I have been thinking about Dolly, shedding tears over her. Since her death, I wanted to write about Dolly, but everyone is. Maybe it’s competitiveness or the imposter syndrome. I didn’t know her; I never got the chance to interview her.

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But today, following a conversation with my good friend Jill, these words came to me when we started talking about Dolly:

And that’s coming from someone who grew up in the fifties and was the only Jewish student in the Lower School of the Staten Island Academy. (One other was in the Upper School.) Every morning assembly ended with the entire student body belting out “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which repeated the line, “with the cross of Jesus going on before” multiple times. Warned by my elders that “we” don’t say the name of their savior, I mouthed the word, hoping no one would notice.

Admittedly, I don’t know much about Jesus to this day, but my sense is that he was a good human being, pure in intent, truly righteous, generous, and non-judgmental. That he walked among the poor and healed people.

I have known good people in history and during my lifetime, but only Dolly had that particular combination of humble beginnings, high intelligence, hard work, sweetness, tolerance, business acumen, gratitude, and generosity. What I perceive as “like Jesus.”

Jill’s and my conversation continued and lingered on a question:

Jill agreed and came up with a wonderful mantra to guide her life going forward—and I hereby pass it on to you: WWDD. What would Dolly do?

Dolly, Jill added, would probably love the “double D”!

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Dolly is looking down on us now, hoping for the best, promising to always love us…no matter what.

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If Dolly is, in fact, the last person everyone loved, this could be a mantra everyone adopts.

One person at a time.

All we have to do is allow Dolly’s spirit to inspire and inhabit us.

So the next time, you find yourself talking to a stranger or in an uncomfortable or unfamiliar situation, or experiencing your own monetary lapse of judgment, say “WWDD,” and ask yourself,

I think you’ll like yourself more if you join the movement.

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I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a longtime journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. My most recent book is The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter, stories about my much older friends that will give you hope about aging and probably make you laugh and cry.

Lucy, you inspired me!

You got your mom to help you write about your adventures and growing up in a human’s world, so I asked mine to help me. Paws aren’t great on a keyboard. ;-)

When I read your recent post, I had to get in touch. I meant to when I read your piece last April and, more recently, when you wished me a happy 7th birthday. But you know how it goes—a walk here, a petting session there, meals and playtime…and before you know it, the day’s gone!

By the way, I loved the photo you posted on my birthday. Right there with you, babe. Even at age seven—supposedly 49 human years—I STILL enjoy digging in dirt!

At least I’m finally reaching out. Lucy, first off, I just love your voice. By that I mean, your writing voice. No surprise there, though. That’s how our moms met and discovered that they had so much in common. Through words.

So let’s tawk, as Melinda, the New Yawker would say…

Also to remind you, I’m five years ahead of you on the path—the same age diff as our moms! Yours is one of my mom’s old ladies—a term she uses with respect and admiration.

As we age, you might think of me as your old man, someone to show you the ropes, as humans like to say (whatever that means).

So here are some thoughts about your thoughts….

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Lucky us for having two moms.

It sounds like your mom did a smart thing rescuing a young dog. Some people thought she was crazy. Others, brave. Believe me, I heard stories—an advantage of having a writer for a mom. I remember how small—and utterly adorable—you were in your mom’s arms. And how rambunctious.

You might even have more energy than I did at your age. One thing I know for sure: Your “Mama Linda” gives Patricia much-needed help and time off.

I live with both of my mothers. Luckily, they’re really different. You already know Melinda, the woman who speaks to everyone. My other mom (OM) keeps walking when Melinda stops a stranger. She avoids the spotlight, so I mention her in public only as OM

Melinda found me at a rescue event in 2019 while OM was still working in Paris, so it was just the two of us for the first few months. Melinda, who once mothered human babies, immediately enrolled me in dog-training classes. She believes children and dogs should know how to behave! OM not so much.

I know how much Melinda loves me, but when we’re home together, if she’s cooking, writing, or doing a crossword puzzle, she barely notices me.

I remedy that by stealing her sock or a plastic bag that I shred while I run. I dart through the house, ducking under tables and chairs. By the time, Melinda bends down, almost close enough to grab me, I’m gone!

After the chase is over, though, I’m invisible again.

No problem. OM is usually here, too, and I am never invisible to her. She can never give me enough kisses. She never gets tired of talking to me and telling me how much she loves me.

I have more of her now, too. Before she retired last November, OM had very important job in Paris. She was out of the house every weekday, sometimes on weekends. Whenever she returned, we’d do our homecoming ritual. Lots of kissing and wild jumping around. It was my favorite part of the day.

I still go crazy when OM returns. It doesn’t matter whether she’s been traveling or taking out the garbage.

Naturally, when Melinda comes home, I try to jump all over her, too. But she makes me sit, gives me calming pats, tells me I’m “such a good boy,” and moves on to whatever she needs to do.

Two moms are the best, no matter how different they are.

Sorry you’re back on a leash. Look for other good stuff instead.

Being leashed, as if we were wild animals, is one of the indignities most dogs have to suffer. Except the pups of Paris. They sit patiently beneath the table as their humans eat, and when l’addition is paid, they rise when the humans rise, and walk to their next destination without a leash, even as their owner crosses a busy boulevard.

Not I! Not even in Paris. I was free in the morning when we walked 1/2 block to the Champ de Mars, but, believe me, I also felt the tug of the harness, the urge to run, especially when a squirrel flew by.

I’m better now than I was at your age. I walk without pulling and, off leash, I come immediately when called. Admittedly, it took Melinda five years and many pounds of cooked chicken to convince me that it was a good idea to listen. I’m a glutton for her “Good boy, Rocky!”

Melinda likes to tell this story of my puppyhood. After our first 40-minute obedience class, the trainer recommended one book: How to Train the Difficult-to-Train Dog. She also suggested I repeat the basic class. The nerve! We didn’t, and both of us have lived to tell the tale (tail?)!

Meanwhile, I listen to almost nothing OM says, and I’m still not so good about restaurants. So high-fives on your behavior in that arena, Lucy.

I’m also a sneak like you. I looked over Melinda’s shoulder at a text Patricia sent her today. I see you like to steal other dogs’ toys, too!

Your mom called you “a thief” and tattled on you:

“She knew she was getting away with something because she wouldn’t let me get it from her. She’s a kleptomaniac I think!”

And that diagnosis is from a psychotherapist!

Despite our mothers’ fervent wishes that we “grow out” of such antics, I hope for our sake we don’t — and theirs, too, because we do make them laugh.

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Accept the things you cannot change…

Okay, I borrowed that one from the Serenity Prayer, but it fits for us, too.

Nothing is perfect, Lucy. We’re “on vacation” now and it’s mostly fabulous. I have a big fenced in backyard with lots of trees. I also like it because both moms walk me in the morning, which they rarely do at home.

The thing I cannot change here is my moms’ anger when I try to chase that cute little bunny who lives under the deck.

Ironically, Parisians and French-speaking Americans called me le lapin, because I run and hop like a rabbit. But I don’t think Melinda or OM is all that worried about that scurrying creature under our deck. As fast as I am, that little bunny is a speed demon.

Anyway, there’s lots of other stuff to sniff out. I keep myself busy digging holes where my moms can’t see me.

I don’t know for sure, Lucy, but I suspect that you have your moms wrapped around your paw, too. That’s silly. Humans have such strange expressions! What does “wrapped around your finger” even mean?

Remember that we have a higher calling.

I know how happy you made Patricia when she found you, especially after Zoe died. She looks like a distant cousin, by the way. I guess humans have “types” in dogs as well as people.

Even though Melinda never actually met Zoe, news of her death made her sad. She knew how upset and alone Patricia felt. Also, Melinda lost Bogey a few years before. He had an aneurism or something like that at 11 and although she slowly nursed Bogey back to health, and he lived another four years, he was never the same—kinda like an old person who has a stroke.

Melinda often tells me, wordlessly in the way dogs and humans communicate, that she thought she’d never get another dog. Then we found each other at a rescue event.

I don’t know about you, but I hate to see either of my moms sad or sick. When Melinda was in the hospital two years ago, I was depressed and confused. I’m not sure I could live without her. Luckily, I don’t have to. . . yet.

She’s fond of repeating what some stranger told her three dogs ago: “The only problem is that dogs die before we do.”

I wonder if that’s true for us, Lucy. OM often wonders what the Universe had in mind sending me to “two old coots.” Well, at least you have Mama Linda waiting in the wings, and OM is only 72.

I guess we have to take our chances.

The bottom line is, we can’t live without our humans, and they can’t live without us. For long as we’re here, Lucy, and they are still “upright, conscious, and breathing,” as Melinda’s old lady Marge put it, it’s our job to get them out of bed in the morning and give shape and purpose to their day. We force our humans to remember that they aren’t the center of the Universe. We are!

That’s about all I have for today, but I hope that we keep this relationship going. And I really appreciate that you reminded me of how much fun it can be to write.

Oh the stories we could tell…

***

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how my other much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and probably make you laugh and cry.

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Meeting Elaine

Elaine Soloway is six years ahead of me in life—and thus qualifies to be one of my old ladies. At 88, she can alert me to the twists and turns I might expect as I (hopefully) nudge my way toward ninety and beyond.

I reached out to Elaine initially because she was older and admirable. I read and loved her writing which ranges from the practical to the political, peppered with research, recent news, and tons of wit. One of my favorites, for example, was her piece imagining Steven Miller’s family at a deli in Chicago.

But to be perfectly honest, I also recognized Elaine’s last name, and happily discovered she was that Soloway, the woman whose marriage and family inspired the then-revolutionary TV series, Transparent in 2014.

In real life, Elaine has little in common with Judith Light’s Shelly (2nd from right, above), the beleaguered wife whose husband goes from Murray to Maura. But she certainly has charisma and wit to spare. For her eightieth birthday, she got a tattoo, instead of a face lift. It’s easy to imagine Elaine on stage.

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Our relationship

Admittedly, I was a bit star struck when I first met Elaine. As I continued to read her Substack newsletter, Escapades, I wanted more. Used to be that my old ladies — women friends who lit my way on the path to Old Age — were twenty or more years my senior. But now, at 82 and counting, I have to make do with a smaller age gap!

Elaine and I have since become, if not actual friends, amiable acquaintances and certainly kindred spirits. We’ve talked on the phone. We’ve zoomed. We read each other’s stuff.

At Elaine’s suggestion, I went to Joe’s Pub in New York City to see One Long Earring, her offspring Faith’s clever take on the reunion of a 1970s lesbian band. Talent runs in the family. The younger sibling Joey wrote the original script for Transparent.

Eventually, I recruited Elaine to be a guest on the Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age podcast. I then put her in the very capable hands (so to speak) of fellow host/producer Nancy Franklin, who writes Mirthquakes, and, as the title promises, also knows her way around humor.

Why should you care?

Nancy interviewed Elaine, had fun doing it, that episode is available now. It’s pure inspiration and upbeat energy.

Of course, I loved it. Elaine is my kinda gal! And now I know even more about her. At one point in the episode, her wit and spirit reminded me of Zelda who lived to almost 105. Elaine learned to swim at 79, and when Nancy asks her about it, she replies, “Yes, but you can’t call what I do swimming.”

Zelda said the same thing, word-for-word, about her tennis-playing — which she did until age 99.

Elaine turns 88 in August. Listen to her conversation with Nancy here. It just might make your day.

***

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how Marge, Zelda, and my other much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and probably make you laugh and cry.

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If you’ve ever regretted buying pair of shoes, you know my pain.

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Sixteen years ago, I spent way too much money on the above pair of Jimmy Choo pumps for Jordan and Richie’s wedding. The ceremony was performed on a Broadway stage after which some 600 guests were bussed to the reception at Roseland. Melissa Etheridge performed a song she wrote in their honor.

I could have worn sneakers. The Jimmy Choos peeked out only when I walked—for example, toward Nurse Jackie (Edie Falco), mustering the nerve to introduce myself. Standing still, the gown graced my toes. Edie and I chatted a bit, but I’m fairly certain she never looked down at my shoes.

I justified the purchase because it was a star-studded affair—both men are in show business—and I wanted to fit in. As a college friend (and sorority sister) of Jordan’s mom, I was delighted to be included. What else could I wear under a one-shouldered deep-blue chiffon full-length gown but a pair of very-expensive sparkling silver pumps?

Though it was all as fabulous as I expected, I can’t remember many details from that evening—except Jordan’s father’s heartfelt speech about acceptance and Melissa’s performance. I do remember how much my feet hurt by the end of the evening.

I doubted I’d ever wear the shoes again. Unfortunately they weren’t my daughter‘s size. So, I put them into the chic black-and-white bag they came in—and stored them on a high shelf for future reference.

For years I would rediscover the shoes as I was purging my bedroom closet and say to myself, such a shame. When I was a kid and my mother and I would go shopping, a wise purchase was one I would “get a lot of wear out of.”

The Jimmy Choos did not qualify. But for some reason—the expense? their uniqueness?—I couldn’t just give them away.

