Here’s Summer! With three teens under my roof, freedom and independence are never far from my mind even when it’s not the 4th of July. On the radio, I hear lyrics of pop songs like Wasted and Fancy that revel in the freedom of being unconsciousness, blacking out as a convenient excuse for “I don’t know what happened to me!” Do the young seriously believe adults don’t crave this same relief from living the straight and narrow?! Red, white, and blue don’t do as much for me as seeing red lips pop on black and white with Powerful Goddess Cora Poage.
Pema Chodron speaks of a more genuine freedom in this excerpt from her book When Things Fall Apart:
We are told from childhood that something is wrong with us, with the world, and with everything that comes along: it’s not perfect, it has rough edges, it has a bitter taste, it’s too loud, too soft, too sharp, too wishy-washy. We cultivate a sense of trying to make things better because something is bad here, something is a mistake here, something is a problem here.
To dissolve this dualism, we must question our habitual tendency to struggle against what’s happening to us or in us. What if we move toward difficulties than backing away? We don’t get this kind of encouragement very often.
Everything that occurs in our lives is not only usable and workable but is actually the path itself. We can use everything that happens to us as the means for waking up. We can use everything that occurs–whether it’s our emotions and thoughts or our seemingly outer situation–to show us where we are asleep and how we can wake up completely, utterly, without reservations.
In the practice of lojong, a slogan says, “When the world is filled with evil, all mishaps, all difficulties, should be transformed into the path of enlightenment.”
We’re trying to learn not to split ourselves between our “good side” and our “bad side,” between our “pure side” and our “impure side.” The elemental struggle is with our feeling of being wrong, with our guilt and shame at what we are. That’s what we have to befriend. The point is that we can dissolve the sense of dualism between us and them, between this and that, between here and there, by moving toward what we find difficult and wish to push away.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share your blacks, whites, and reds.
Women want men, careers, money, children, friends,
freedom, respect, love,
and three dollar pantyhose that won’t run.
Phyllis Diller
We don’t have TV, so the only time I see an ad is when I catch up on the latest episode of “Reign” with my daughter on CW.com. She is thirteen soon and thinks she’s twenty. She wants the right to roam and bike the streets alone like her much bigger and older brothers. She tests my resolve to mother through reason because she is certain she will know what to do in dire circumstances and that nothing bad can possibly happen in broad daylight.
I admit there is a very good chance I will always be more concerned for her safety even when she’s as old and tall as her brothers. I also recognize the disparity with which we speak and treat children of either sex as exemplified by this ad I love:
National Science Foundationcites the statistic that while 66 percent of 4th grade girls say they like science and math, only 18 percent of all college engineering majors are female. This powerful commercial is a partnership between Verizon and Makers, narrated byGirls Who Codefounder, Reshma Saujani. Girls Who Code provides free intensive summer programs to encourage girls in their sophomore or junior year in highschool to explore their love of technology and computer science. Prior computer science experience is not required!
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share how you encourage equal opportunity among your children.
“What did you love about Maleficent?,” I asked my daughter after our very happy Father’s Day at the movies without the men.
“She’s very pretty!” she smiled. May we all be as easy to please! Indeed, what’s not to love about a strong and beautiful heroine–albeit a villain, too?
Maleficent is the wronged and misunderstood woman in this revisionist-backstory fairytale. She suffers the deepest betrayal imaginable from the person she loves and trusts the most, the one with whom she shares her first “true love’s” kiss. While it is mainly about bloodlust after being violated and stripped of our power, it is also about the journey of moving forward and making the most of what is. I like how it reverses the pedestrian notion of true love, a necessary expansion of every child’s understanding of what real love can be.
Best of all, I love how it is a cautionary tale against quick judgments and our propensity to take every “victim’s” side. Like King Stefan, it is human nature to choose the version of the story that makes us look good and pitiful. It takes courage to notice that when we feel like “Woe is me!,” there is an angle of culpability we’re not admitting. For in every beauty, there is a beast. And in every villain, a heroine who can save herself.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share the beauty in your beast.
