Blogs on More

This weekend the New York Times Magazine asked - and tried to answer - the question “Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?” And as these things often do, it inspired a lot of blogs posts and responses, including (but not confined to):

The New York Times‘ Motherlode blog which closed comments after receiving 790.
The tongue-in-cheek “What is it About Eightysomethings” over at Vanity Fair.
The New Yorker came out with a list of novels for emerging adults.
And Tabatha Southey’s defense of the not-so-empty-nest over at the Globe and Mail.

[Edited to add: Linda thoughtfully adds in the comments that <em>The Walrus has a piece by Marni Jackson on the same theme. I’m sorry I missed that one!]

I will freely admit that as a soon-to-be-40 Generation X slacker (who married at 24 and bought a house at 26, the down payment for which was from the bank of Mom and Dad) some of the arguments about “kids today” seem awfully familiar. The recession of the early 90s into which I graduated was not as deep as the current one, but there is a reason many of us ended up working in new(er) technologies - it was pretty hard to break into the older ones.

I do have to point out that More’s own article on emerging adults was in subscribers’ hands the week of August 10th. Please read and let us know what YOU think of this generational analysis in the comments!

Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling midlife renewal memoir Eat Pray Love gets the star treatment this week as a Julia Roberts film. I might go to see Julia Roberts and because unsurprisingly, I’m a sucker for a midlife story.

But true confession: I didn’t like the book. I wanted to like it. I even liked the idea that here was a woman going off to find herself rather than the man being the one to go sit on a mountain top for midlife enlightenment. And I did like the truth in it. But in the end - I found I couldn’t really relate, and reading it felt like a bit of a slog. So much for literary analysis.

Thinking about divorce films though, I might re-rent Waiting to Exhale. Less enlightenment; more setting of clothing on fire. (War of the Roses is also a favourite - hmmm, not sure what this says about me.) Both made it to our list of 10 movies about divorce.

Let me know what you thought of Eat Pray Love, book or movie!

Here’s a neat documentary to catch if you’re in Alberta, B.C., or Ontario - Resilience: Stories of Single Black Mothers, from filmmaker Lana Lovell and Storyline Entertainment. The documentary looks inside the experiences of three different single mums in Canada - and yes, two of the mums are over 40. One quote from Simone has really stayed with me - “I felt like I just couldn’t make any mistakes because there’s nobody there to break my fall.” This one’s definitely worth checking out. On OMNI. 1 in Onatrio and OMNI in Alberta and B.C. on Sunday August 8 - check local listings for details.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to this blog post by Jennifer Lawlor for a couple of weeks and I’m going to have to put it here. Bring Kleenex for this one, as she looks back over 13 years of parenting a child with Tuberous Sclerosis. And at joy.

For a different sort of resilience, I wanted to point out this article from last week’s New York Times: The Un-Divorced. I have occasionally half-joked that my marriage would go better if we each lived in separate condos on the same floor. But this might be going a little far.

If you’re inclined to share, I’d love your thoughts or links to do with resilience - in large or small ways.

For a mid-week break here are a few fun slideshows from around the web. Yes, it’s summer.

One thing I love about Mad Men is that it brings out a bit of nostalgia in everyone. Slate’s look at Reno divorce ranches rates highly on my “wow, that’s neat” meter.

Speaking of Mad Men, here are the best-dressed fans, as selected by New York Magazine.

And still speaking about Mad Men (I’m almost done): I will blame the show for this new apron trend. (Globe and Mail) I think I was indoctrinated in the 70s to believe that aprons were basically prison uniforms because even though those are cute - really, really cute - I just don’t think I can buy one.

The Bata Shoe Museum’s “Heights of Fashion” online exhibition is fun.

If you like grand old houses with a bit of decay: Inside Rokeby House (New York Times). It’s got nothing to do with Mad Men.

Here’s what’s caught my eye today around the web:

Love between a 40-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man - and there are motorcycles involved, to boot. From the New York Times’s Modern Love column.