Then a miracle happens…

I learn that Niki, my friend’s niece, a woman I know and like, is getting married.

“What size shoe does she wear— and does she have a narrow foot?“ I ask my friend in a text.

The shoes are 39 European, which is 7.5 to 8 American. Niki’s size. She’s delighted. I have found my Cinderella.

Alas, when Niki finally tries on the shoes, she discovers that they don’t fit and wants to know if I’d like them back.

“Keep them,” I say, “Maybe you‘ll find someone they fit.”

I’m both disappointed but happy that the shoes are no longer in my closet, a reminder of a too-expensive impulse buy an honor of a fabulous occasion.

…and the saga continues.

A few weeks later I’m having my hair done by Kasha whom I’ve known for over 30 years. Somehow the subject of shoe size comes up. She’s a 7 1/2.

“Are your feet narrow?“ I ask.

“Very.”

“Too bad,” I say. I tell Kasha about giving away my Jimmy Choos and show her the photo. She loves and wants them.

“I don’t know if Niki has found someone else yet, but let me text her.”

I do, and Niki hasn’t. I tell her I have a prospect.

Seemingly as happy as I am about finding a new forever home for the Jimmy Choos, she offers to bring them into the city and drop them off at Swank, Kasha’s salon.

A week or so later, Niki sends me this text with a photo:

Have I finally found my Cinderella?

Sadly, no. I text Kasha the next morning, asking if the shoes fit.

I answer:

Kasha, with tens of clients passing through her doors every day, promises, “I’ll find someone!”

Kasha “hearts” my final message:

And so the sisterhood of the traveling Jimmy Choos grows. Stay tuned.

***

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for the Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age podcast. My latest book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter, is about how nine much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it.

In a few days, I’ll be giving a talk about my latest book in Saltaire, the beach community described in this piece. I spent fifteen or so summers in a that tiny town on Fire Island, traveling from marriage and new motherhood to divorce and co-parenting. In anticipation of the talk, my daughter, who grew up on Saltaire and still spends time there, asked if, looking back, I could identify “my old ladies”—older women who illuminated my own path as the years piled on.

My immediate response: “I was so 26. I didn’t think about age or aging.”

The only possibility was Gert, I added, a close and impactful friend who was thirteen years older. Had she lived, Gert would be 95 today, certainly old enough to qualify as one of my old ladies. This now updated and shortened piece about Gert was published on Medium in January of 2023—before I wrote “The Wisdom Whisperers.”

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Reckoning with Gert

You should write about what’s happening to you,” my friend Gert exhorted nearly fifty years ago. Gert, a force to be reckoned with, never simply said something, she exhorted, which is not the same as “ordered.” Gert knew.

I didn’t always listen. But she knew that, too.

Gert was brilliantly original, a self-designed and unflinchingly direct woman. We met on Fire Island in the summer of 1970, in Saltaire, a tiny beach community off the coast of Long Island.

Given my age, 26, Gert, at 39, was “old.” She’d lived longer and had three teenagers. I had a one-year-old whom her 16-year old daughter babysat. Despite our age gap, I enjoyed spending time with Gert. She was smart and talkative — a suburban housewife with the heart of a hippie who wore her age well. We smoked pot and listened to Carole King.

Gert was at my house one evening in the early 1970s, when I threw down the dishtowel — a feminist gauntlet — and announced to my then husband and frequent dinner guests that I would no longer Do It All.

She laughed. “Man! I’m going to miss the Old Melinda. We had a great thing going here. I liked being waited on!”

Others might have thought it. Only Gert had the balls to say it out loud.

Early on in our relationship, a cosmic coincidence: Gert not only lived in the same New Jersey suburb as Ruth—my 21-year-older aunt who modeled my first May/December friendship—they’d been tennis-playing friends for years. Retelling stories she’d heard about Ruth’s wild older brother — my father — and their first cousin, Bella Abzug, Gert says I should write about them, too.

Gert had twelve years more life under her belt than I and thus had already begun to reevaluate choices her younger self once wanted. She urged me to dig deeper. Others, too. She wanted better for everyone.

Happiness in Colorado

Gert and I nearly lost touch when she relocated to Colorado. Each of us divorced by then and doing our respective “thing,” we still cared and were curious. We talked enough to occasionally review the Roman numerals of our lives: partnerships, relationships with our grown children, work, emotional and spiritual growth. She seemed the most content she’d ever been.

Cancer killed Gert the year I turned sixty. Had she lived, she’d be almost 95 today, an age many of “my old ladies” have reached. They’re wise, with-it women who are further along the road of life and give me a preview of territory I’ve yet to reach.

As with any relationship, each of my old ladies ties into particular interests and activities I enjoy, as well as attributes I admire or aspire to cultivate. Humor. Creativity. Curiosity. Kindness. Courage. Generosity. Warmth. Zest for Life.

With Gert, our strongest thread was Ideas — words written, read, spoken, pored over for hours. She recommended spiritual and psychological books — Ram Dass, Anais Nin, Scott Peck — and lovingly critiqued my work. She continued to tell me I should be writing differently, more personally revealing — “better,” in her opinion.

The one time I visited her in the Rockies, as we hiked in the hills near the dream home she was building for herself, she asked for the umpteenth time, “So when are you finally going to write you?”

I respected and valued Gert’s opinion. I trusted what she saw in me and viewed her exhorting as a compliment. She had long begun seeking, and I was still hiding...but every year, I inched closer to the edge.

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What pushed me over?

It would take another thirty or so years of unexpected life changes — and becoming an old lady myself — for me to tell my own tales.

It would also take a bit of courage — and a lot of perspective. I did what I often advise readers to do: tell yourself the truth.

When I include myself in a piece, it is not merely to reveal. It is to look back with an advantage: I can hover above my life for a better view — an exercise I suggest in Family Whispering. The overhead view allows me to observe the characters, listen to their words, and understand each scene with today’s consciousness and hindsight.

I naturally think of Gert when I publish a revealing and/or personal story that I know she’d applaud. I can see her clearly — deeply tanned, in a t-shirt and denim cut offs, giving me that “no bullshit, please” look.

At the end of her life, she began to call herself “Gerda,” the name her German parents gave her before fleeing to the United States. No longer ashamed of her immigrant roots, she finally became her.

Gert also adopted a professional title, “coach” — an avocation she’d adopted decades earlier. Gerda taught her clients what she had learned: how to love fearlessly and live more authentically.

It worked on me. I wish Gert knew.

(Who knows? Maybe she does. Maybe she’ll be eavesdropping at the Saltaire library )

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I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope, make you laugh and cry—and might even help you through your NEXT, whatever it is.

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Back story

No matter how long we’ve been at it, writers need encouragement and inspiration. So after listening to the 2nd draft of the upcoming Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age podcast featuring actor/writer/New Yorker Kathryn Grody, I texted Rich Halten, our sound designer and engineer, to say I was contemplating a companion piece: “something about the instant connection between people.

“I’m not objective,” I added, “but I think it sounds like Kathryn and I are old friends.”

“Totally,” he agreed. Rich forged a career out of “advertising bookended by radio.” Our “sound guy,” as the team calls him, is very private about his past accomplishments and utterly generous with his time and talent. He’s the sole recording professional among us, and wow! does he makes us sound great.

We others—eight host/producers—learn as we go and get better every week. But compared to Rich, we’re a bunch of kids putting on a show in the garage.

Hence, I listen carefully to Rich and trust his instincts. I was delighted that he continued to riff, offering me a Gay Talese-esque intro:

Setting aside that Rich loves New Yorkers—accent, chutzpah and all—he inspires me to run with the ball. Herewith, I ponder the question…

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First Impressions

Research suggests we make snap judgments on initial encounters—and stand by them. By the time I met Kathryn in person, following a matinee performance of her one-woman show, The Unexpercted 3rd, I already liked her:

I’d done my homework — Googled her, read articles about her, and listened to her banter with husband Mandy Patinkin and their younger son on the podcast they launched during the pandemic. I agreed with the advice Kathryn offered callers. I felt kindness in her voice.

I also resonated with her personhood. We’re women of similar ages, 79 and 82, New Yorkers, mothers, grandmothers, spouses in long-term relationships (she never divorced!). Although opposites attract, so do shared identities.

Just as importantly, before introducing myself to Kathryn in the lobby of the tiny off-off Broadway theater on East 4th Street, I spent two hours in the same room with her. Sitting five rows back from the stage, I listened to her words and watched her sit, stand, dance, and get up and down from the floor—my grandmother would have added, “like a spring chicken.” The multi-hued outfit, the jewelry, her haircut and color, the way she retrieved pages of the script from beneath the couch pillows and then tossed them across the floor—all of this spoke volumes about her passion, her physicality, her drive I liked it all. She was a woman of my time.

When we met, it felt perfectly natural to hug….

Peeling the onion

Kathryn and I hit it off, but we’re not (yet) friends. We’re barely consequential strangers—that broad category of casual acquaintances you accumulate at work, in school, at favorite activities…or in an interview.

Getting to know someone is like peeling an onion. Each layer gets you closer to the inside, past first impressions to real stories, to moments that have made each of you who you are. You share and you listen. You reveal little by little, ideally neither of you going too fast or showing too much at once.

Then again, it depends…. Some of us traffic easily in human emotions; others play it close to the vest. If the mismatch is too great, one might feel unheard, the other overwhelmed. Kathryn and I are both easy sharers. No one felt overwhelmed.

Interestingly, our roles put us on different footing—she, the celebrity and I, the journalist. Yet once we dove into the podcast, we instantly found common ground. Our emotional sensibilities and overlapping identities converged as lovers of good food and as women who relish connection, value compassion, and feel at home in New York City. And not for nothing, both of us are “tawkers”!

In short, we clicked!

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The care and feeding of relationships

Forging a bond with another human (or a pet) is an ongoing process of getting to know each other…inside a container. You each contribute to the whole—the relationship—by “pouring” your personalities and your pasts into the container. All the quirks and habits you’ve accumulated over the years, successes and disappointments, interactions with other characters who’ve crossed your path—all impact the new relationship, which is a unique entity of the two of you.

Whether the “other” is a partner, a parent, a child, a friend, a casual acquaintance, or a podcast guest, every relationship is different—like a snowflake. We act differently in each of our relationships because we bounce off the other person’s actions and reactions.

Relationships slide along a continuum from stranger to soul mate. If you look at your closest friends, most of them probably started out as consequential strangers. At this juncture, Kathryn and I are only slightly acquainted, closer to the near-stranger end of the continuum. But that doesn’t mean we have to stay there.

A casual conversation can lead to a deliberate meeting. A first coffee together leads to a lunch date. If things really progress, you are invited into the person’s home—a next-level jump.

Every bond needs tending. Attention and time together feed the relationship and nudge it towards greater intimacy. So do honesty, humor, and reinforcing shared interests.

In my follow-up email to Kathryn, I laid my cards on the table, letting her know I was grateful to have met and happy to support her work. I also hinted that I’d like more time.

Especially after listening to your schedule, I sooooo appreciate that you made time for a chat. I don't know if you go on Substack regularly, but I saw you have an acct there and "tagged" you (I think). Here's a screen shot -- best I can do. Don't know how to find the actual link! I’ll keep you posted on the episode’s progress -- and I hope we can keep in touch (a girl can dream!)…

But will we be friends?

Not every relationship progresses or endures. Many stay on the periphery, sometimes by choice (one or both of you back off), sometimes by circumstance (you leave a job and lose contact with coworkers; you recover from a condition and no longer keep in touch with fellow sufferers).

Every relationship, be it casual or close, comes down to one basic question: Do I want to make time for this person?

I found Kathryn to be smart, funny, introspective, warm, and utterly authentic. She has tons of friends in her busy life. Me, too. But perhaps we have the makings of future relationship—among other reasons, because we will never run out of conversation!

I ask in an email:

Maybe lunch one day? Nothing recorded! Barney G’s?”

Her response is hopeful:

One day would be great! Right now between show and recovery and going upstate I’m a little nuts, but unrecorded lunch before fall is a deal!”

To my surprise, the story continues…

with a cryptic message on Facebook from Judy:

Your ears must have been burning on Friday when Kathryn talked about enjoying the interview she did on Crow’s Feet!

Huh? I didn’t even know that Judy knew Kathryn. I ask if she Kathryn mentioned Crow’s Feet on her podcast but am too excited to wait for an answer. I call Judy.

Turns out, the “talk” happened over Judy’s lunch with Kathryn.

“I want her to by my friend!” I blurt out. “I’m writing about that right now.”

“Everyone wants Kathryn to be their friend,” Judy says.

“I gave her a copy of my book.”

“She told me.”

I felt like Sally Field. Kathryn likes me, she must really like me.

I imagine us having nova and bagels at Barney Greengrass, a low-key restaurant on the Upper West Side known for its smoked fish. I wouldn’t be surprised if we talked about how many years—and how many generations back—we’ve been eating at or ordering in from Barney’s…

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m a journalist, author of 16 books, including Consequential Strangers, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. I write frequently write about relationships—how we forge them, how they make our lives better.

