When the communities became an official thing on Hive, and one had to choose which community to post in, I was distressed. Many of my posts crossed over several communities in content. Poetry, personal anecdote and experience, gardening, nature, music, humor, addiction, and creative writing. I would spend quite a bit of time pondering which community to post in: is an imaginative story featuring music a post for a music community, the Freewrite community, or the Ink Well? I didn't want to offend anyone. It was very stressful for a while there!
While I wrote in a variety of genres on a variety of topics, one topic I avoided was that of aging. I'm getting old. Who wants to read about arthritis, indigestion, memory impairment and alone time? I guess I had the same notions about getting older that most younguns have - it's going to suck.
I had been very active in the community Power House Creatives, now defunct for reasons I am not privy to. This community accepted any kind of content, and its members gave regular support to my posts. Heaven. When it ended, I was barely a minnow, cast adrift in the sea.
Along came The Silver Bloggers, and I found many of my friends from PHC there. The community also accepted a broad range of topics, and was instantly a great fit for me.
Not only is The Silver Bloggers a great fit for me in terms of allowing many types of post content, it opened up new areas for blogging inspiration - retirement, aging, grandchildren, hobbies, crossword puzzles, retirement communities, and bucket lists, to name a few. We oldie but goodies had a place of our own.
Many older people, especially women, complain that as we age, we fade in the minds and assessment of others. We become, sometimes literally, invisible. Shop keepers ignore us, men no longer cat call as we women walk by (now regarded as a crime, like so many other harmless things), it's harder to get a drink at a bar, and really young people walk by us without a glance.
In Silver Bloggers we are seen again! Our age is celebrated and rewarded! We have the advantage of a lifetime of experiences that have shaped us into more solid beings, with surety and, yes, wisdom. Blogging material galore!
It's been an honor to be here, and my gratitude to all who were involved with getting Silver Bloggers off the ground. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This is my entry to The Silver Blogger Community's monthly Blog of the Month Contest. If you are young at heart, but getting up there in years, this is the community for you!
footer by our dear SilverFish, @mondoshawan
I thought you were a GOLD blogger!?
Oh, I'm gold baby, pure gold. But I don't blog about my mountains of gold. I blog about my rivers of silver.
hey speaking of silver, are you still working on that lost wax silver medallion?
Well... I am three Kickstarters behind :( I will set my brother in motion!
The other two are my second Phill album and a project with the Nigerian guy called Nevies who i got in contact with on this network.
Three kickstarters behind! Three books in the works! How's your foot doing?
The foot is the problem, really. I am running a bit in circles in the health system and do not know if I will be slightly crippled or if something can be done. A number of completely unlucky events have occurred, the worst is that we just got a new, young family doctor that replaced the two fantastic old hags who both retired (They always reminded me of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg from Terry Pratchett's books), and he is now dead! I do not know how, but the transfer of papers et all is in a deadlock for more than a week, and yes... things are chaotic and I can't find any time for self-pity when I think of his widow and two children. Not to mention all the people in Ukranian subway stations, starving people in Afghanistan, and the war in Yemen. Ha! You started me on that sorry tale.
So to sum up... I'm OK, but a bit encumbered and longing to be able to go for a walk. Better times will come soon I'm sure.
So sorry to hear all that!
I imagine you as very active physically, given how active you are mentally.
I now look for older doctors. The younguns are not as receptive to a patient's needs. Good luck with all that. Getting medical care is so much more difficult these days. More paperwork, more waiting for appointments, less time with doctors, more stringent restrictions. It's a terrible time to have any kind of strife.
Never read Terry Pratchett. I'm putting him or her on my library list.
Yes, I always was out and around, so this last year has been hard. As for older doctors - when we were very young and moved to Copenhagen from Firenze where we had been living together, my wife choose the oldest, male doctor for us. He was the sort with suit and tie underneath the white doctors coat and a well kept white beard. When he asked her why we had chosen him, she said that she didn't want some young, hysterical skank as a doctor. When she left the consultation his sweet, but mummy like secretary who was operating out of an old closet in the tiny apartment that had been converted to a clinic asked her what on earth she had said to him. "He hasn't laughed for years," she said.
My wife was (and is) such a loony.
As for Prachett he is an easy and funny read.
Good God, I adore your beautiful silver hair. These days girls will pay a fortune for locks like yours. Wow. I know I’m not supposed to admire your hair, I’m supposed to admire your words. F+&*k it can I like both? Kudos
❤️💕🤗💕💕❤️
Yes you sure can! Thanks!
❤️💕🤗
You can. I admire both too. How can you have beautiful silver hair AND silvery words??
Not as silvery as your words!
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 0/38) Liquid rewards.
Thank you!!!
I would really love to hear you sing!!!
I love the Silver Bloggers too.. you know it was my idea? Lol, I was just joking to @lizelle about it but who knew it would provide such an awesome home? And help me accept aging a little .. actually didn't until I realised I am one of the cool silver bloggers myself! I don't have your gorgeous locks of silver yet ... Just annoying threads.