That we might learn a thing or two from men on Father’s Day, an excerpt from Elizabeth Wurtzel’s The Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women:
I have no quarrel with The Rules or the advice it gives–it actually seems pretty sound to me–but if we had really come a long way, baby, if men’s perceptions of women had transformed fundamentally and intensely so that we are accepted as full-fledged sexual creatures and romantic operatives who were free to chase or be chased, and if this expanded dimension of women’s sexual personae were not frightening or overwhelming to them, then we would not need The Rules.
So of course the bitch persona appeals to us. It is the illusion of liberation, of libertine abandon. What if you want to be large in a world that would have you be small, diminished? You don’t want to diet, you don’t want to say no, thank you, and pretend somehow that what is there is enough when always, always, you want more. That has been your defining characteristic: You have appetites, and only if you are truly shameless will you even begin to be sated because nothing is ever really enough. Not because you are greedy or insatiable but because you can’t help it, you can’t go along with the fiction that the world would have you believe and adhere to: that you ought to settle and be careful and accept the crumbs that are supposed to pass for a life, this minimized self you are supposed to put up with.
This is about what has become the almost monstrous notion of female desire. this is not about making demands of other people or wearing down those who have their own screams for MORE! to address. You’d be amazed at how often we are reluctant to indulge ourselves by our own means. It is amazing that the smallness of the space we’ve been told to squeeze into has meant that we don’t even know how to ask or what to want.
How nice it must be to just decide I will not be nice, I am never sorry, I have no regrets: what is before me belongs to me. For men, this attitude is second nature, it’s as much in their atmosphere as snow is in an Eskimo’s. They don’t even know how much they assume.
A very Happy Father’s Day to our favorite heroes! Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share what you love about men.
Can’t beat this excellent location between Union Square and the Embarcadero! The BART train to/from the airport stops right at the hotel door (Montgomery station.) Ask Front Desk for rooms on the 8th floor facing the street for a large arch window. The room carpet is a bit tired, but the the staff members are kind, bathrobe and pillows are plump, and their Garden Court is absolutely magnificent! Pianist Gea plays jazz and classical music after 5:00 pm.
My absolute fave in this town and a glorious photo opp! For best photos, visit early in the morning when the sun shines on the majestic columns and all other people are still in bed. Or just sit on a bench by the pond and soak in the beauty of the architecture.
You don’t seriously believe I biked here, do you? I gave up dodging other tourists to take an unusual shot and on my way back to the car, I spied these bikes posing for a photo. Climb up the hill on the far side of the bridge to get the best scenic shots of Alcatraz and the city.
Escape the city crowds and take a scenic drive on the Pacific Coast to the Ritz at Half Moon Bay. Stop for a romantic lunch or dinner, maybe a round of golf with an ocean view or stay the night.
the admiration of many men for the criticism of one,
go ahead, get married.
Katharine Hepburn
A film I’ve been looking forward to seeing has been thoroughly trashed by critics. When it was released at the Cannes Film Festival this month, the family whose story it’s supposed to tell declared it may not be labeled a biopic for failing to represent their version of reality “needlessly glamorized and historically inaccurate.” The director and the US film distributor want different finished versions of the film. The critics were extra harsh in their reviews of Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly. Geoffrey MacNab of The Independentwas already gentle in saying, “Kidman excels in a role in which she is called on to project glamour and suffering in equal measure – and is never allowed to be seen in the same outfit twice.”
Why so much clamor over a movie? Why miss out on a good story by insisting on accuracy and perfection? Goddess knows more pedestrian productions based on the good old formula of sex and violence have made billions in box office revenues. Why not appreciate this film for the relevance of its story line: the human portrait of a woman as a prisoner of her (royal) circumstances, striving to find her own way in the world as she reconciles her needs with those of her family and her man like this Powerful Goddess?