Please share your giving stories in the comments.

I also write about aging and ageism. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth), pick up a copy of my latest book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. The stories about “my old ladies” will give you hope and make you laugh and cry.

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A stranger walks away without his wallet…

My college friend Barbara Biziou, who has studied and teaches the importance of rituals, calls while I am sitting on my roof reading the Sunday Times.

“I found a wallet…You’re a journalist. What do you think I should do?”

I didn’t skip a beat. I am not the kind of journalist who reports from the battlefield; I write “service pieces,” articles and books that investigate issues closer to home. Over the last fifty years, I’ve served up words that (I hope) help you stay married or divorce well, that show you how to run a family like a co-op, that teach you to cherish all your relationships and inspire you to reach out as if your life depends on it (because it does!).

And so when Barbara asks what do to with a wallet she just found, I’m all over it!

“He has lots of credit cards and memberships. The name is…,” she reads from one of the cards and then recites the names of companies and clubs to which the mystery man belongs. She can’t find an address on any of the cards.

I picture Barbara at a wrought-iron bistro table on the sidewalk outside of Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleeker Street. New York is a safe and surprisingly friendly city, but one still needs to be urban-savvy at all times. Imagining her thumbing through credit cards in full view of passersby, I advise:

“If there’s a police station anywhere near you, you could drop off the wallet, and be done with it. But if you want to find the owner yourself, go home and rifle through the wallet in private.”

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The stranger is found…

She does, and here ’s where I lose track of the play-by-play. An hour or so later I text her.

Me: What happened with the wallet when you got home?

B: I just found the guy. His name is Charlie. His son’s coming over to pick it up. They’re having dinner for Father’s Day... So weird, a second person called and said it’s their wallet

Me: How did that happen?

B: I left my phone number at Murray’s Cheese in case anyone lost a wallet. This is so bizarre—that two people lost a brown wallet in front of Murray’s today! I don’t know what to say. The second guy—it wasn’t his wallet, because he told me what was in it, and it didn’t match up. So much for being a good person.

Me: You are a good person

Two hours later…

B: Charlie just called me. He’s 88. He lost his wife five years ago, and he said I made his year.

Me: Write this. It should be your first Substack. I know a good story when I hear one!

I’m not sure whether it was my pestering her or my threatening to tell this story if she didn’t, but Barbara did write about Charlie in her newsletter.

The story and its message stay with me. Barbara’s hunt for the owner was a simple but generous act. And how great that it “made” Charlie’s year.

Paying it forward…

A day or two later, I am in a cab, stuck in midday Manhattan traffic in pouring rain. We inch along. The meter is ticking. It would have been a lot cheaper—and faster—to walk. To pass the time, I practice what I preach.

“Horrible traffic today,” I say to the back of the cabbie’s head, loud enough for him to hear me though the opening in the plexiglass window that separates front seat from back.

“Yes, that’s true,” he says, “but I’m here.”

“I said the same thing to a friend yesterday,” I answer. I explain that I am 82 and grateful for every day.”

We banter back and forth, consequential strangers who stand on unlikely common ground. As we drive the last block and near the entrance to my building, the cabbie says, “Thanks for the conversation.”

I am unexpectedly overtaken with gratitude for this sweet moment with a stranger. When the cab stops at my door, I lean forward and hand the driver a $20 bill. “I paid the fare and tip on the app,” I say, “but I want you to have this, too.”

I’m not in the habit of doling out $20 tips. I’m not sure what came over me then, or how much Barbara’s encounter with a stranger affected me. I only know that the giving felt good and right in that moment. The driver was shocked and appreciative. ‘

“You are an angel. You have no idea how much this will help me. It comes just in time.”

I don’t ask for details. He is clearly an honest, hard-working man, perhaps also down on his luck. I thought of the old adage: Don’t throw good money after bad. This felt like throwing good money after good.

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And then…

I’m on my morning dog walk and notice an ID badge on the pavement attached to a sweet little clip.

I might have just kept going but, instead, I pick it up. After staring at the photo and the first and last name, I put the badge in my back pocket.

When I get home, it takes only a few seconds to Google the owner, a tech scientist, and to find her email address.

“I found your badge,” is all I write. She’ll know what I mean.

Minutes later, a return email:

Hi Melinda,

Thank you so much for letting me know. I lost it today and revoked it for security, but I still would like to get it. The badge holder was a gift. I’ll be out of my meetings around 3pm, please let me know where I can come and get it.

I write back, telling her my address and that I’ll leave the badge with my doorman.

She answers:

Yes, that works perfectly.
And I notice that my shelves are missing your book :) I will definitely check it out. Thank you so much.

The moral of these stories

Giving feels good. That’s the key takeaway here. But there’s a bigger picture—a virtuous cycle, if you will—that you set in motion when you try to do the right thing.

• Good begets good. My dear friend Zelda—the longest-lived of my old ladies who almost made it to 105—lived by her motto, “Look for the good.” Notably, she also “manufactured” the good by loving fiercely and making people laugh.

• Practice matters. The more you reach out and act kindly to others, the better your rewards, and the easier it will be to go the extra mile next time. Buddhists call it “accumulation of merit”—doing something for someone else’s good.

• Listening is a form of giving. Even before I gave the cab driver a $20 bill, we connected through conversation that made both of us feel good. Asking about another gets you outside of yourself and reminds you that you’re not alone in the human struggle.

• It pays be unexpectedly considerate or generous. You get the benefit of giving and you get a glimpse of your Better Self. You still feel like a small self in an overwhelming Universe, but you are proud of yourself for cultivating the good.

• You reap what you sow—and then some. I not only earned gratitude from the woman who lost her badge, I sold a book!

Lest I come off as preachy, believe me, I am sometimes busy, distracted, and on auto-pilot. I don’t always take the time to stop and engage, to really listen. Regrettably, I also can fall into the all-too-human trap of fearing that giving somehow diminishes what I “have.”

But as these last few days have shown me, that’s fuzzy math. If I take a breath and look into my heart, I always have something to share, whether it’s a spare moment, a slightly larger tip, or an insight that can brighten another person’s day. It does not impoverish me. It makes me feel richer, kind, and connected to my fellow humans.

***

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m a journalist, author of 16 books, including Consequential Strangers, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. I write frequently write about relationships—how we forge them, how they make our lives better.

Please share your giving stories in the comments.

I also write about aging and ageism. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth), pick up a copy of my latest book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. The stories about “my old ladies” will give you hope and make you laugh and cry.

Subscribe now

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I like people. Most of the time I’m open to meeting them. In part, it’s because of what happened in the summer of 2008 when I was 65. I share this story, which I’ve told privately many times, to illustrate that no matter how old you are, it’s never too late to connect.

It was mid-July, and I was finishing the final draft of Consequential Strangers in a rented house in Cherry Grove, one of the many “towns” on Fire Island, a strip of barrier beach off Long Island, New York. The realtor had shown my partner and me the house months earlier, noting that we’d share the gigantic deck and small pool with three alternating sets of female couples who would reside in the tiny apartment adjacent to the space we occupied.

I didn’t think much about it. The deck seemed large enough to accommodate four women at a time. In retrospect, I was also blinded by the ocean view—with a pool, no less.

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Cut to our first week in the house…

The first “other couple” had a string of company throughout the week. Sometimes, one of their guests sat in the lounges at the end of the pool, chairs allotted to our unit. Their guests dipped and dunk themselves throughout the day. So much for swimming laps.

But what bothered me most was that as the other tenants or their friends would walk past our space, many of them peeked in. There I sat in front of floor-to-ceiling glass windows at a tiny desk, trying not to look up. But whenever I sensed a body passing by, curiosity got the best of me, and my eyes met theirs.

I wanted no part of my deck mates. Ironically, I was churning out a book about the importance of cultivating relationships beyond your intimate circle of family and close friends. I didn’t care if the women lounging outside my door fit the description of “consequential strangers.” I had a due date.

This was not the other renters’ fault, of course. I was told they would be there. I just didn’t think it through. It was my proverbial bed to lie in.

I spent the first week gritting my teeth. My partner, a diplomat by profession and personality, urged me to ignore them and concentrate on what I needed to do.

Our visitors, our change agents

Then our dearest friends Carla and Reggie came for a long weekend. I knew both women since the late 80s in Manhattan. After I moved to Massachusetts and sold my apartment in the city, whenever I came to New York I stayed on their pullout couch. They took such good care of me, I began calling them “my wives.”

Reggie and Carla—sadly, now both deceased—didn’t go back as far as college, but they were New Yorkers, my kind of people: smart, funny, irreverent. I bathed in their support and familiarity. Even better, my partner loved them just as much—and vice-versa.

So when Reggie came in from the deck the first day of their visit and said, “Melinda, you have to meet those women—they’re lovely,” referring to the couple-of-the-week, I bristled but begrudgingly got up from my desk and went outside.

“You’ll love them,” Reggie predicted as I followed her through the screen door. One was a psychologist, Reg told me, the other a college dean and photographer. I had no clue that the two strangers on the deck would someday become two of my closest friends and that I would bond differently but no less strongly with each of them.

I’d like to say that it happened immediately, that I softened and embraced the women Reggie raved about—both of whom happened to be named Sue. But, no, I continued to dig my heels in. Standing in the pool next to one of the Sues, I announced, “I don’t need any more friends.”

We laugh about it now. I cringe a little.

What possessed me?

I already had a boatload of friends—sorority sisters I kept in touch with since 1965 when we graduated Syracuse. Friends in Manhattan. Friends from my married years and from my post-divorce years. Friends in Northampton. Friends in Miami.

I certainly didn’t need more acquaintances. Indeed, I was known for picking up random acquaintances everywhere and anywhere I went.

So what was it on? Why my resistance?

Over the years, I claimed it was because I was on deadline, typically a time of laser focus and anxiety. Nearing the finish line for my 13th book—one I’d started three years earlier—I couldn’t be bothered with small talk.

That’s a reasonable thesis, and partly true. But also there is…

…the messages we don’t know we’re internalizing

At 65, I barely understood what “ageism” was. Deadline aside, I suspect I also had internalized the misguided notion that older people don’t forge new friendships. We don’t have the time. Maybe we’re no longer that interesting to others or, worse, invisible. Besides, I already had many relationships of all different types. Did I need to let in two strangers who happened to share the deck?

Of course, none of that is true. There is no expiration date on relationship-building. It’s never “too late,” except on your death bed. Even then…I might connect with my hospice nurse or the aide who changes my diapers!

The point it, you can’t have too many good people in your life. Each of them brings something different to the table—understanding, humor, advice, experience, practical support. And the older you get, the more important it is to connect.

This doesn’t mean you need many people. We all have different tolerances for social interaction. Also, one’s appetite for schmoozing depends on what else is going on. I was writing a book that summer. But I might have been similarly disinclined to meet new people if I had been ill or wrestling with my own or a loved one’s problem.

Clearly, when you need to pull back, it’s important to allow yourself to not socialize, but to use your time for reflection and relaxation. But it’s also important to not make a habit of isolating, and at some point, to reenter the social arena.

Bottom line: We need a variety of relationships from near-stranger to soulmate. Each person in your life becomes a mirror and a sounding board. Each one gives you new ideas and/or helps you see a fresh approach. We share and have fun; we get to dig our heels in together. Mostly, we need others to make the magic happen—the spell that’s cast when two people truly connect. At any age.

Had I missed the opportunity to connect with the Sues that summer, I would have deprived myself of two deep, satisfying, and sustaining relationships—different with each, but no less important. I would have missed subsequent summers when we purposely scheduled our weeks on Fire Island to overlap. I would have forgone the pleasure of endless dinners and visits and birthday celebrations and lots of laughter. And I would have never been asked to step out of my comfort zone to do something I’d never done before (and probably won’t do again for anyone else): officiate at the Sues’ 2017 wedding, a celebration of their (then) 44 years together!

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m a journalist, author of 16 books, including Consequential Strangers, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how my much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and make you laugh and cry.

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…one final thought

A shout-out to for her coinage of “you-ier,” a quality that makes you unique—in writing and in life. Ask anyone in my social convey, this piece reflects who I am!

Full disclosure: I’m a fan and friend of Karen’s. In fact, our relationship reflects the point of this piece. She’s the age I was when I met the Sues. I’m now 82, still making new friends up and down the age ladder.

If you’re curious and have a spare half-hour, Karen and I did a Substack Live recently!

When one of my closest college friends said, “I feel sorry for today’s kids,” referring to young adults at least fifty years younger than us, I immediately agreed.

We had been talking about how dinner was eaten earlier these days because so many people worked at home and wanted to get out — and those who worked at offices preferred going straight to dinner. My friend thought it was a matter of health—that young people eat earlier than we did and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

We laughed remembering our own habits as thirtysomethings in the Big Apple. She roller-skated at midnight. I partied at Studio 54.

