old School Friday is songs that have the word "baby" in the title. So many selections.

I'm a sucker for Luther, what can I say, so the first song that came to mind was "Since I Lost My Baby" by either Luther Vandross or the The Temptations, but then I changed my mind and decided to go with a song that came out when I was 9 years old, and that's "Baby, I'm For Real" by The Originals. Think about it, people still want to know that the person they love is for real and not just playing with their hearts.


My next choice is James Ingram with Patti Austin, "Baby, Come to Me." I loved this song the first time I heard it on General Hospital:

"Baby, Come to Me" is an R&B song, written by Rod Temperton for a male-female duet. The original version, performed by Patti Austin and James Ingram (with Michael McDonald contributing background vocals), and produced by Quincy Jones, appeared on Austin's 1981 album, Every Home Should Have One. As a single it had minor chart success in early 1982. Later that year, however, it gained new exposure as the romantic theme song for Luke Spencer, a leading character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. ABC received so many inquiries about the song that Warner Brothers decided to re-release it as a single, and it shot to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1983. The song also spent three weeks at #1 on the adult contemporary chart. (from Wikipedia)

The creators of the Old School Friday meme are Mrs. Grapevine and Marvalus at OBW and has these rules, if you want to join the party.

Other participants: Check out all participants at THIS link. If you're not on the list, please let me know by leaving a comment on my OSF Participants post.

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Midlife Apocalypse: Oprah's Plugging Facebook

Here's the joke: Even Barbie's had a Facebook midlife crisis. What do you mean who's Barbie? I mean Mattel's Barbie of course! Has Oprah joined her?

Facebook Midlife Crisis is in the Urban Dictionary also. It's got six thumbs up:

Facebook mid-life crisis

All of the 35-50 year old people that can finally make their own Facebook accounts. They try to reenact what the younger crowd does on Facebook by tagging pics and acting slutty.

A: Dude, your Mom has a Facebook account? She poked me and asked to be her friend. That's weird.

B: Yeah, she is having a Facebook mid-life crisis. (UD)

This is where you make a note to yourself to watch BlogHer Backtalk and answer the question, "Would you friend your child on Facebook?" But first, let's see what Oprah's saying about Facebook. Oprah's over 50. Is Facebook age sliding?

I chuckled reading the following at Twitter.

 
I checked the story out and it's true. One of the hot topics at Oprah.com right now is "The Face Behind Facebook"

In the new virtual age, social networking sites have taken the world by storm. With 175 million users and counting, Facebook has risen above the rest. In fact, if there were a Facebook nation, it would be the world's 6th largest country!

People around the world are reconnecting with long-lost friends and relatives, uniting on common ground from politics to Chia pets. Every day, half a million people join the social network. (Oprah.com)

You don't say!

Oprah had CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on the show, told her audience "the 24-year-old is reportedly worth close to $1 billion," and then you too can learn Facebook lingo!

I am a member of Facebook, but for a long time I had a page and didn't add friends, upload a real picture, or even visit. I'm active now, but I'm still not keen on all the applications, and that's because I'm getting overwhelmed by more stuff to learn on the Net despite having been online since 1996, back when you could only set up pages if you knew how to hard code HTML.

Also, I laid low online for a while for personal reasons. However, some people avoid Facebook, MySpace, and similar social networks because they have Facebook phobia.

Another reason I avoided Facebook at first was it started as an exclusive site. I wasn't a Harvard student or alum and so the site wasn't open to me. A job forced me to join the site later, had to be on Facebook to connect with certain people. After the job ended, I forgot about the site because I shun elitism and still associated Facebook with that. Not that I have anything against Ivy League schools. My issue was a lingering sense that non-Ivy Leaguers would not be welcomed there, which is not true.

I suppose once Zuckerberg realized Facebook was a goldmine, he shunned elitism as well, opening the site up to more types of groups, the young capitalist.

Being active on the site has benefits such as interaction with people with whom you've lost touch, and it can help you to market a product such as a blog or book, but that wasn't its original purpose. So, you still have to be careful not to spam people. You need to show you want relationships not just a place to hawk your wares. Yet, good information and content is the currency of the World Wide Web; so, if you have nothing to share, you'll be ignored.

There are other reasons people avoid Facebook. Writing her article "Facebook junkie? It must be another midlife crisis," Detroit News Home Life columnist Marney Rich Keenan said:

My daughters set me up with a Facebook account several months ago, but I put off using it until recently. My reticence had nothing to do with the recent flap over ownership of content and everything to do with not wanting to become attached to yet another distraction.

As someone who could make people-watching an avocation, I knew that I would find nirvana in Facebook, that it would hook me in the same way the Bravo channel does when it rolls out another season of "The Real Housewives of New York City." I hate the fact that if I walk by a TV in our house, and it's on, I am glued to it like a magnet. Mindlessly, unwillingly. It's like a drug.

I also worried that I would be consigned to yet another network of people I would feel obligated to correspond with regularly (Read more)

I've felt like her before, like a woman clinging to the rim of a black hole.