Casting Nicole as Grace is perfect with her regal air and elegant restraint. As a woman, I admire her for shining as her own person, delighting in her own talents, and breaking free from the shadow of her famous ex-husband. I applaud the creators and artists who put their best foot forward with their best intentions in making this film. While critics may have their place in helping us do better, no movie, no art, no life would ever be created or lived if we were to constantly consider their opinion. We must do what we need to do just as critics must do what they do–if they didn’t, we would have to call them fans! Like Grace, we can choose to be kind to ourselves, be our own best friend and supporter especially when venturing to distant lands and new adventures far from the approval of family and friends. And please do so in great style! I personally relish the thought of never having to wear the same outfit twice.
Click on “Leave a Comment” to share how you silence your inner critic.
Charles James, the most influential couturier of the 1940’s and 50’s, is largely unknown to the general public though his revolutionary designs have graced the covers of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Town & Country. Recognized for his genius in the magical use of color and artistic drapery, he started out creating the legendary Gypsy Rose Lee’s breakaway striptease costumes and is best known for his gloriously sculpted ball gowns. I share his great love for the theatrical, the grand and the magnificent!
This week, the Met’s Costume Institute launched an exhibit of his life and designs: Charles James: Beyond Fashion. Curator Harold Koda describes James as “one of a handful of designers to have changed the métier of design. Christian Dior has credited James with inspiring his New Look. And Balenciaga said, ‘James is not America’s best couturier; he is simply the world’s best.’ When you have the two perhaps most important male designers of the mid-20th century endorsing you, you can understand that it’s something of a lack that the general public is not aware of this man’s work.” James invented the spiral-cut taxi dress, the figure eight shirt, the puffer jacket, the no cup bra, and a waistline that expanded with your meal. Koda told Style.com, “[He] was really radical. He treated the creation of clothing as an art”–combined with the exacting precision of structural engineering it seems.
Admire the genius of Charles James at the Met’s Beyond Fashion until August 10, 2014.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share how your life is an art.
xoxox
Elettra Wiedemann in James’ Clover Leaf Gown at the exhibit’s opening night
For Mother’s Day, this Powerful Goddess honors her mother’s Asian heritage. With features that take more after her father’s, something about her eyes suggests barely a whisper of her Eastern roots. We found an ancient screen and ceramic stool as a simple backdrop for her robe and chopstick. I adore photographs that look like old paintings! I also imagine Vivien, the heroine of mixed heritage in Amy Tan’s latest novel, Valley of Amazement, must have been as beautiful as this.
Valley of Amazement has mixed reviews for being long-winded and predictable. With its countless peaks and valleys, how many mother daughter relationships can really be told succinctly? Fewer still are those relationships that don’t defy prediction. For who among us can see beyond the wisdom of our years, no matter whatever age?
This Mother’s day, because I’m in the valley of feeling grossly outnumbered by three teens–each flexing his/her own wings of wanna-be-adult independence minus the responsibilities that come with it–I vow to laugh more knowing that every year that passes is one year closer to being amazed and possibly hearing them say, “OMG, mom was right after all!” A few other funnies on motherhood I wish I wrote:
My mother’s menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it. –Buddy Hackett
Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly. –Ambrose Bierce
A suburban mother’s role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after. -Peter De Vries
Living with a teen is like living with the Taliban: a mom is not allowed to laugh, sing, dance or wear short skirts. –Kathy Lette
The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant—and let the air out of the tires. -Dorothy Parker
I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them. –Phyllis Diller
Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them. –Rita Rudner
The phrase “working mother” is redundant. -Jane Sellman
When your mother asks, “Do you want a piece of advice?” it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway. -Erma Bombeck
I was dating a transvestite, and my mother said, ‘Marry him. You’ll double your wardrobe. –Joan Rivers
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share what’s amazing (or at least what makes you laugh) about motherhood.