I’ve been enjoying Emily Bazelton’s series on the Phoebe Prince case over at Slate. Teen bullying issues can be very complex, regardless of where one comes down on this one.

Judith Timson looks at the Blacks’ marriage over at the Globe and Mail: Passion and loyalty?

And while you’re there, erase your ex from the Internet. Hmmm.

Well take it from Kelly Cutrone, star of Kell on Earth, author of If You Have To Cry, Go Outside and the woman behind the successful fashion public relations company, People’s Revolution - Amma has done “f-ing amazing things.”

I’m going to have to agree with her.

It might not seem like a natural pairing - the 2002 winner of the Gandhi-King Award for Non-Violence and famous hugger (more on this in a moment), and the reality-TV-show star and now straight-talking author-mentor of young women interns everywhere. But in just a few minutes speaking with Cutrone, I get it. Amma has changed the world for the better and helped women achieve - in other words, she’s a powerful feminine force. And so is Cutrone in her own way.

And maybe the amazing thing about showing up for my hug at the Sheraton Parkway in Toronto is that I feel that sense of possibility afterwards too. I said yes to the media invite as a part of my “year of turning 40″ project - there’s something I’ve never done; hugged a guru. I wanted to share that here!

But boy, it’s not just about hugs.

So, let’s talk about Amma because that’s why we’re all here. Amma is 53, and for the last 35 years she has been hugging people. But it’s not an ordinary hug: it’s darshan or an imparting of of divine energy and affection between spiritual leader and spiritual follower. Amma’s mission is to hug people with love, helping them to overcome poverty of spirit. She believes that one people are in touch with their own compassionate natures, they will naturally come to address core humanitarian issues like poverty.

But hugging is not the whole story. Amma’s collective charities, now named Embracing the World, have raised over 48 million dollars for food programmes, hospitals, orphanages, shelters for battered women, skills development and employment support and other organizations around the world, including Haiti and right here in Canada. She is playing a key role in giving voice to women’s issues around the world.

Reading one of her lectures after the event, I’m struck by some of the language. It reads like pretty old-school radical feminism: “The male community that stands unwilling to compromise is the emblem of the past….For the sake of a promising future, the minds and intellects of women and men need to become one. We cannot wait any longer.”

And still, Amma hugs. Everyone - men, women, old, young. Sometimes for 20 hours a day. She even hugs members of the media like me who show up in a black and pink dress (white seems to be the colour of the day), with skeptical minds and who have hang-ups about taking their shoes off. (That’s me in the picture.)

Entering the conference room (barefoot, despite the hang-up), I look around the room with its dozens of people patiently waiting for their hug, experiencing the moment and her presence, meditating and smiling and chatting. I see people of all different ages and nationalities (by which I mean everyone - not just people of colour) - not unusual for Toronto. The one thing I don’t see is anyone rushing around, which is very unusual for Toronto- at least, for my Toronto.

I watch Amma hug the people ahead of me - a mother and her daughters. I’m surprised at how long the hug lasts. The girls are bubbly, bouncing. The mother’s back straightens as Amma whispers to her.

Then it’s my turn. I kneel down and she pulls me in and says (in the language of my choice, from which I understand she knows these words in many languages): daughter daughter daughter daughter. She was soft, but strong — I’m guessing those hugging muscles are well toned — and smelled overwhelmingly of roses.

It struck me that it has actually been a long time since I hugged my mother. Or spent a while thinking about compassion, or poverty. Or slowed down to hang out with people who are thinking about love and its place in the world.

Amma, I’m told by Kelly Cutrone, doesn’t care if you’re a believer and isn’t out to convert anyone. She just believes that her hug will change something, all on its own. And it might.

In the “articles we wish we’d presented” file comes this Facts and Arguments essay at the Globe and Mail website: “When my 17-year marriage ended, I took a streetcar to the Toronto City Centre Airport for a trial flying lesson.”