Twentysomethings in the late sixties, our minds were beginning to expand. Hair, the musical, opened on Broadway in 1968, urging us to let the sunshine in. The actors disrobed in the final act. By the seventies, my friends and I were smoking pot and open to whatever happened next.

We were city girls in the best of all cities. And we definitely had fun.

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What’s happening now?

As luck—bless it—would have it, a few hours after this conversation another friend sends me a link to pulsd.com—”a curated selection of New York City’s best events.”

Of course, I start scrolling.

Along with offerings such as, “$45 Cocktail Brunch for Two,” the site promotes an array of businesses and services. Zipping past “One Year of Unlimited Laser Hair Removal, “$35 Massages, $59 Spa Days,” and “70% Off Cuts, Color and Bb Conditioning”—whatever that is—I light on “Salvage City,” a supper club. Underneath, I read the words Immersive Theatrical & 3Crs Dinner…

A thesis begins building in my brain: Maybe this is what’s happening now, and it’s no so different from the kind of entertainment we once enjoyed.

Excited, I blurt out to my partner, “Remember I told you about liquid theater?”

No answer. She is scrolling, too. Finally, she looks up, confused. I don’t know whether she doesn’t remember this particular story about my past, or I never told her.

“Well, anyway….I think I’ve found the 2026 version.”

I explain “liquid theater” further. (No easy feat fifty years later. I wasn’t even sure it was called liquid theater!)

“I went with Mark [my ex, now deceased] in the early 70s. Of course we were stoned. Everyone was. The actors interacted with the audience. It was, as I recall, a totally unstructured theatrical experience that took place mostly in the dark.

“There was a lot of touching. You’d have hated it, I’m sure.”

Liquid Theatre

Unimpressed or uninterested or both, she looks down at her tablet, and I dive down a rabbit hole. First, to check my memory.

This barely theatrical venture provided more of an evening at a party than one at a play. Structured as a freeform assortment of Happening-like games, sensory awareness, trust exercises, and dancing, the show created an atmosphere faintly tinged with the aura of Eros.

—James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theatre. From the (unpublished) Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, 1970-1975

The “encyclopedia” goes on to confirm what I remember: More than 90 percent of the program involved audience participation, though spectators could also watch from the sidelines. I remember the sensations more than the sound track, but film and theatre critic Edith Oliver described the music as “folk, pop, simulated Indian, and rock.”

I don’t recall liquid theatre being in the basement of the Guggenheim or that we were asked to check our shoes in the upstairs lobby. But it fits.

I definitely don’t remember the performance being as intimate as in a video I find on YouTube. It was obviously cut to highlight the more sensual moments of the evening. Still, it jives with images that float thought my brain.

I do remember walking through a maze of humans, allowing myself to be touched and fed sweet foods. I might have been blindfolded. I absolutely remember being kissed at the end by two of the actors —a man and a woman. It was the seventies.

Would such an experience fly today? Described by a critic in the early 70s as “the best-natured and cheapest psychotherapy in town,” liquid theatre was created through “lighting, music, sensitivity games, touching and groping, tasting and smelling.”

It wasn’t for everyone, even back then, but Mark and I loved it.

“‘The phenomenon is of sociological rather than artistic interest,’ wrote Harold Clurman. But Martin Gottfried thought the company had created ‘one of its special accomplishments . . . and only a grouch would not be reached by it.’”

—James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theatre. From the (unpublished) Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, 1970-1975

Cut to 2026

Is Salvage City a fifty-years-later incarnation of liquid theatre? You’ll find this explanation above its “Buy Tickets” button:

…the iconic Salvage City Supper Club, a dystopian dinner show born at EDC in Las Vegas. Join us for an immersive dining experience that transports you into an oasis of post-apocalyptic abundance. It’s a place where chaos gives way to beauty and survival tastes sweeter than ever.

I have no clue what “EDC in Las Vegas” is, but a click later I find that it stands for the Electric Daisy Carnival, an electronic dance festival. Still not sure what happens in Salvage City, I press on.

Turns out, the past is prologue after all. Here’s how pulsd describes the club, an experience that starts at $75 a head.

Born beneath the electric sky of EDC Las Vegas, Salvage City Supper Club arrives in New York for its first-ever residency inside the Times Square EDITION. At the edge of the world’s collapse, a hidden oasis emerges, a place where survival has evolved into ritual, beauty has been scavenged from chaos, and indulgence feels more urgent than ever. For 90 minutes, you'll be transported into a decadent escape where the lines between dinner, theater, and fantasy disappear entirely.

Further down the rabbit hole, I am not surprised to discover that the Edition Hotel is owned by Ian Schrager, Steve Rubell’s former partner at Studio 54.

Ian, Steve, and I are all Syracuse University alums—as is designer Neil Bieff, a dear friend to this day, who not only dressed me for disco, but also designed my and my daughter’s wedding dresses!

I barely knew Ian, but thanks to Steve, I always got past the velvet ropes on West 54th Street. Steve wasn’t among the most popular guys on campus but as a young coed, I talked to everyone.

Steve and I also had steak restaurants in common after graduation—I was doing PR for my father’s restaurant, the storied Black Angus, and Steve had two Steak Loft franchises before he made nightclub history.

One report declared Studio 54 “the envy of the world — at least for hip youths, dancers, and celebrities who needed a place to party freely.”

Rubell himself stood outside each night and judged right on the spot who was allowed to enter. If he liked a customer’s style, energy, and aura, they were welcomed past the club’s famous velvet rope.

Steve reportedly said of his vision for the club: “It’s like mixing a salad…or casting a play. If it gets too straight, then there’s not enough energy in the room. If it gets too gay, then there’s no glamour. We want it to be bisexual. Very, very, very bisexual.”

One night, I stood with Steve on the famed balcony of Studio, a few feet from Andy Warhol (a frequent flyer) and Bianca Jagger (who once rode onto the dance floor on a white horse). I marveled at the scene he created and presided over: dancers crowding the floor below, a huge animated Man in the Moon with a Cocaine Spoon sculpture above them, the “bridge and tunnel crowd” clamoring at the door.

You were always nice to me,” he said, perhaps remembering our days on campus, “so you’ll always be able to get in.” To this day, I tell my children, grandchildren, and anyone I care about: Don’t burn bridges.

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Is Salvage Studio Redux?

Studio went out with a bang. Its doors were forever closed in 1979 when Steve and Ian were found guilty of tax evasion and were sentence to 3 1/2 years in jail. They barely served over a year and went on to usher in a new category of chic “boutique” hotels. The Delano in Miami. The Paramount in New York.

Steve died in 1984, at 45. His lifestyle caught up with him. I lost track of Ian who, based on descriptions of his current projects, hasn’t tired of reinventing night life. Even the fairly conservative app, Open Table, describes Salvage as: “A passionate homage to the vibrant spirit of Times Square, blending the essence of Studio 54 with the allure of Broadway.”

…the underground venue has become one of Manhattan’s most magnetic after-dark scapes, where immersive theatre, decadent dining, and boundary-pushing performance merge in the most intoxicating way possible.

Inside, the energy unfolds in waves. Aerialists drifting overhead, acrobats bending reality, hypnotic choreography, smoky vocals, and surreal visual storytelling is stitched together into a world that feels equal parts cabaret, fantasy, and late-night hallucination...

… Salvage City thrives on unpredictability: glamorous, chaotic, seductive, and unapologetically alive, the kind of night that leaves you buzzing long after the curtain falls...

No doubt, the 2026 venue has elements of the “liquid theatre” of long ago with a dollop of 54 Sauce. However, it is wrought more as a dystopian fantasy than a celebration of sensuality—no doubt, a nod to the times we’re currently in.

Reading about Salvage, I say to my partner, “I want to go!”

“Ok,” she says, half listening. I know she’ll have second thoughts after reading this, but I’m still game. As long as it’s not a 9:30 pm show.

***

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how “my old ladies”—friends in their 90s and 100s helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope, make you laugh and cry—and might even encourage you to go out dancing!

In 1990, my son Jeremy told a college friend that his mother, the journalist, “writes about whatever she’s into.” Unbeknownst to him my next piece would be “Mean Sex,” a cover story in New York magazine. For the record, I reported on the S & M scene; I was not “into” it. Still, Jeremy was mostly right. At 82, I write a lot about aging, ageism, and “my old ladies,” whose ranks I have happily joined. But the question that runs through all my work and has excited me both personally and professionally over the last fifty-plus years is, how do we get better at relationships?

People Power

The hardcover edition of Consequential Strangers, a book I co-authored in 2009 with psychologist Karen L. Fingerman, is subtitled “The Power of People Who Don’t Seem to Matter but Really Do.” It’s not just a catchy combination of words to lure readers. The book explores acquaintanceships—that vast territory of relationships outside your partner, family members, and close friends. Relationships we rarely think about.

We all know our intimates are important. Far less obvious is that the butcher, the baker, the nice lady next door, and dozens of others you encounter throughout your day are just as vital—albeit in different ways and for different reasons.

Consequential strangers — “weak ties” — require less tending and attention. They’re our wash-and-wear social ties. We don’t have to remember their birthdays; we might not know their children’s name. Still, as the Sesame Street song goes, they are the people in your neighborhood—also in the gym, the doctor’s office, the supermarket, and wherever your life takes you. They can make or break your day! Each one gives you what your intimates cannot provide: novelty, a fresh perspective, new ideas and experiences.

Many of your “strong ties” — family and close friends — can finish your sentences. But they tend to freeze you in time and, possibly, have trouble accepting a changed you. They might be hurt when you don’t take their advice. Worse, when you share a wise tidbit from your hairdresser, they’re likely to shoot back, “But I’ve been telling you that for weeks!” Still, these are the loved ones you’re more likely to call in the middle of the night.

In short, all relationships matter. Each one is unique, a co-mingling of what each person brings to the table—personality, experiences, and past relationships. This is true for all social ties, not just close ones. They make an impact on your identity and your well-being.

Consider the key findings of the 85-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development, as Jancee Dunn summed up in a 2023 New York Times article:

If you’re going to do one thing this year to ensure your own health and happiness, the authors maintain, find the time to nurture and develop relationships.

The Harvard findings mirror what social science researchers and scholars began to discover several decades ago: Stress and isolation are deadly. Social contact is life-enhancing.

Meanwhile, the evidence keeps pouring in. Those of us who have varied social networks tend to be more satisfied with life, healthier and live longer than people who don’t.

Look at Who’s in Your Life

Why do relationships matter so much?

The answer is simple: We are who we hang with…for better and worse!

Each relationships shapes us and mirrors who we are. Our intimates bring solace and support at home. Our consequential strangers ground us and give us a sense of belonging.

If every encounter is important, whether it’s with someone you hold dear or a casual acquaintance, it pays to take a close look at your “social convoy,” a term coined by psychologist Tony Antonucci to describe the cavalcade of relationships, past and present, that punctuate your life.

Everyone you’ve ever met is part of your social convoy. Family members and close friends travel with you for much of the journey, whereas people you meet at school or work, in a support group, or fighting for a cause often disappear into the rear-view mirror when that chapter of your life ends. They are your consequential strangers, some closer than others. You might reconnect in the future or not. Either way, each relationship affects you, now and forever.

How do we know which is which? In her research, Antonucci asks subjects to place their connections in one of three concentric circles, according to the relative importance of the people in your life.

The inner circle is for “people to whom you feel so close that it is hard to imagine life without them.”

The middle circle is for “people to whom you may not feel quite that close but who are still important to you.”

The outer circle includes “people whom you haven’t already mentioned but who are close enough and important enough in your life that they should be placed in your personal network.”

It’s a rather illuminating exercise. If you’re really ambitious, sub-divide that outer circle, which will further sort your more casual acquaintances.

Another Kind of Sorting Exercise

My co-author, psychologist Karen Fingerman, analyzed people’s social conveys by studying their holiday card lists. Of the more than 1400 cards her team scrutinized, over two-thirds were from consequential strangers in different pockets of the subjects’ lives.

Fingerman concluded that while it staves off loneliness to hear from loved ones, an additional sense of security comes from being connected to consequential strangers who help us feel like our world extends beyond the boundaries of home.

To whom did you send and receive holiday cards last year? What’s your relationship each sender? And what does getting a card from him or her mean to you?

Don’t worry if you don’t—or no longer—send holiday cards. Your guest list for a milestone occasion, like a wedding or a retirement party, also allows you to to review who’s in your life.

What names come to mind first? They’d probably end up in Antonnuci’s first and second circles. The rest—acquaintances you’ve lost touch with or more recent additions to you social convoy—would tend to fall in your outer circles.

Which of these relationships have morphed over time? Did a once-casual acquaintance becomes an important friend? Did your connection to a college bestie weaken in adulthood?

We never really get rid of relationships, because each is part of your “social convoy. But some eventually disappear from view.

Now that you know who you know….

Every day, make a choice to reach out. Possible moments of connection are available throughout the comings and goings of your day. Some planned, some serendipitous.