Though my teens may disagree and take the opportunity for granted, I value education as the path to a better future. For the less privileged, giving children a chance at such a future eases the lives of the women who raise them. So for Mother’s Day this year, let’s make it easy to surprise ourselves and our mom by bidding on the array of unique gift ideas on auction to support The Promise Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping underserved children with learning disabilities.
A live silent auction happens on May 6th, 2014 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in NYC, but don’t be shy about bidding online until May 13th. Thank you so much for empowering women, making children feel loved, and do tweet, share, pin, instagram your favorite picks!
On Earth Day, this Powerful Goddess dances with gratitude for Mother Earth’s generosity, paying homage to the source of all life: Water.
FIT’s Niki Lars turned me on to the youtube video First World Problems Read by Third World People for the charity organizationWaterIsLife.com. Haitian adults and children mouth the minor gripes and irritations that first world citizens post on Twitter–a witty role reversal calling our attention to the blessings we take for granted while many parts of world do without the most basic yet very critical comfort like clean drinking water.
Having been to places where running water is not 24/7, I still cringe when my husband runs the tap while shaving or brushing teeth, when my teen stands under the shower full blast for a half hour, when I hear about an entire reservoir being emptied of millions of gallons because a surveillance video spied a kid peeing into it. A few decades back, who would have bet money that tap water might become captive to bottled commerce? Maybe this is how we can begin to value what nature intended for all her creatures to freely enjoy.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share how you’re a guardian of Mother Nature’s abundance.
Ask me for a portrait session with your loved ones when you donate to WaterIsLife.com
Niki Lars is a founding father of the Morning Salon, a sustainability forum open to the NYC community hosted by the Fashion Institute of Technology for companies who seek earth friendly solutions to their products and processes.
Today I’m thinking of a dear friend whom I have not seen in a long while. We met almost two decades ago as wives of expats in Tokyo. She was the dedicated mother of two young children with aCordon Bleu degree tucked under her apron. I was a new bride who was a virgin in the kitchen. Motherhood has since led me to settle in suburbia, to give my children the roots I never had. She continues to live the free life of a very stylish gypsy, moving to a new country every couple of years when she and her husband feel like it.
Like sunbeams in cupboards and closets, gifts and mementos around my home bring warm memories of our friendship. When I cook, I’m grateful she tipped me off on All Clad stainless steel cookware, they last forever and have spared me the clueless journey through aisles of the cheap and the non-stick. Pretty dishes remind me of our foray into Kappabashi Dori, Tokyo’s restaurant supply district, where she helped me bring home heavy blue and white ceramics up and down the subway stairs. When it came time for my family to move on from Japan, she hosted a sayonara lunch with the international group of ladies we had gotten to know in our brief time together.
In my closet is a bouquet of colorful pashmina shawls from her stint in Singapore. In my memory are recipes she taught me like the sweet sticky rice dessert when I visited her in Florida. Her favorite classic A Well-Seasoned Appetiteby New York Magazine‘s Molly O’Neill is the only photo-less cookbook allowed on my bookshelf. She would casually toss quick recipes into our conversation then I’d report with dismay that my results turned out far from hers. She immediately knew to ask “Did you add salt and pepper?” because sure enough, the newbie needed every little ingredient specified.
Her invitation to visit them in Monaco was what opened my eyes to the joys of solo travel, a more life affirming version of gambling and living dangerously I say! It gave me the “Aha! I can do this every year…” revelation, and since then maybe twice a year and why not more?!
Countless more adventures to us, Powerful Goddess Ana! And count me among those who have been very blessed by your loving kindness and generosity. Anyone who can soothe her nerves by whipping up a multi-course gourmet meal for the person who annoys her is worthy of a custom pedestal at every city she lives in. Domo Aregato for the many happy and delicious memories, the wisdom of adding salt and pepper to my life no matter what–without having to be told.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share your appetite.
“Five decades and five children ago…” is how my parent’s love story would begin to be told. Today, as they celebrate their almost half a century together, I wonder what requires greater strength and courage: keeping it together or walking away?