While you’re there, check out why more women are running marathons.

Here’s the dilemma that came up in conversation this weekend. All names changed!

Barb has a good friend Judy, and the two of them often go to see movies together. Recently Judy and Barb have both hooked up with some new friends from a group to which they both belong and the four of them have had a good time together. This weekend, Barb saw on Facebook that Judy and the two new friends went to see Sex and the City 2 [gratuitous plug: don’t forget our giveaway!] without her.

She says she knows she should just get over it but the exclusion bothers her. She feels like it’s high school and she’s been left out.

Feel free to weigh in on the etiquette of this dilemma, but here’s what I think - Facebook itself may be part of the problem.

Generally speaking, we kind of know our friends do things without us. But generally our friends also have the tact not to bring those things up in front of us. (I myself have gone to see a movie twice a few times rather than fess up to having gone with a third party.) Facebook, however, makes many things we do more visible - and it’s not even entirely within our control if a friend posts a comment on our status like “sorry you have a cold but great movie last night eh?”

I just don’t think we’ve all established enough social norms to cover how to report on our socializing without occasionally making someone feel excluded.

What do you think? And lest you think you’re too old for the question, just remember: 61 per cent of Facebook users are over 35, and so chances are some of your friends are making plans there you’re not seeing. (But that’s a different dilemma…)

Update: The winner for the giveaway was comment #19 (Cindy). This giveaway is now closed.

I think my reaction after seeing Sex and the City 2 can pretty well be summed up in a larger artistic question which is: When is enough enough?

I love to slip back into the world that Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte inhabit: Great clothes, nice restaurants and conversation with friends who know and love you. Oh, and some good-looking men. (I’m not claiming that it satisfies my taste for realism.)

However this latest movie left me breathless at points, and it wasn’t because I was laughing. First the good: It is great eye candy. There’s a scene where Miranda and Charlotte discuss motherhood that cracked me up. And John Corbett is great.

But for most of the film I felt like I was watching a completely different franchise, along the lines of National Lampoon. For a franchise which I thought portrayed some interesting micro-cultural clashes — Steve and Miranda’s relationship; Carrie and Aidan up at his cottage — I found it amazingly tone deaf in its approach to the Middle East. For me that took me out of the film. I kept thinking: seriously? Seriously???

I also thought the jokes surrounding Kim Cattrall’s character Samantha and menopause were past funny to annoying. And hey, here at More.ca, we are always into a good menopause joke. But it was just too over the top.

I’m dying to know what you think.

And I even have some incentive for you: Comment on this post before noon on Friday, June 4 with any thoughts about Sex and the City - either film or the show - and you could win this fab SJP NYC prize pack.

Details: The SJP NYC cosmetic bag (available exclusively at the Bay in May as a gift with purchase), the SJP NYC bangles (available exclusively at Sears in May as a gift with purchase), the SJP NYC sparkling solid perfume bracelet ($39 suggested retail price, available in June at select Sears and Bay department stores across Canada), and a 60 mL bottle of the SJP NYC eau de toilette ($59 suggested retail price.)

As usual I’ll select a winner randomly from the comments. One entry per person please, and sadly we cannot offer this to our Quebec or non-Canadian readers. By entering you agree to accept the prize as awarded and we reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal value.

This month in our Smart Talk newsletter, we interviewed Jane Farrow who organizes nearly 350 free neighbourhood walks in 50 cities to promote healthy communities.

So I thought I’d ask: What do you love most about where you live? If someone reads our blog who’s visiting your town soon, what should they see?

I live in Toronto, the city Canada loves to hate, so I’m not even sure I should answer this. But here goes: I love the lake most of all, especially the boardwalk in Toronto’s East End and the Scarborough Bluffs. I also think taking the 501 streetcar route across the city from Neville Park to Longbranch is a (cheap) trip everyone should do on their second trip to Toronto, after the C.N. Tower and the Eaton Centre have lost their appeal.