Hone your social skills, up your empathy, and be someone other enjoy. My friend Zelda, the most gregarious of my old ladies, did it by being interested and interesting. To Zelda, connecting with new people—she lovingly called them her “conquests”— was a necessity, especially as she edged into her 90s and beyond.

“Honey, everyone I know is dead,” Zelda explained. “I have to replenish.”

But don’t wait until your dotage. Whether you’re sixteen or sixty, it’s important to work on your “social fitness.”

Dr. Waldinger and Dr. Schulz have coined a term for the process of assessing and treating the health of our relationships: “social fitness.” It’s just as crucial as physical fitness, said Dr. Waldinger, who added that neglected relationships can atrophy, like muscles. “Our social life is a living system, and it needs exercise,” he said. “It’s a choice you make to invest in, week by week, year by year — one that has huge benefits.”

I’m a slug when it comes to physical fitness but I can tell you a thing or two about building social muscle:

Pay attention to people you see in your everyday comings and goings.

In settings you re-visit often—for example, your commute or your dog-walking route—check out possible prospects. Look for “signs” that draw you to a person. It could be appearance, the person’s facial expression or “vibe.”

Dare — while being authentic.

Don’t be skittish about making the first move. As you walk by a stranger who catches your eye, start a conversation. You might offer a compliment, but only if you mean it. “I love those sneakers.” “What a cute dog!” Or, ask a question, “Do you get your hair cut around here?” Do you know where… [fill in with something you really want to know]?” It may lead to more, or maybe not. You’re just being friendly, not proposing marriage.

Find common ground.

Recall a time when you felt a surprising and sudden kinship with someone you don’t or barely know. Maybe you had similar backgrounds, you vacationed at the same favorite spot, or both of you were recently divorced. That feeling of being oddly in sync means that you’ve already found common ground, which is a good way to launch any relationship.

Take in as much as you divulge.

Relationships are built on give and take. Listening tells you who the other person is. Sharing tells the other person who you are. Both are essential if you hope to connect. However, be careful not to pry or overshare. The best relationships develop at a slow, steady pace, where neither party feels overwhelmed or invaded.

Do the work.

Relationships take time and commitment. Some require more nurturing than others but all need to be “fed” with attention, interest, and caring. Stay in touch. Send emails and texts. Pick up the phone. Make dates and keep them.

Regularly reassess.

Channel your inner Marie Kondo, and get rid of relationships that don’t spark joy—takers who never give, energy vampires, chronic complainers. Pay attention to red flags. If you feel a sense of dread whenever you meet a particular friend or acquaintance, you might be acting out of habit, guilt, or a sense of obligation—noneof which bode well for a relationship.

Enjoy the virtuous cycle of sociability.

The more you open yourself to people, the more you will enjoy momentary—or extended—hits of connection. They will not only make you feel good in the moment, they’ll encourage you to reach out more. Knowing people are “there” for you also makes you feel better about yourself and your life in the small corner of the Universe you inhabit.

It works for me. Perhaps the Harvard findings and my high SQ—social quotient—help explain why I’m still bopping around at 82!

***

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m a journalist, author of 16 books, including Consequential Strangers, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how my much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and make you laugh and cry.

My Own Reckoning

You know how your eyes have to adjust when you go from light into darkness? You wait and then you begin to see, first dimly but, soon, almost normally?

In the year-plus since I was infected with West Nile virus, my body has gone through a similar adjustment. But unlike my pupils, which automatically shrink when taxed, my back ask me to think about getting up from a chair—to engage my muscles and to steel myself as I begin to ascend. Slow down, it says, and, just to make sure I listen, it fires up my nerve endings. We’re not quite ready to take that first step.

Suffice to say, I don’t like it. I’m not used to hesitating before moving, feeling sharp pain or fearing a next step. I hear the kind of internal chatter I’ve taught myself to ignore. You look old getting up from a chair. As much as I know that everyone at the table is preoccupied with how they appear to the world, in my head I hear, They’re noticing.

It happens in nanoseconds. I pause self-consciously as my dinner partner (or party) get/s up. Everyone has a coat on and is marching toward the door while I silently struggle to unkink my body and find my footing.

In a few seconds, I’m fine albeit a bit embarrassed to have held everyone back, even so briefly. The pain is gone…until the next time I sit for more than 15 minutes and then try to stand. Rinse, wash, repeat.

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Honoring Each “NEXT”

Restaurants are a lot easier these days. It took me eighteen months to walk normally again, to lessen the pain, and—much to my surprise—to see West Nile as a gift. Being disabled and needing a cane helped me understand how to combat and come back from such a frightening and debilitating NEXT — my term for transitions and changes throughout life that require a new strategy. I still feel twinges when I rise from a dinner table, but I’m functioning well, walking normally. And I’m (mostly) not self-conscious.

NEXTs happen with age, of course, but also with moves, job changes, or crises that happen to others in your orbit but also affect you, such as difficulties with a child, a spouse’s illness or problems, No matter how or when it happens, and whether it is expected or a surprise, each NEXT gives us pause. Is this the new normal?

The problem is, we can’t know what’s around the corner at any age. Or, as my daughter, a hospice nurse, tells patients who want her to predict the course of an illness, “My crystal ball is in the shop.”

We can only deal with what is. At the advance age of 82, I’ve gone through many NEXTs . I knew I was in trouble with this one when I started noticing the negative chatter in my head: They’ll think you’ve aged since they last saw you. It’s the kind of ageist rumination, Yale researcher Becca Levy warns, that can steal years from you life

Luckily, I have spent the better part of my career studying human behavior. I know that nothing good comes of ruminating. And it’s only worse if you judge or blame yourself. Also, by now I’ve thankfully acquired a key gift of aging that comes to those of us who pay attention and correct course along the way:

I know how to make good choices. I can choose not to listen to the Debby Downer in my head.

I also have a reputation to uphold. Following the publication of my last book, I have become the Elmer Gantry of aging, proudly preaching the gospel of engagement and exuberance. Live until you die. And in the meantime, shed the shackles of ageism. Proudly shout your age! And if you’ve already racked up the years, be a kick-ass old person, a role model for your youngers.

To be sure, aging can suck. It is famously “not for sissies.” But “my old ladies,” as I affectionately call my friends in their 90s and 100s, taught me that you just keep going. You field whatever life throws at you. It’s not easy — NEXTs don’t come with instructions. And some are really difficult and come out of nowhere. Like a mosquito bite. But these are the reminders I give myself…

1. Call on your Inner Sage.

Your Inner Sage wants the best for you and knows how to silence the critical voices in your head — The Committee. My Inner Sage—the old lady within—reminds me that I don’t have to believe the damning cultural myths. She protects me by nudging me to tell myself the truth. I am moving a little slower than I once did, and what’s happening isn’t totally because of my recent hospitalization. She reminds me that a good ten years ago, my son, then in his forties, commented matter-of-factly as he watched me navigate a steep set of stairs, “Mom, you’re walking more gingerly.” The Committee tried to latch onto that one, too, but my Inner Sage shot back, “So what? You’re lucky to be still walking, still climbing stairs, still here to visit with your son.”

2. Look for the good.

That’s from Zelda’s playbook. She lived almost to 105, in part because she always found something positive in the Bad. No matter what problems we face, there’s always something to be grateful for: supportive relationships, rewarding pursuits, your home, your good habits, your capabilities and opportunities, and, as one of my Paris old ladies recently pointed out, the thoughts you alone can think. Anne, now 98, has had several upper body injuries in the last year. She still gets out to walk everyday, but now needs help bathing, dressing, and managing her meals. In one of our texting sessions, I wrote, “I can only imagine how hard it is for you to be dependent with no hope of reversing it.” I’ve since inscribed her answer in my heart, “About having lost my independence, what you say is so true. However, I can still keep working inside of me, working on keeping independent inside of a more and more dependent body.” And then, as if to clarify and, I suspect, reassure me: “I want to escape dependency…I am not ready to escape life. So let’s play as you do in a circus, walking on a rope trying to keep you balance along the way ‘til you reach the restful platform.”

3. Glance in the rearview mirror.

When you reach a certain age — for some it’s as early as forty — it’s possible to see where you’ve been, how you’ve gone around (or through) earlier roadblocks. You can see how you avoided the potholes, recovered from minor accidents. I had a similar epiphany more than a decade ago, standing naked in front of a mirror. Whose body is that? Instead of considering liposuction or ruminating about lost youth, I started thinking differently — more lovingly, more realistically — about my aging self. I apply the same intention now when I’m having an ageist moment. This is a slippery slope, I tell myself.

4. Do what needs to be done.

Wishing doesn’t make it so. We cannot ignore or remove a difficult Next. But we can be conscientious and proactive. My friend Henrietta put it succinctly, “You do what need to be done” — words she heard from her mother. Seventy-eight when I met her, legally blind and needing a cane, Henrietta could barely see faces and signs. But she managed because she took the reins. She devised strategies that allowed her to compensate. Responsible people feel better about themselves and tend to be healthier and live longer. I can’t stop the effects of time on my body, any more than Henrietta could restore her vision. But I can sit less and move more, swim, work with physical therapists, and take other actions that will continue to strengthen my body and make the difficult moments more manageable.

5. Ask.

Watching Marge function as the CEO of her life until age 104¼, showed me what independence looked like. She took care of herself, did her own errands, kept track of her appointments, and traded stocks with vision and purpose. But she also modeled interdependence: she knew how to ask for help when she needed it. It’s hard; we don’t want to appear needy. To wit, just as I was about to leave a rooftop cocktail party in Paris, one of the hosts asked if I wanted help navigating the steep staircase that led to the elevator. At first, I answered, “No thanks—I made it up here,” but then I remembered that there was no railing. It wasn’t easy on the way up, but down…that felt dangerous! As much as I didn’t want to appear being seen as “old,” I didn’t want to risk a fall. Our ageist-conditioned brains equate asking with weakness. It’s really the opposite, a well-documented win-win. That evening, two twentysomethings came to my rescue, happy to help. My need was met, and the young women who lent a supportive hand were happy to volunteer. It feels good to be needed.

6. Adjust.

Doing things more slowly or carefully or in a different way is not defeat. It’s change. You accept each new challenge — and adjust accordingly. Buddhists remind us, “Don’t argue with reality.” Instead of exhausting yourself, play nine holes of golf, not eighteen. Get the hearing aid so you can be part of the conversation. Use a cane if you need support. Write down what you don’t want to forget. And by all means, take whatever time you need to get up from a chair!

***

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I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how Zelda, Anne, Marge, and my other much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope, make you laugh and cry—and might even help you through your NEXT, whatever it is.

Babies recognize their names at nine months. I don’t know how old they are when they begin to dislike their names, but for the first seventeen years of my life—until I left for college—I wanted to be Susan or Barbara or Jane—anything other than Melinda. No one I knew or heard of was named Melinda.

When I was around 14, I asked my mother, then pushing 50 (I was the “surprise” baby), what possessed her to name me Melinda. She answered matter-of-factly, “I was reading Gone With the Wind.”

Mind you, Margaret Mitchell’s novel was published in 1936, the movie with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, released three years later. I, born in 1943, questioned my mother in 1958 or ‘59. I don’t remember how long after that conversation I actually read the book. I definitely saw the movie. Either way, that’s when I discovered that there is no “Melinda” in Gone With the Wind.

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I might have gone back to my mother with my discovery, but I have no memory of doing so.

For the record, I wouldn’t have liked Melanie either, not as a teenager, not now. In high school, I dubbed myself Mindy, a nickname that didn’t felt quite right except that I hated Melinda. I feared others would find the name odd or irritating.

Learning to Love Melinda

In college, the launch of my adulthood, I started to like my name. Combined with a diminishing adolescent need to be “like” everyone else, college forced me to tread unfamiliar terrain and allowed me to try on new personas. I became the “Melinda” I was happily constructing and would continue to build on as the years whizzed by.

Today I love my name. It has grown with me. I love that it’s different — and that even in 2026, I can ask, “How many Melindas do you know?” Most people struggle to come up with one—if any. Rarely doesn’t anyone know more than one Melinda.

While the above statements are based wholly on anecdotal observation, turning to “The Google” (rest in peace, John McCain), I also present scientific findings suggesting that the name Melinda is and was rare:

The name Melinda currently ranks as the 934th most popular female name in the United States. Its popularity peaked in 1970, when it reached a rank of 209, and saw its highest usage in 1973 with 4,145 births, accounting for 0.1403% of baby girls that year

I must have missed news of my name’s peak popularity in the 70s. I was also unaware in October, 1965 when the musical On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever made its Broadway debut, that one of its songs was “Melinda.” I can’t imagine sitting in an audience listening to my name repeated over and over. I also don’t remember the version recorded by Johnny Mathis, the crooner of my youth.

No matter. I’ve been at peace with Melinda for decades. However, I am confronted once again by a name problem.

What to Call My Writing

When I first posted on Substack, I “called” my newsletter Melinda—well, Melinda Blau. It’s not just my name; it’s the byline I’ve used for more than fifty years.