Reading about Facebook midlife crises and Oprah promoting Facebook, I thought of Kate Wilder's blog post that I mentioned in "Midlife Coffee with Joni Mitchell." Kate wrote the following at My So-called Midlife:

I feel bad that Facebook, which began as a way for students to connect, is being overrun with boomers like me. It’s bad enough that we’re trying to be our kids’ buds, listening to their music, helicoptering over them so they don’t end up in the “wrong” college and dressing as youthfully as they are; now kids can’t even have their own online community without their parents butting in! ("No, You Can't Be My Friend on Facebook")

And now Oprah's got the Facebook bug? So, you're right Kate: Facebook's being overrun by boomers. And you're right George: It's mainstream now.

Does that mean its coolness must fade? Can't you be older but still hip and fresh?

BTW, there's a "Facebook for Boomers" according to an old Newsweek article, called TBD.com. No, it's not part of Facebook. Robin Wolaner, the woman who started Parenting Magazine started it.

I just wasn't sure—at 50, newly divorced, with two young children I wanted to be around for—that I wanted to be a CEO again. So I spent a year trying to convince myself that this was not a great business idea—or that someone else should be the CEO instead of me. Enter David Markus, who'd been the editor in chief who led Parenting to success. David loved the idea. There was just one thing, I told him: I had a lump. Two doctors had told me it was probably benign, but if it wasn't, I was going to be a breast-cancer patient, not a CEO. (Wolaner writing at Newsweek)

Wolaner has a compelling story, but still I ask, "Have you heard of TBD.com? It's tag line is "a social network for grown-ups." Anyone here a member of Tee Bee Dee?"

What made boomers flock to Facebook instead of her site? Is it that we wanted to keep an eye on our children? Maybe we don't want to be "grown-ups."

But wait! There's more on Oprah's Facebook discoveries:

Though Facebook started out as a network for college students, its appeal has reached users of all ages. "People over the age of 30, that group is actually the fastest-growing group on the site," Mark says. "People are even using it to connect with President Obama. He has the most connections out of anyone on the site—almost 6 million. He was using the service throughout his campaign to give people updates about what was going on with the campaign. Even now that he's in office he's using it to connect with supporters about the different packages he's trying to get through." (Oprah.com)

Oh, I get it. Obama uses Facebook and that's a selling point to everyone, even Oprah. He's the reason boomers are taking over the site.

Tidbit: Even if he'd never run for president and Facebook had never expanded beyond Ivy League members, he and his wife could still have pages there. Both of them graduated from Harvard Law, an accomplishment with the added perk that makes them old school Facebook.

I don't know if Oprah has a personal page at Facebook, but her show has a fan site there, and she posted the link at Oprah.com. When I went to "become a fan of the show," I saw another BlogHer CE at the top of Oprah's fan list, mainly because she's on my friends list as well. So, now I know we both watch Oprah. A while back I also friended Michelle Obama on Facebook, where she has a sweet picture of herself, Sasha, Malia, and her husband, but I doubt I'll be eating dinner at the White House soon. Still, it could be the first place they reveal the name of the the Portuguese Water Dog puppy they're expected to adopt.

So, we boomers thought we were cool and trendy, ahead of the curve with our Facebook pages, MySpace friends, Twitter alliances, Blackberries, iPhones, and recent sign-up to BlogHer Chatter. But the media and younger people are telling us we get no free pass to coolness. Oprah's talking Facebook, and we're just one of the midlife throng.

Cross-posted at Blogher.com

OSF: Childhood Singers Resurrected

This week's theme for Old School Friday is "childhood singers" and I can't think of anybody other than the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds because I was born in 1960 and don't recall many more child singers than that from my childhood. I refuse to post the Osmonds, not even "One Bad Apple" because I remember being a little girl angry at them because I felt they were "copying" the Jackson 5. Yes, I was a very loyal J-5 fan.

So, how do I interpret this meme: Is it singers from my childhood or is it singers who made it big in childhood or is it childhood singers who were popular when I was in childhood? You can see my quandary.

Before I go farther, thank you to OSF participants who've taken the time to add me to your participants list. I appreciate it.

O.K. I'll split the difference on figuring out the meme, I thought at first. I figured I'd post The Partridge Family. Yes, they had a TV show, and yes, they weren't actually related, but they did actually record music that ended up on the radio when I was a child and while most of them were children. But I'm not going to put you through that today no matter how much I liked the TV show.

Instead, here's Gladys Knight performing "Too Young" on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour in 1952 at age 7. I'll repeat that--at age 7!



Next I'm going with someone who was had his first hit when I was 3 years old and who also began his singing career as a child. And what a career it's been. I present the one and only "Little Stevie Wonder" performing his breakout hit, "Fingertips" at age 12, possibly shortly before he turned 13.


The creators of the Old School Friday meme are Mrs. Grapevine and Marvalus at OBW and has these rules, if you want to join the party.

Post a comment at this link.

Other participants: Check out all participants at THIS link. If you're not on the list, please let me know by leaving a comment on my OSF Participants post.

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