{Originally published on Angie Muresan}

When older people get together there is something unflappable about them; you can see they’ve tasted all the heavy, bitter, spicy food of life, extracted it’s poisons, and will now spend 10 or 15 years in a state of perfect equilibrium and enviable morality. Irene Nemirovsky, Fire in the Blood

12th century church

I have a few friends who are well into their eighties; women who have lived their lives thoroughly and enjoyed the amassed daily moments to their fullest extent.  I love these women for what they are.  There is wisdom in their advice, a sense of humor in their actions.  They’ve come to terms with the destruction life has in store. Physical health and beauty deteriorating, husbands and friends lost to death or alzheimers, children and dear ones far away, their bodies betraying them daily.  But their kindness, their compassion, their love survived every treachery and evolved into a beauty transcending the physical.

I know they have fears.  Whenever I see them upset at their lack of control over their bodies, they fear for their dignity. For their self-respect and the respect, or lack of, others have for them. I like to remind them that their self-esteem need not suffer because their bodies fail. They are more than that. More than fragile bones and decrepit muscles. They are the light in the eyes, the smile on the lips, the love they exude.

{Originally Published on Learned on Women}

To feed both my quick hit Tweets (I’m @AndreaLearned) and longer blog posts, I survey the many marketing-related news stories on a daily basis. Today, I found plenty of food for thought. Two articles in the same MediaPost newsletter caught my eye: 1) a story of Swiffer doing promotions at the much-buzzed Blogher conference, and 2) the story of Target sponsoring “staycation” events. Those news bits brought to my mind the broad continuum of marketing to women (over which the pendulum regularly swings) - from pinky, pink-ness to transparency - all in one place. Fascinating!

The background on those two tales -

(Visibly pink pitch) P&G’s Swiffer appealed to the girly side of female bloggers by sponsoring a pre-event Blogher lounge, SocialLuxe, which was described this way in Karl Greenberg’s MediaPost article:

As part of the partnership, P&G and Swiffer will offer guests manicures, pedicures, something called “clean-tinis,” and the first-ever BlogLuxe Award presentation — awards given by bloggers to bloggers — to recognize outstanding efforts in the blogging community.

(Full-on transparent approach) According to MediaPost’s Sarah Mahoney, Target is leveraging awareness of the bad economy/staycation trend to appeal to women and families trying to have fun with less money this year by:

…sponsoring a long list of local art events, offering 2,200 free days at more than 100 museums, theaters and cultural institutions throughout the country.

One approach resonates with today’s culture and the other seems lost in never-never land. One is relevant to a lot more women for a longer period of time and one is fun for a small amount of women who may well not remember it a few days later. One encourages/embraces a larger trend toward experiencing the wonders of your own “backyard,” and the other is counter to the more sustainable sensibilities that a lot of the members of its target market exhibit in their real and daily lives.

{Originally Published on This Woman’s Work}

I am blurry on the details. Both my parents were home, which makes me think it may have been a weekend. (My dad traveled most weekdays.) Also it was summer. I know this because I was in my underwear and a t-shirt. We were not a walk-around-in-your-underwear kind of family (not like my kids who regularly streak down the hall in little else) and I remember feeling quite daring for wearing a t-shirt and underwear to bed like my friend said she did. So I know I was already feeling a little over-exposed. And it must have been evening since I was (un)dressed for bed but I’m not sure how old I was. I want to say ten, maybe. Maybe eleven. It was before the divorce (because my dad was there) so let’s say ten.

I can’t remember — did my parents call me downstairs? Or did I come down to tell them something on my own? I also don’t remember exactly what they said but I do remember their worried, compassionate wrinkled brows and their assurances that they loved me. And I remember something vague about my dad having been a fat kid and how he didn’t want me to suffer the way he’d suffered. (But this adds to my confusion — maybe my father wasn’t there. Maybe he left it to my mom to tell me and I remember him being there because I remember my mom saying this. Or maybe she said this after this initial confrontation. It’s all a blur.)

I know they told me I was putting on a little too much weight, that maybe I needed to watch it a little because I was getting, well, I was getting chubby.

This is what stays with me: The cold, cold shame freezing my stomach and making my vision turn wide then small. My awareness of my physical vulnerability in my t-shirt and underwear. My want to disappear, pull a blanket over me. And my shock because no one — NO ONE — ever told me I was fat. No one had ever said these words to me. So the irony is that my parents wanted to protect me from the cruelty of other children but the only people who had ever told me I was fat were my parents who were telling me now. And this is also what stays with me: that spinning, empty feeling around my limbs as I realized that I did not know myself or my body. That my legs and arms and tummy were no longer close and familiar but were enemies bent on fooling me. Where I had felt strong and pretty, I now knew I had been mistaken and then I realized I had been a fool walking around in the world feeling good about myself because it was a secret from me, the way that other people saw me. And that was the shame that has, frankly, never left me. And this is a shame that I still feel around my family more than I feel it around anyone else because they were the ones to tell me.