Some have suggested I need a catchier name for my newsletter—“youier,” as might put it. In Notes, a week or so ago, I put out a crowd-sourcing challenge to ask for help. How about “The Old Lady of Studio 54”? It was mostly a joke, because I know how old lady rankles and repels some people, no matter how wildly she’s dancing.

Because I write about whatever moves me on a given day, I tried to wring a catchy phrase out of the overarching theme of my work, relationships. As I always say, “If you’re good at relationships, you’re good at life.” Is that a title? Or how about, Ask Me Anything About Relationships?

Many who responded to my Note liked “The Wisdom Whisperer” for its simplicity and the fact that it is close to the title of my most recent book. , who writes Dispatches from the Pink Zones, commented: “I still love good old “Melinda Blau,” but next best, I agree, is the Wisdom Whisperer. It’s a completely accurate title and captures your zest.

Marie Johnson, author of the Letters From Paris newsletter—we were just starting to hang out before I left that city last November—also liked The Wisdom Whisperer, “perhaps with the addition of happy or smiling or laughing… maybe joyful? Because that is a big part of your wisdom IMHO ❤️.”

The aforementioned Karen, my creative and humorous advisor on all things Substack, threw The Wisdom Shouter into the mix, a nod to habits honed on the mean streets of New York City. Karen and I live blocks from each other in Manhattan and have amazingly similar sensibilities.

Ann Richardson, better known as The Granny Who Stands on Her Head, the title of one of her books and her Substack, lives in London. She reached out to me while I was still living in Paris. We had one very satisfying face-to-face meeting and happily kept in touch after. She wrote her thoughts about The Wisdom Whisperer in an email:

I think it was a great title for your book, because you were writing about other people, but it might be a bit too self-congratulatory applied to yourself (even if it is true). In my mind (but I have nearly 60 years of British self-deprecation training!), you might be better off with something like The Wisdom Seeker. That echoes the title of your book, shows you are interested in deep things, but are not claiming you are The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread.

Just a thought. Feel free to ignore.

Ann has a point. She later wrote that she’d rather a more unique noun than “seeker,” a word that has already found its way to other Substack newsletters.

I’m still toying with riffs on “old lady”— the phrase that dare not speak its name! I fought with friends, colleagues, and my publisher to use it and redefine it. And damn it! I refuse to back down.

I call my much-older friends “my old ladies.” I proudly call myself an old lady. And that’s what younger people who want what I’m having call me! I can’t tell you how good it feels to be admired and appreciated for years lived and lessons learned.

So what’s in a name? Maybe I should just stick with the one my mother gave me after reading Gone With the Wind.

***

Thanks for stopping by…

I’m Melinda Blau, veteran journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer of the Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age podcast. If you’ve read this personal rumination to the end, bless you. I’d appreciate your input as well!

I’m 82 and counting and quite content in my dotage! If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how my old ladies helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. (The audiobook will be out in July.) Their stories will give you hope, make you laugh and cry, and, if your luck holds out, help you become a kick-ass old lady (or man) someday!

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I spend many years writing parenting books with family therapist Ron Taffel, a clinician for whom I have great respect. We were both parents, but my kids were teenagers when his were toddling. I sometimes shared co-parenting woes with Ron during the post divorce years.

“They act differently at my house.”

“They save it for the mother,” Ron explained time and again. In most families, most households, Mother is the both go-to and the dumped-on. Mothers take it on — and mothers take it.

I don’t remember my mother that way. The only person she “took it” from was my father. Maybe because she was 35 when she had me, I became her golden baby girl, arriving nine years after my bother. In between, a dead baby.

Born in 1911, second in a family of six girls, my mother died in 1973. I sometimes wonder, What would Henrietta say? when I learn about a new technology or listen to the news. She’s been gone for more than half a century. How would she view the world today? Would she be amazed or horrified at the array of choices available to my children and grandchildren?

I miss my mother, but I don’t ache from the loss as I once did. My tears are not as close to the surface as they were at my son’s Bar Mitzvah in 1986 or my daughter’s wedding in 2000. Both times, I choked back sobs and felt my insides twist. My mother wasn’t there. She would have been so proud.

In the years after my mother died, the sadness sometimes crept in unexpectedly. I’d walk through a department store and smell her perfume. I’d see a blond stranger at an age she might have been. I totally lost it once, in a darkened theater, watching Shadowland. I knew little of the story, only that the movie was well-reviewed. But the moment Debra Winger’s character began to limp, I thought of the pain in my mother’s leg. I knew Debra Winger would die, and I sobbed uncontrollably.

I was five when my forty-year-old mother had a hysterectomy, sixteen when she, a little past 50, had a breast removed. Her first day home from the hospital, she asked me to help change the bandage. I can never un-see that jagged scar screeching across her chest and down her arm.

She “lasted” another thirteen years, miraculous in that era of cancer treatment. I didn’t immediately jump to cancer when she started to limp. Still, I though she should at least see my GP. The doc called me a few days after her visit and shared his prognosis: her cancer is back, now in her bones. He estimated, “she has two years at most,” but my dear friend, an orthopedic surgeon who read her X-rays told me the truth, predicting, “less than six months.” She died five months later.

My mother never got old. Like Dorian Gray, she will always be as young in my eyes as she was in her portrait.

For much of my life I didn’t want to “be” like my mother. But the joke’s on me. I know now that I owe my sense of purpose and doggedness to her. Whenever I complained that a task was “too hard,” be it homework or attempting something new, her response was, “There’s no such word as can’t.” In the mid-seventies, Ralph Nader would dub me “Melinda Persistent,” and now in 2026, my Crow’s Feet colleagues call me “the procurer.” There’s no such thing as can’t.

I also have my mother’s love of and skill with words. She was the first and only one of “the Bass girls” to go to college, editing the Hunter College yearbook in her senior year. She never wrote professionally after that, but her thank-you notes were legendary.

I imagine if Henrietta is looking down on me from some plane humans don’t yet understand, she is proud of me and especially gratified that I’ve forged a career as a writer. She probably takes some of the credit, too, just as she reminded me repeatedly in childhood that I should be thankful to her for my small “Bass nose.”

Her taking credit once would have bothered me. I also rankled when she described someone as “a type.” And I was upset when she quit teaching because, as she explained, “Your father doesn’t want people to think his wife has to work.”

But at 82, I see my mother through a different lens. I now focus on the qualities and values she gave me, rather than what I judged her for not having or not doing. She was the product of her time, as I am of mine. I danced at Studio 54, divorced, and took many unexpected turns to become who I am.

It’s too bad that such understanding comes so late in life when we tap into our Inner Sage. The most I can hope is that somehow…somewhere…my mother understands what she gave me. She might not recognize herself in me, but I at least know she’s in there.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

***

I’m Melinda Blau. Thanks for stopping by.

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth), you will be surprised at how “my old ladies”—friends in their 90s and 100s—helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it. It’s all in The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and probably make you laugh and cry.

In the late nineties, churning out advice books — my own and collaborations—I asked my literary agent about “Judy” (not her real name), a successful writer she also represented. I didn’t know Judy — only that she was a fellow author who’d written or co-written a string of books, some bestsellers. Her career was similar to mine, except she was ahead on the path, and I was curious. My thirtysomething agent’s response shocked me.

“Oh, she’s too old. I doubt if anyone will hire her now.”

I was in my mid-fifties, not feeling particularly old or vulnerable, and certainly not imagining myself canceled. I wondered if my agent was subtly sending me a message — Judy wasn’t that much older, probably in her early sixties.

For that matter, did my agent hear herself? Did she realize how dismissive and unkind she was about someone she once prized as a client?

Instead of asking, I’m sad to admit, I changed the subject. I acted like a woman in the presence of a misogynist or a Jew fearing to reveal herself to an anti-Semite. It wasn’t safe.

The agent and I parted ways in 2014, and not amicably. Her comment stayed with me. I was barely aware of ageism then, but over the next decade, as my birthdays piled up, I began to understand.

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The Last Acceptable Stereotype

While ageism also affects the young, the greatest insults, including the well-meaning, are hurled at The Old — a group that some, my 104-year-old friend Marge correctly observed, are dying to avoid:

“Why don’t people realize that the only way to stay young is to die young?”

We are all unconsciously ageist — it’s baked into us by media images and fortified by a multi-billion-dollar industry that hawks youth products and is expected to continue to grow dramatically over the next decade.

The U.S. anti-aging market size is calculated at US$ 20.21 billion in 2024, grew to US$ 21.61 billion in 2025, and is projected to reach around US$ 39.6 billion by 2034. — “U.S. Anti-Aging Market Surges with Skincare and Injectables”

I suspect the TV producer at the Hallmark Network who praised my 10-minute spot on dealing with disappointment and promised to invite me back, thought she was being helpful by suggesting that I “wear a turtleneck next time.”

I was barely past sixty. Whenever I watched the video of that appearance with family and friends who’d missed the show, all I could see—or hear—was my neck.

Some twenty years later, I found the above screen shot from the video and was pleasantly surprised. Through my eightysomething eyes, I looked damn good, neck and all.

Ageism isn’t always nasty or ill-meant, as my former agent’s overtly prejudiced comment was. But think of the things we say to old people. Would you “compliment” a teenager on “successful” aging? Or, imagine saying to a Muslim or a Asian, “I like you, but you’re different—not like them.”

We call healthy, active old people “super-agers,” as if they’re setting the bar for the rest of us. The conceit is that we can control what life throws at us, or, for that matter, how our faces and bodies age.

And sometimes, we unintentionally make ageist comments about ourselves — for example, saying “I’m getting old” to explain a memory lapse or a mistake, both common at any age.

We think of such off-handed remarks as harmless self-deprecation, but we are who we tell ourselves. Buying into ageist beliefs, as the wonderful Becca Levy’s research suggests, can take years off your life.

If you want to feel better about yourself and make the world a better place, start with the chatter between your ears. Avoid making misinformed and short-sighted comments.

What to Say Instead

Ageism is subtle and surprising. Below are a few common one-liners—about others or yourself—that you might want to delete from your conversations or at least think about. Each is followed by a more respectful alternative:

Ageist remark: “You look great for your age.”

It doesn’t matter that you mean it as a compliment. Think about the statement. What does “great” look like? And “for your age”? What does a particular numeral — be it 6, 50, or 78 — look like? Can’t say? Too many possibilities to categorize? Exactly.

Respectful alternative: “You are so …” [fill in healthy, active, interesting, strong, engaging, creative, etc.] “I want what you’re having!”

In complimenting qualities you admire, you praise the person’s presence. Gloria Steinem famously retorted to a reporter who said she didn’t “look” her age, “this is what fifty looks like.” But why not take appearance out of the equation altogether? Looks change from 6 to 16 and from 60 to 80. Now when someone tells me how good I look for 82, I say, “This is what 82 lives like.”

Ageist remark: You’re 70? That’s not old.”

Who are you kidding? Scientists start the old-age clock at 65, an arbitrary number, to be sure. But once you get into that territory, you are, by definition, old. And as Seinfeld might say, “not that there’s anything wrong with it!”

Respectful alternative: “I’ll be you’re proud to be 70.”

It is impowering to be proud of how old you are. Some anti-ageism advocates suggest we leave age out of the conversation entirely, but I don’t agree. It is as valid an identifier as height or hair color, not something to be ashamed of. Why deny or hide years lived?

Ageist remark: “She’s got the body of a 50-year-old.”

That’s how I once described my then 84-year-old friend, Edrie, seeing her in a bathing suit on Fire Island. I meant it as a compliment, but then I caught myself.

Respectful alternative: “She’s got the body of someone who has always moved and cared about her physique.”

Genetically blessed with strength, gracefulness, and athleticism, Edrie has toned, worked, and stretched that body over a lifetime — first, as a dancer and professor of dance, later as a yoga teacher, and today as she nears 90, as a lithe, loving human who runs circles around her contemporaries. She nurtured and earned that body.

Ageist remark: You’re too young/old to dress like that.”

When you see that 70-something babe in tight jeans and spiked heels, do you think, Who is she kidding?

Respectful alternative: “You look fabulous! I wish I had the discipline to exercise regularly — and could wear whatever I wanted!”

Set aside that how that 70-something dresses is her business. Are you just being judgmental or perhaps a tad envious, too? Ask yourself and fess up.

Ageist remark: “I can’t believe you’re still [running/swimming/doing yoga] at your age!”

You stopped running in high school. You hated gym, didn’t like getting sweaty and wet, and preferred TV. Not everyone made those choices.

Respectful alternative: “I’m amazed by your [strength/flexibility/balance/speed]. How have you managed to stay in such good shape? How could I get started?”

Some humans love sports and body movement. The lucky ones manage to avoid accidents and illness — so they keep it up. There’s no age limit. Zelda played tennis ’til 99.

Ageist remark: “Boy! Do I have an anti-aging product for you.”

You saw the ad on Facebook, watched the video testimonial and coughed up $150 for that tiny jar of cream “guaranteed” to rid you of wrinkles and erase those liver spots. Every morning you look in the mirror, waiting for the miracle. You believe. You hope. To each her own. But honey, nothing stops the clock — except death. “Anti-aging” is a phrase, not a promise.