Novelist Ann Patchett was a child of divorce and suffered through an early divorce of her own. In the midst of the turmoil of her first marriage, she recounts (in her collection of essays This is The Story of a Happy Marriage):
Standing waist deep in the swimming pool, I received a gift–it was the first decent piece of instruction about marriage I had ever been given in my 25 years of life. “Does your husband make you a better person?” Edra asked.
There I was in that sky-blue pool beneath a bright blue sky, my fingers breaking apart the light on the water, and I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Are you a smarter, kinder, more generous, more compassionate, a better writer?” she said, running down her list. “Does he make you better?”
“That’s not the question,” I said. “It’s so much more complicated than that.”
“It’s not more complicated than that,” she said. “That’s all there is: Does he make you better and do you make him better?”
This conversation cleared Ann’s resolve to leave her husband. She vowed never to remarry to save herself from any more pain, not even after she met a wonderful man whom she dated for 11 years. Until the day he suddenly fell terminally ill and she realized her logic could not save her from losing him in other ways:
The fact that we came so close to missing out, missing out because of my own fear of failing, makes me think I avoided a mortal accident by the thickness of a coat of paint. We are, on this earth, so incredibly small, in the history of time, in the crowd of the world, we are practically invisible, not even a dot, and yet we have each other to hold on to. When we do things differently, and very often we do, I remind myself that it is early a matter of right and wrong. We are simply two adults who grew up in different houses.
I continue to think back to Edra, standing in that swimming pool on a bright day in summer. “Does he make you a better person?” was what she asked me, and I want to tell her, Yes, with the full force of his life, with the example of his kindness and vigilance, his good sense and equanimity, he makes me a better person. And that is what I aspire to be, better, and no, it really isn’t any more complicated than that.
Ann’s reply is exactly how this lucky Powerful Goddess describes her own gem of a husband. And he’s tall and handsome, too!
Click on “Leave a comment” (above left) to describe what you love best about yours.
Happy April Fools, Everyone! These Huffington Post beauty image heroes remind us there are other ways of getting a good laugh without making fools of ourselves–even when it’s not April:
Shailene Woodley, star of the movie “Divergent.” refuses to wear makeup at events after seeing how her photographs published in magazines show bigger boobs, flawless skin, a flatter stomach that she doesn’t have. “I realized that, growing up and looking at magazines, I was comparing myself to images like that — and most of it isn’t real.”
Artist Nikolay Lamm used CDC measurements of an average 19-year-old woman to create a 3-D model which he then Photoshopped to look like a Barbie doll. There is quite a gap between a “normal” Barbienext to the doll sold in stores. (Never mind that my neighbor’s brunette daughter asked for a blonde doll, firmly believing she will grow up to be just as blonde one day.)
Plus size model Jennie Runk says, “I remember often feeling like I should be unhappy with my body, but it was confusing, because I never thought there was anything wrong with it until people started talking about it.” H&M won raves for featuring her in their May 2013 swimwear campaign. In a piece for the BBC, Runk wrote of her newfound media attention: “This is exactly the kind of thing I’ve always wanted to accomplish, showing women that it’s ok to be confident even if you’re not the popular notion of ‘perfect.’… There’s no need to glamorise one body type and slam another.”
Trina Hall, a Dallas-based yoga instructor, abandoned all diets last year to see how her body changed and how people in her life reacted. The results of her project were not what she expected. She gained 40 pounds but, “The people who didn’t know, who were just with me in my life — there was no difference in the way that they treated me. The difference came in my own perceptions of myself. I became very judgmental. Instead of looking at the whole of my body, I would look at different parts and analyze what’s wrong with them. My most shocking discovery through the process is that I’m afraid of not being loved. I noticed the self-talk was that my beauty is only on the surface.”
Sheila Pree Bright’s photo series “Plastic Bodies”examines how beauty ideals affect women, especially women of color. Her striking images combine doll parts with segments of human bodies, and the discord between the two is startling. She told HuffPost in an email:
American concepts of the “perfect female body” are clearly exemplified through commercialism, portraying “image as everything” and introducing trends that many spend hundreds of dollars to imitate. It is more common than ever that women are enlarging breasts with silicone, making short hair longer with synthetic hair weaves, covering natural nails with acrylic fill-ins, or perhaps replacing natural eyes with contacts.
Even on magazine covers, graphic artists are airbrushing and manipulating photographs in software programs, making the image of a small waist and clear skin flawless. As a result, the female body becomes a replica of a doll, and the essence of natural beauty in popular American culture is replaced by fantasy.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share a foolish fantasy.
Yale Joel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
The poster goddess of feminism, Gloria Steinem, is 80! She, who popularized Australian Irina Dunn’s quip “Women need men like fish need bicycles,” married for the first time at the age of 66 claiming, “I hope this proves what feminists have always said — that feminism is about the ability to choose what’s right at each time of our lives.”
Other nuggets of wisdom from this icon who has inspired many to expand their world view:
A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.
If women could sleep their way to the top, there’d be a lot more women at the top.
Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
For women… bras, panties, bathing suits, and other stereotypical gear are visual reminders of a commercial, idealized feminine image that our real and diverse female bodies can’t possibly fit. Without these visual references, each individual woman’s body demands to be accepted on its own terms. We stop being comparatives. We begin to be unique.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.
Once we give up searching for approval we often find it easier to earn respect.
If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?
Whatever you want to do, just do it…Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.
A new documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words airs this month on HBO, celebrating the life and work of this feminist icon. Click on “Leave a comment” (above left) to share what feminism means to you.
xoxox
Undercover research as Playboy bunny
A writer never sits too far from her typewriter
Marianne Barcellona—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image
Aging gracefully with none of that botox stuff
xoxox
Thanks to Getty and Google archive for these images!
Happy first day of Spring, my darlings! And what a thrill to celebrate the day that has just been declared the first International Day of Happiness! For who doesn’t get happy knowing the long slumber of winter is over and flower season is near? This Powerful Goddess does not have to wait for anyone to bring her flowers, she blooms like no other any day of the year!
What took us so long to think of this annual happiness celebration anyway? Goddess knows! What did take me most of my life to realize is that happiness has many faces. Many insist on a smile and a happy face as important indicators–we all know they aren’t that dependable. Some people require silence and a solitary existence, others can’t live without constant noise and the next emergency. There are those who look forward to retirement heaven, while a few see it as certain death. Contrary to popular belief, misery and suffering bring some a certain comfort, so it’s wise to bite the tongue and curb our habit of giving advice. Whatever our personal definition, the world’s happiness at large may depend on our letting go of the need to convert others to our chosen “religion,” especially those whom we live with every day.
Since one whole year is a very long time to wait for the next happiness celebration, click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to add to this list of little nothings that add joy to your every day.
flowers out my window, birds in the backyard
no snow to shovel
old photographs
funnies and a good belly laugh
a clean kitchen sink
scheming with friends
finding street parking in NYC
kindness, thoughtful gifts, happy surprises
curls, swirls, and beauty in style and design
high ceilings and glorious chandeliers
arches, curves, and unexpected angles
dressing up
yellow, orange, red and sunshiny hues
reading, dancing, and learning something new
a husband who helps around the house on weekends
the smile on my daughter’s face
seeing my sons cook dinner–sometimes cajoled, sometimes nagged, always reassured that no woman can resist a man who cooks and brings her flowers for no occasion, in any season.
Before Fifty Shades of Grey and Sex and the City, there was Fear of Flying (1973) by Erica Jong. I have yet to read this novel that introduced a notorious phrase to the English language through the heroine’s honest and exuberant retelling of her sexual (mis)adventures. What I’ve read is Erica’s midlife memoir Fear of Fifty (first released in 1994 when she turned 50) that continued to provoke, inspire, and stand as an icon of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood.