Respectful alternative: “I take better care of my feet than my face, because I need them more.”

I borrowed that line from Marge, who lived past 104 and stayed active until she died. Watching her, I learned to focus on what’s really important. To be a role model for your friends. To share what makes your life better: healthful recipes, good sneakers, exploring new vistas. Broadcast what makes you happier now, despite the challenges that physical changes can bring.

The Takeaways

Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed if any of those one-liners have already slipped out, even more than once. I’ve said most of them myself! In fact, when I met 96-year-old June Squibb after her performance in the play Marjorie Prime on Broadway, I blurted out, “How do you have the energy to do eight shows a week?” — a question I’d never ask a younger actress.

Aging moves us toward the end of life, which is why “old” seems daunting and difficult. But the journey is filled with surprises, challenges, unfairness, even suffering from the day you’re born. The best thing about being old is that you’ve managed the crises and the unexpected, and you’re still here. You know what’s in your control—and what’s not.

Most of us don’t feel the age we are. As Marge, in her early 100s as we were walking in our neighborhood, put it, “I see through 25-year-old eyes, but my body feels like it’s 110.”

So, when someone makes a comment about your age, let them know that the younger you is still inside you, but now you’re proud and lucky to have years of experience to draw on.

Accept and accommodate whatever limitations age brings. Zelda always hated that she was short, but instead of wearing high heels, she decided “to be the best short person I can be.” And she was. She also lived to almost 105. Why not be the best old person you can be?

Keep an eye on the good in your life — the novelty, the familiar, the people, the places you frequent, the events you can still attend. As 90-year-old Joan put it, “I have all the things old people have. I just focus on other things.”

***

I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how Marge, Zelda, and my other much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and probably make you laugh and cry.

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My Old Ladies Aren’t “Super-Agers”

My old ladies—female friends in their 90s and 100s—are not famous. Although all of them are capable and sharp and exceptional each in her own way, I never think of them as super-agers. In fact, that’s a term I avoid.

Used initially by scientists studying late-life cognition to define a small subgroup of “people 80 and up who have the memory ability of someone 30 years younger,” now anyone in their dotage who still jitterbugs, jumps out of planes, or scales steep mountains is called a super-ager.

My problem with that? Positing extraordinary feats as late-life goals imagines aging as a contest, with the better endowed—the so-called super-agers—winning all the prizes.

Connecting with a cadre of much older women has given me a front-row seat to real aging done by ordinary women. So have the many stories I’ve read on Substack of women like me and the much-older friends I’ve picked up along the way to 82. We embrace life, connect and engage with older and younger friends, all while dealing with disappointment, loss, illness, chronic pain, and grief. Each of us, in her own way, just keeps going, like the proverbial Energizer Bunny.

We are blessed with or over the years have developed a unique set of qualities, abilities, and attitudes. I think of them as superpowers. Some come naturally to certain people, like kindness and positivity. Others can be acquired and bettered—social skills, health habits, curiosity.

Superpowers serve you throughout life. And as you age, they sustain you, improving your ability to withstand the stuff life brings.

My First Old Lady

When I encountered 78-year-old Henrietta, I was reluctant to even look at someone “so old.” Being unconsciously ageist—most of us were in 1989—I was not interested in hanging out with someone who was legally blind and walked with a cane. She was “ancient” in my 46-year-old eyes.

Luckily, we met in a writing class, where words portray more than meets the eye. Henrietta was a wonderful writer. I had to know more. I made the first move, and we started having coffee. By the end of the semester, her age didn’t matter.

In turn, that relationship inspired me to seek out to other admirable much-older women. As I watched them deal with their struggles and celebrate their triumphs, I thought, That’s how I want to be old.

(Note: I wanted to call the book about my old ladies, I’ll Have What She’s Having, but a dozen other writers had already used the title in books on everything from sex to sandwiches!)

Henrietta had two overarching superpowers: acceptance and fortitude —the courage and strength to live with what is. With such poor eyesight, she couldn’t see signs or faces. But that didn’t stop her from bopping around New York City to take courses and collaborate with other writers. She also stood up for causes she believed in. This is her at around 94. She almost made it to 100.

Whereas I tentatively reached out to Henrietta, Zelda, then 92, recruited me. I was exiting the tennis court when a tiny, deeply-tanned woman with gravely voice said, “Hello, dear. You have a nice stroke.” She felt surprisingly comfortable for a stranger. And when I told her it was my first time playing the game in years, she told me. “Keep it up.”

She had me at hello. She would later tell me, “You looked interesting.”

Zelda, who lived to 104 3/4 (insisting that “after 100 you get to add the quarters”), had a wealth of superpowers: curiosity, social savvy, positivity, and a love of movement. She was warm and well-intentioned and could charm the pants off anyone. A Borscht Belt ham with twinkling blue eyes, Zelda loved to perform and to make people laugh. No wanting to risk losing the great memory she had since childhood, Zelda “rehearsed” her routines as she took her daily three-mile walk, silently reciting inspirational sayings, poems, and dirty jokes that she trotted out regularly to make people think and laugh. Spreading joy was another of Zelda’s superpowers.

Old Ladies in Residence

Two of my old ladies, Marge and Bette, lived in my New York apartment building, which gave me a chance to see them in their everyday habitat.

I met Bette when I first moved in. We lived on the same floor. She knew everyone and always had a good story to tell. She was only 12 years my senior, but at 72, already “old.” I marveled at her energy and how put-together she was. Her superpower was presence —a quality that drew others in. It was amplified by the way she dressed—perfectly coordinated and coiffed, even when emptying the garbage—and her witty banter. She could talk to anyone about anything.

I first talked to 99-year old Marge at the annual holiday party in our lobby. By then, I was 74—no longer young. Marge was the CEO of her own life, a woman who lived to 104 1/4, independently and gracefully. Her superpowers were wit, strength, and generosity. She was also a financial whiz who managed her own portfolios.

By the time I met Marge, I was already an old-lady-lover, consciously seeking “good” older women. By then, thanks to their example, I also was surprisingly okay about aging—wrinkles and all.

A Smorgaasbord of Superpowers

Although seven of my original nine old ladies are no longer with me in life, they are alive in my head and heart, and I still rely on their wisdom. When my going gets rough, they sit on my shoulder, a chorus of lovable, wise Jiminy Crickets, reminding me of my own superpowers.

No one has all the superpowers. Just one or two can help. All of them are life-affirming traits and qualities you can develop and nurture as you age.

Passion, as Marge, defined her love of investing, is “something that gets you out of bed in the morning.”

Humor is an invaluable superpower, especially when combined with a willingness to make other people happy.

Gratitude inspires you to do what Zelda suggests: look for the good. Find the silver lining, the hidden gem.

Dare I forget the most paradoxical superpower on this by-no-means-complete list: generosity. Giving of yourself benefits you as much as the recipient. Sylvia, who was the life of the party, was caring and thoughtful and, not surprisingly, much-loved by anyone who met her. She died a few weeks before her 98th birthday.

Mind you these superpowers are not beneficial because they make you better than other people or somehow immune to the uncertainties of life. They simply help your days go well. They give you the resolve to do another day, no matter what it brings.

The rest depends on fate, God, the Universe, or as all my old ladies put it, “luck.”

What are your superpowers?

Please describe them in the comments section!

***

I’m Melinda Blau, journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for the Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age podcast. Please subscribe to these post by hitting the red button. This piece gives you a taste of the inspiring and wise friends I call “my old ladies,” but you can dive into their lives and learn more about their superpowers in The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. They lit my path to 82, and they just might illuminate your journey.

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Zelda, 103, at a dinner party hosted by the author (so her friends could meet Zelda). Photo by Susan Kravitz

In the swirling mess the world is in, it’s not always easy to find something positive. Still, I’m with Zelda, my centenarian friend whose mantra was, “Look for the good.” She shared her philosophy in the days after her son-in-law had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.

“I knew he was going to be okay when he told me, ‘At least I can still talk,’” Zelda predicted as we sat on the pool deck, “because he already found the good.

Sometimes the good is hard to find. If you’re lucky, it comes knocking. But even if it’s elusive, the practice—the desire, intention, and search for the good—is invaluable.

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Zelda on my shoulder..

Zelda and the other “old ladies” who lit my path to elderhood were with me in August 2024, when I was diagnosed with West Nile disease. An infected mosquito bit me at a my book party on Fire Island.

I’d written the book, my 16th and most personal, to honor relationships I developed with nine of these much-older friends. Luckily, by then I’d spent almost forty years listening to their stories—how each went through, overcame, or accepted whatever the Universe put in her path.

They survived and kept going, no matter what, I thought. I can, too. This was after eight days in the hospital when I’d regained the ability to think but was unable to walk even a few feet without a cane. But what was “the good” here?

What would Zelda say?

The “good,” I quickly realized, was that the virus attacked the myelin in only ONE of my legs. My brain could no longer talk to my left leg. Still, if the virus had affected both legs, I might still be in a wheelchair. As it was, it took a year for me to walk without thinking about it.

I’m no Pollyanna about aging. Neither was Zelda. She believed, as all my old ladies did, that “luck” is key. Zelda helped luck along by being positive and having a sense of humor. To wit, when I say to Zelda, “I can’t believe you’re still playing tennis at 90,” she quips, “You can’t really call what I do ‘playing tennis,’ dear, but I get the ball back.”

Borscht-belt wannabe that she was, Zelda had a repertoire of wise sayings, stories and dirty jokes. She performed in my living room when I hosted meet-Zelda parties for my friends from up north. She appeared on stage in assisted-living facilities around south Florida—often, the oldest in the room! And of course she was the star of her 100th birthday party. I flew out to St. Louise to be there.

That night, as always, she finished her set with “The Golden Years.” As she reached the final line of the poem, “The golden years are here at last,” she turned her back to the audience, devilishly looked over her shoulder, slapped her behind, and said with a huge smile, “The golden years can kiss my ass!”

Zelda lived on her own until 103, when a health scare nudged her toward assisted living. We couldn’t spend time in person after that, but we stayed in touch by phone.

One call stands out: I don’t know who called whom, but I clearly remember her words. “Honey, I have something for you!” Zelda was touched that I appreciated her. She was especially happy when we spent time together and I asked to take notes. I loved her “somethings,” and this one didn’t disappoint:

“You know I’ve been thinking, honey. The beginning of your life is about making memories. The end, where I am now, is about remembering. And I’m so grateful that I have so many wonderful memories to look back on.” One, she offered, was dancing with me at her birthday party. *

Zelda looked for the good to the end. She died a few months after our phone call.

When you reach100, Zelda insisted, you get to add quarters to your age. She made it to 104 3/4.

Why Not Take Positivity Out for a Test-Drive?

Looking for the good each day can’t guarantee that you or I will enjoy as long a life as Zelda. However many years remain, though, it’s better to take a page from her playbook. Count your blessings. Celebrate what you can do. Expect change and congratulate yourself on “adjusting” — it’s a key skill at any age.

Just as important, consider what happens when you chose to ruminate on the bad. It will always be there, lurking or in your face. Ignore it or stare it down.

You can’t know or change what’s ahead, but you can always look for—and remember—the good.

You might also follow the example of ninety-one-year old Joan, who keeps chugging along – no matter what:

“I have everything other old people have. I just focus on other things.”

* I incorporated Zelda’s idea in 2014 when I wrote Family Whispering, a book that melded Tracy Hogg’s “baby whispering” philosophy with my own research on close relationships. I called it “memory banking.”

###

I’m Melinda Blau, print-era journalist, author of 16 books (including a NYT bestseller), and a host/producer for the Crow’s Feet: Life as We Age podcast.

My most recent book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. chronicles my relationship with Zelda and eight other inspiring women in their 90s and 100s. They lit my way to 82—and counting. Their words and ideas just might illuminate your path as well.

If you’ve already read The Wisdom Whisperers, please let me know in the comments. I’d also love to hear about a much-older friend you cherish.

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If you know anything about me, you know I love and write about “my old ladies”— and now I am one of them. This piece was initially published on Medium and tweaked a bit. It deserves another airing.

Watching CNN with Marge in 2021, the news is interrupted by a commercial for a miracle anti-aging cream. As if. She mutes the sound, and I fill the silence:

“I have friends who’ve had plastic surgery,” I say, adding that my daughter, then barely past 50, tells me some of her contemporaries started having Botox in their 40s.

“I won’t do it,” I insist and tick off my two reasons, each equally important: to strike a blow for aging naturally and because if I had surgery and didn’t like the result, I’d look in the mirror for the rest of my life and have only me to blame.”

Marge gets it. She’s 103, still beautiful, and undoubtedly old. She has her priorities straight:

“I take better care of my feet than my face because I need them more.”

The Siren Call

I’m 25 years younger than Marge, but by now I don’t need my face either. At 82, I still turn a few heads, but culturally conditioned eyes — men’s and women’s — are drawn to youth. Sadly but not surprisingly, we are judged by our looks.