This classic came to mind because last Saturday was International Women’s Day and I remember reading Erica’s chapter on her writing sabbatical in a Venetian palazzo. I thought, “Every woman should have such freedom!” I also recall sharing her impression of Venice as a dead and dying city–but that was obviously before I heard about Carnival!
Fear of Fifty looks back and ahead, assessing the costs, rewards, the meaning of one woman’s journey. Erica’s memoir “goes right to the jugular of woman who lived wildly and vicariously through Fear of Flying” with entertaining stories and provocative insights on a woman’s identity, love and loss, sex, marriage, aging, feminism, and motherhood.
And how far have women really come since the golden age of petticoats? We gave up the corset and dutifully bind ourselves to the gym and diets. We join the workforce to make our own money and the right to be eternally exhausted, never quite sure where the end of the rainbow is in doing and having it all. After all, we must look forever young and fabulous while still running the home and feeling guilty about our (neglected) relationships. We boldly proclaim women can do what men do while our daughters are lulled by the same fairytales of the one ideal man, the notion of that elusive union of money, sex, love, romance and fidelity leaving many in a state of dubious singlehood or perpetual marital discontent. Will the day ever come when we’d drop the farce of calling unpaid housework “mother’s love”? Will we live to see the pegs of hierarchy buried and affirm the disparate choices every woman makes to be the best for herself?
As fifty beckons in my own horizon, I am honored to witness tired and wilted women transform into radiant blooms when they decide to give themselves the appreciation and sense of purpose they’ve been waiting to be given. To see the great power in surrendering the fight of “I’m every woman” and letting the chips fall where they may. To perceive our wrinkles as trophies of a life full of laughs and tame serious adult business with more fun, play, and dress up. To allow disappointments to clarify who matters and the possibilities that lie beyond the pain. To see the beauty aging offers with the wisdom and courage to say “To hell with it!” If the Social Indicators Research (2010) is right about women being happiest at age 74, how different would the rest of our lives be if we laughed in the face of fear much, much sooner?
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share old fears that make you chuckle today.
As a passionate night owl, I was pleasantly surprised by the pleasures of catching the sun rise over Venice, soft blue making way to gray or sunny skies.
The one thing to know aside from timing your visit with Carnival is that there are no porters nor cars past its train station. Walking is how everyone stays fit. As a tourist dragging heavy luggage, your back will thank you if you choose a hotel with direct canal access. Skip the queue for the bus, the vaporetto and the schlep over a few bridges by hiring a private taxi from the airport (110 Euros or share a ride for 30 Euros per person.) To buy a private taxi ticket at the Marco Polo airport, keep left when you walk out of baggage claim. Their booth sits like an island in the middle of the hall.
Money matters: get the best exchange rates using your ATM or credit card. If you want to watch your dollars magically halve, cash exchange counters charge about 30 Euros per transaction. Tipping is generally not expected but with wages that have not caught up with the Lira’s conversion to the Euro, why not? Service and/or cover charge are automatically added to your bill at restaurants.
San Marco Square
Join the early birds in owning the town before the street lamps go off at 6:30 am. Be the first in line to see the Basilica interiors and climb the second level to better admire the artwork on its golden domes. But as soon as you notice puddles of water spreading on the pavement, get yourself out of San Marco quickly before the tide floods the square.
Doge’s Palace
A masterpiece of Gothic architecture, the Doge’s Palace (aka Palazzo Ducale in Italian) is a landmark of building elements and ornamentation. The public entrance is through the Porta del Frumento, under the colonnade of its 14th century waterfront façade.
Cafe Florian
On San Marco square, the place to see and be seen especially during Carnival is Cafe Florian. The crowd that gathers here adore elegant period costume that transport you back in time amidst authentic 18th century decor.
Terrace with a View
Because I love rich velvet on everything, I had to dine where the seats are upholstered in it! Hotel Danielifaces the water next to the Doge’s Palace. Service at fancy hotels has its share of critics because of the expectations that are as high as the price they command. Know that you are coming here for its unrivaled view of the city. (Photo from kiwicollection.com)
Rialto Bridge
For almost 300 years since it opened in 1591, the Rialto Bridge (Ponte di Rialto) was the only way to cross the Grand Canal on foot between the districts of San Polo and San Marco. Probably the most visited structure among tourists today, it is best photographed when you’re on the water from a gondola, water taxi or the vaporetto (public water bus.) Three walkways cross the bridge: two along the outer balustrades and a wider one in the center with shops on both sides. (Photo by National Geographic.)
Bridge of Sighs
This bridge behind the Doge’s Palace has a bleak history. A more romantic version comes from local legend that promises lovers eternal love and bliss if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the Bridge of Sighs as the bells of St. Mark’s Cathedral toll. This legend is the plot line of the movie A Little Romance starring Laurence Olivier and Diane Lane.
San Giorgio Island
To get to the island with the brick church steeple that beckons across the water, take the #2 Vaporetto in front of Hotel Danieli. Twilight is the best time to photograph the city lights and panorama.
Murano and Burano Islands
Murano Island is the home of hand blown glass and the famed Venetian chandeliers. It is the first stop of the same ferry that takes you to Burano Island known for its lace and colorful house facades.
Gondolas
Even without a charming gondolier, Venice has no better known icon.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to add your Venetian favorites.
If you can visit Venice only once in your entire lifetime, time it for Carnival and bring the kids! This annual winter festival of masquerade and fantastic costumes can be traced back to the beginning of the 14th Century when months before Lent, everyone in town wore masks to break down social barriers and playfully defy differentiation between nobility and the common people.
Today, an international crowd of 3 million revelers congregate and make time to dress up in their original and fantastic creations or an elegant wardrobe of authentic period pieces. Those in full regalia are so very kind and accommodating in holding a pose for your camera. Can you imagine the time and effort each costume takes to create and transport, never mind wearing them all day in heat or cold for the two weeks of the fabulous Venice Carevale. I’ll let the photographs speak eloquently for themselves. You bet it wasn’t easy choosing which creations to exclude here.
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share what your fantasy costume might be.
Christine et Eric Plas
followed the yellow brick road from France
Almost a kiss by Pierre and Dominique
If you were wondered “Where’s the party?”
Should we tell?
Anabella from Estonia checks her makeup
I just love how the background complements this ensemble
Bongiorno! Today I transport myself to what may be the closest thing to time travel. I’m headed for the Carnivale in Venice where they celebrate the centuries old festivity of wearing masks and elaborate costumes from the 18th century. I promise I’ll take you along with me so my next few blog posts will feature everything Venetian. We begin with a few movies I’ve enjoyed featuring eye candy from her iconic sights.
Dangerous Beauty
The glamour of 16th century Renaissance featuring the life of legendary courtesan, Veronica Franco, with Jacqueline Bisset playing the role of aging mother.
De-Lovely
Flashbacks on the glamourous Hollywood life of Cole Porter with his wife, Linda Lee, whom he met in Paris in the 1920’s where Americans were inventing new lives of freedom. Kevin Kline plays the elegant Cole, always witty on stage, charming in front of society, writing the pain into the soundtrack of his life. My favorite Ashley Judd plays the nuanced role of Linda who nurtures his talent and indulges his preference for men. Why, oh, why is the woman always the one who has to re-arrange her life to suit the man (even when he’s gay)?
Wings of the Dove
Two lovers plot to gain the inheritance of a sickly, rich American (“the richest orphan in the world”) by stealing her affections. A film based on Henry James’ famous novel.
Casino Royale
James Bond’s world tour of casinos ends with the fantastic sinking of an abandoned palazzo on a Venetian canal.
The Tourist
Johnny Depp plays the unlikely mystery lover of Angelina Jolie. Watch out for my dream necklace in the final scenes.
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