…good-looking people are valued, seen as socially competent and powerful, sexually responsive, intelligent, and healthy. They are more likely to get a foot in the door. Scientists call this “the attractiveness halo.” It’s baked into our genes and reinforced by the youth-obsessed media. — The Wisdom Whisperers, page 47.

It’s not that I am totally natural. After college, due to a jaw problem, my teeth were capped. Until I had cataracts, I wore contacts, because I felt ugly in my coke-bottle glasses. I have always relied on makeup when I want to look better and, now, I dye my hair a blondish hue that is popular with the non-grey.

I don’t judge other women for trying to look young or for having cosmetic procedures. I just hate the fact that we all think we must. But that’s the essence of “the beauty myth”—an idea Naomi Wolf set free in 1990:

The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us...

Marge, still elegant and engaged, has no time for rumination and would rather discuss finances or politics, not ageism. She’s grateful to be alive. An intelligent and well-read woman who subscribes to several reputable health newsletters, she scoffs at the idea of miracle lotions and Botox or having surgery to hold on to one’s youth.

Instead, as is her way, she gets right to the point and polishes it off with a dollop of wit.

“Why don’t people realize that the only way to stay young is to die young?”

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Assault on the Old

As Marge and I sit in her den in 2021, I am struggling to battle the ageist culture. Wanting to be called “Minna” instead of “Grandma” when my first grandson was born in 2003 was my own internalized ageism. It’s all around us and in us. Sometimes we can’t hear our own bias. For a good 10 years, my peers tried to talk me out of calling a cadre of much older friends I’d collected since my mid-40s, “my old ladies.”

“You can’t call them that! It’s insulting.”

“What else are they?” I challenged. “They didn’t mind. When you’re 90 or 100, you know you fit the definition of old.”

The problem isn’t the word, though. It’s the alleged line between Young and Old and the notion that once you cross into the Territory of the Old, your appearance changes. You can no longer pass for young. And you will be judged and possibly shoved aside because of it. At worst, invisible.

It is a pervasive, equal-opportunity force. If you don’t believe me, read New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose opinion piece, “The Hour Between Babe and Hag” on how gendered ageism affects women in the workplace.

If you’re a woman, you get about 10 years to be taken seriously at work

Yet, There’s Hope

Jessica is in her 40s. She and many younger women are already aware of ageism, whereas I didn’t have a clue until I hit my 60s and became one of its victims.

I found solace in supermodel Paulina Porizkova’s writing and Instagram feed. In addition to telling her story in No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful, published in 2022, Paulina pulls back the curtain on the Cosmetic Industrial Complex — the ever-widening array of companies that tout products and services promising eternal youth. Smart, honest, and believable, she is not just a pretty face.

Paulina has lived through and learned from some terrifying times. Her authentic voice and candid, un-airbrushed social media can’t reach everyone. But at least her 1.1 million followers might give themselves a break for not being picture-perfect.

It matters that others, especially celebrities who already have our attention, proudly tout their age. It gives us permission to accept ours. When they revel in their wrinkles, proudly show off their grey hair, or pose in photos without makeup, it tells us, “I’m being me. You can be you.”

Agency Defeats Ageism

Of course, there’s work to be done. Reacting to the book proposal about my old ladies in 2023, one editor wrote a glowing review that ended with “…but we already have a book on aging.” One book.

More recently, a publicist pitching a major television show was told that the powers-that-be wouldn’t do another book about celebrating people who make aging look good, because “We just did [name of author]’s.” No matter that our two books were utterly unalike.

Writing this piece during Pride Month, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between prejudice hurled at various groups — and note how ageism — bias based on how many years you’ve lived—is the most denied, deeply entrenched, and difficult to see. Would media executives ever reject an idea because they just did a spot featuring an African-American? Or a gay person? A woman?

Probably not. Anyone with an education and an open mind knows in 2026 that there are many stories to being told within every category — and a variety of protagonists telling them. Although this is changing, for a long time the only group excluded was The Old.

How ironic. Only some of us fall into one or more “boxes”: race/religion/nationality/ sexual orientation/differently-abled. However, all of us — if we’re lucky — will someday reach age 65, become officially old, and therefore, susceptible to the slings and arrows of ageism.

So, let’s hear it for all of us—famous or not and often on Substack—who are “coming out”…as Older. High fives to the many who refuse to go gently and who step into the spotlight instead. Hooray for me who practically ran through the streets of Paris on my birthday weekend, telling anyone who’d listen, “I’m 80! I’m 80!”

Marge would be proud of us.

***

I’m a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how my much-older friends like Marge helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and probably make you laugh and cry.

I grew up listening to The Shadow and The Lone Ranger on the radio. Now I prop my cell phone up on a little black stand and tune in to the Internet. Listening is good for me.

Basic Training

I’ve always listened in. One of my earliest memories puts me at the top of a winding Victorian staircase in Deal, New Jersey, eavesdropping from the second-floor landing. I strain to see my parents and siblings in the living room below, but I hear every word clearly. I am five, my sister 16. From my perch, I deduce that she’s dating boys my father dislikes. My brother, then 14, has apparently spent the night at a girls’ pajama party.

Often referred to as “the baby,” I grew up in a household of adults. I had to snoop. How else could a curious kid figure out what was going on? I was gathering facts!

Those years of secret eavesdropping whet my interest in relationships and made me aware of power dynamics and alliances. In college, I went from one dorm room to another, listening to my fellow classmates’ stories. I began to carve a life out of collecting people and cultivating relationships. Ultimately, I made a career out of listening—not just to other others, but also to the sound of my words as a reader might one day hear them.

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A New Medium

Now I’m listening more than ever. In part, it’s because my career took an unexpected turn three years ago when Nancy Peckenham invited me to join the Crow’s Feet’s podcast team. I knew nothing about podcasting but was flattered and curious. I also liked the idea of having colleagues.

Podcasting was initially daunting and different from writing. I had to buy a Yeti microphone and find padded places to record. But as I told my oldest grandson Henry that first year, “It feels great to be 78 and learning a new skill.”

Podcasts—Crow’s Feet’s and others’—have definitely upped my listening time. In fact, this rumination about listening was inspired by a Crow’s Feet “extra,” a 7-minute recording featuring Eric V. Martin reminiscing about Little League. It’s a subject I’d normally avoid, but Eric’s voice and his writing drew me in.

When written words translate so well to audio, they resonate in a way that silent letters on a page or screen cannot.

Not ready to give up reading, but I acknowledge the benefits…

People who know me might say that the best thing about my listening is that it prevents me from talking!

Point taken. I’m a “tawker,” as we say in New Yawk. I come from a family of tawkers, among them Bella Abzug.*

That said, I can point to at least five other advantages of when I listen:

I can move while I listen. Movement is a priority, especially for someone who has spent the better part of her sixty-plus-year career in a chair, moving only her fingers. With music or words playing in the background, I can walk, drive, fold laundry, or stand on one leg while chopping vegetables.

Listening keeps my mind sharp. Doctors warn patients who are reluctant to wear their hearing aids that brains need what comes through our ears. Listening is a hedge against cognitive decline.

My eyes rest when I listen. Severely nearsighted since age five, I’ve worn hard, soft, and gas permeable contacts, had LASIK (laser vision-correction) and cataract surgery, and was diagnosed ten years ago with glaucoma. My eyes have had quite a run. I don’t want to over-tax them.

Listening makes me better at relationships. Relationships are built on give-and-take. The better we listen, the more deeply we understand and connect. And as I always say, if you’re good at relationships, you’re good at life.

Listening grounds me in time and space. It allows me to grasp the vast diversity of the Universe and that I’m just one voice. Taking the time to tune in opens my mind, tempers my ego, and stretches my heart.

Do you listen?

***

I’m Melinda Blau. Thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how my much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and probably make you laugh and cry.

* Bella Abzug, who was brilliant, brazen, and brave—often called, ”battling Bella”— was a civil rights icon (and my father’s first cousin!). If you aren’t familiar with the trails she blazed, see Bella! This Woman’s Place Is in the House on your local PBS station.

Author’s screen shot of Playbill, December 14, 2025, at a matinee performance of “Marjorie Prime,” starring Danny Burstein, June Squib, Cynthia Nixon, and Christopher Lowell.

I want June Squibb to be one of my old ladies from the moment I see her in the 2024 film Thelma. My 16^th book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter, is about to be published. To watch a (then) 94-year-old Hollywood veteran playing an action hero and doing her own stunts is astounding. It validates everything I believe in, write about aging, and live.

This is the story of how June and I met.

***

Spoiler alert: My interview with June for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age goes live on March 11, 2026, wherever you get your podcasts!

***

Determination

My quest begins in August 2025 when friends tell me that June Squibb is slated to play the title role in Marjorie Prime on Broadway.

Sixty-six years earlier, playing opposite Ethel Merman in Gypsy, June is cast as Electra, one of three strippers who bring down the house with the “endearingly bawdy” song, “You Gotta Get a Gimmick.”

June Squibb in Gypsy, 1959. Source: eBay

June works steadily for the next six decades in musicals, TV, and film and, at 85, earns an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Nebraska. On the heels of Thelma, she stars in Eleanor the Great, directed by Scarlett Johansson. And at 96, she returns to her roots, becoming the oldest actress to appear in a Broadway play.

Determined to meet her—and to invite her to be my guest on the Crow’s Feet podcast—I lean on my nephew Jack Tantleff, a successful theatrical agent. That connection results in two tickets to a Wednesday matinee and the names of June’s agent and PR guy. Many emails later, I am granted “a quick hello” backstage after her matinee performance.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get!

Anticipation

On December 14, 2025, I sit in the Hayes Theater, a festive shopping bag safely wedged between my calves. Inside are a copy of my book and a package of Werther’s Originals—caramels June “can’t live without,” according to New York magazine’s “Strategist.” It has been waiting on my entry table for weeks.

During the one-hour, 39-minute mind-bender of a play, the characters interact with “primes” -- AI versions of deceased loved ones. June is on stage almost the whole time. as the living Marjorie talking to a 30-something version of her dead husband and, after Marjorie’s death, as her daughter’s prime. (More about the play here.)

Watching June on stage—mostly seated, sometimes walking with a cane—is more intimate than seeing her on a big screen. The show is engaging and thought-provoking, no longer the science fiction it seemed in 2017 when Jordan Harrison wrote it and 85-year-old Lois Smith played the title role.

After the final curtain call, I scurry up the aisle to find an usher. My partner and I are directed outside the building. For a moment, I panic. Wait! Are they going to make me wait in the cold with the autograph seekers?

I’m relieved when a woman wearing a headset leads us back into the building through a side entrance and points to a door.

Introduction

June is seated, smiling and looking elegant in a forest green robe. Her eyes are bright blue, her skin thinly-lined and, simultaneously, flawless. I nervously thrust the gift bag in her direction. “It has a package of Werther’s inside and my book.”

June smiles and thanks me. She’s been here many, many times before.

I struggle for a follow-up comment. I don’t ask her to sign my Playbill, something an admiring theatergoer might do. Worse, I forget to take a photo with her. And when I finally speak, I pose a question I should know better than to ask:

“How do you have the energy to do eight shows a week?

As the words come out of my mouth, I cringe. The only worse question might have been, “How do you manage to memorize so many lines?”

In both cases, the unspoken phrase is at your age. Internalized ageism is a bitch.

“It’s what I do,” June answers graciously and without a hint of pique. “I’ve been doing this my whole life.”

Knowing my time is winding down, I somehow swallow my embarrassment and summon the old me, whom Ralph Nader once dubbed “Melinda Persistent.”

“I know you’re really busy and in demand,” I say, “but would you ever consider being a guest on the Crows Feet podcast?”

“Well, I have a Disney project after this, but…sure. Talk to Mike.”

Reflection

As my partner and I exit the theatre and walk down West 44^th Street, I let myself off the hook for the dumb question. Can’t undo it now anyway. Instead, I bask in the five minutes we shared and the real possibility that this might not be our only conversation.

I’m not excited because June is “a celebrity,” but because she’s everything I love in an old lady. June is part of the same cosmic sorority as my other 90- and 100-year-old friends. And I am ever the eager pledge!

June has had a rich and fascinating life. She grabs fate by the horns and just keeps living. In short, June makes 96 look good. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with her?

THIS JUST IN: My interview with June Squibb dropped just in time for Oscar week:

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For more on June Squibb, listed to our episode (link above) on the Crow’s Feet podcast, as we discuss her work and personal life and why she and Scarlett won’t be giving any awards this year.

Scarlett Johansson and June Squibb at the Oscar’s 2025, video by Markus Ruiz.

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I’m Melinda Blau…thanks for stopping by…

I’m 82 and counting, a journalist, author of 16 books, and a host/producer for Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age. If you’re anxious about “getting old” (something we do from birth) and wonder how my much-older friends helped me embrace aging instead of dreading it, pick up a copy of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter. Their stories will give you hope and probably make you laugh and cry.