Can I protest a little!? Cat calling is NOT harmless. It may appear harmless, but what it says is that men think they have the right to very publically comment on a woman's personal appearance without invitation or knowing her. And if they have our permission to do that, where does that lead? If you think about it as "street harassment' it takes on a different colour. The young girl walking home and the men making lewd and suggestive comments out the car window. The whistling becomes comments like 'i don't care if you are underage' or 'i like exotic girls like you'. Because hey, if a whistle is okay, then ... When woman don't feel safe walking home, the behaviour has to be called out and nipped in the bud somewhere. It's definitely not always harmless and is part of bigger problem that objectifies and defines and subjugates woman in society. Just like the way older woman become invisible and unheard and unvalued.
Sorry darling, I don't mean to rant AT you at ALL... Just the situation.
I do miss being attractive, don't get me wrong. At least hubs seems to still think I'm sexiest most beautiful woman alive. Lucky as men age they start going blind.
This calls for a discussion of what constitutes harm and what is only hurt. In many things, we have so blurred the distinction between harm and hurt that many natural, honorable thoughts and feelings are suspicious as coming from a deep well of innate badness. While this is true for all of us - all of us have been conditioned to find fault with ourselves from the earliest age - men have been especially battered with the ram of self hate. And womens' hate of men has been fueled, I believe undeservedly and counter-productively.
Harm to me is bodily injury, or injury to property. Hurt is a feeling of un-comfortability.
The men I should have been afraid of never openly expressed their appreciation of me. It was the quiet ones who could do harm. There is an assumption that open appreciation of beauty leads to abuse, but my experience has not born that out.
When I was younger, if a man (or woman because that happened often too) expressed appreciation I would feel complimented, not afraid. At some point this changed for me, but not because I had been harmed by a cat caller. More because I was told that cat callers were potentially dangerous, the gateway to abuse, as you pretty much said.
So this is just one instance of how we have been made to hate ourselves so much that someone appreciating our beauty is hated by us.
There's so much more to say here, but I gots to go. Will come back later. Thanks for your comment!! I really mean that!
Great entry, and you should sing a Silver Bloggers theme song😁
I wish I could write songs! There's so much to say in song. Thank you!
A nice entry!
It would be nice to hear you singing sometime. And I love your silver hair, by the way.
That would require my learning how to upload a video. I tried and failed to do that with dTube. I did once manage to post something with a soundcloud recording. Maybe I could do that.
Thank you for your support!
You are welcome!
And maybe one of the guys in the coffee corner can give you some advice. Unfortunately, I'm completely inexperienced at uploading videos on any platform.
What a nice entry you have :) And singing is a great obsession and it would be awesome to hear you sing :)
A nice entry, greetings friend
Thank you!
I love your "rivers of silver" 🤗
I have not interacted much in this community, even though I am showing plenty of silver myself. It is a great thing that they became a perfect fit and have allowed you to explore different posting topics.
I turn 49 last week, but technically speaking I am retired (after quitting my 20+-year-gig at the university. With so few options here, one starts doing random things that feel very much like retirement, only one without the possibility of bucket lists and stuff like that.
Have you posted videos of your singing? I'd love to see you singing.
You quit your job? I know it had become very difficult for you, but I didn't know you had left it.
I have to learn how to upload a video. I tried mightily back in the day, to use dTube, but failed. I could probably make a soundcloud recording work. Maybe I will try to do that. The problem is, when I listen to myself, recorded in my living room, no mixing, no mics, no amps, I hear only mistakes!!!
Lovely post and a wonderful perspective! I enjoyed reading your entry :)
Thank you!
Age might just be a number, our bodies tell us otherwise. Silver locks called salt and pepper suddenly appear. Turning heads or wolf whistles now a thing of the past, we can safely say we have gained much with age, pity our bodies don't hold out quite so well 😊
We are honoured to have you here Silver Dish, love your writing and are so happy to hear that you feel at home here! It's often a conundrum not knowing where one's post would fit!
I'm so jealous of that beautiful mop of silver hair!
Thank you for being a part of Silver Bloggers🤗
I can share the experience and observation that you get less attention as an older person. I attribute this in part to my vanity, which had kept me in male attention throughout my womanhood and I was used to receiving admiring glances and attractive advances. All that is gone and I'm often not sure whether to miss it or welcome it. I'm still in that in-between phase where letting go of former beauty and letting go of "finally I'm rid of this burden of defining myself by my looks" compete with each other.
Just yesterday I was fantasising that if I had a bigger house and a lot more money, I would love to open a space for younger people. Where young people mingle with older people, where people not only socialise intellectually, but also artistically. A space where people can cook together, eat together, discuss together, but also do handicrafts and manual work. Sometimes I think that times of scarcity create such spaces of ideas and practical places. For me, it was when I was young and totally destitute that I got the real kick to do something productive. But for that you need an island where people have the money and the space to make it available.
But where there is no real need, only a perceived need, such projects have little power, I think. I don't know, I'm gripped by a general dissatisfaction and boredom at the moment.
Where is the community for people like me? HaHa! Am I already a Silver Blogger or not yet?
How lovely to see your beautiful face, @owasco! And what a lovely things you've said. I am so glad you also feel at home!
Love this. I have felt invisible most of my life, though mostly it was intentional on my part. As a teen, I would "make" myself invisible to avoid ridicule and rejection, and I still sometimes find it easier to be the quiet person in the back of the room.
But writing is my way of feeling seen and heard, and I'm sure many others feel the same way. It's like we have this platform where we're given a chance to fully express ourselves without being immediately dismissed or cut off. To be in that space where you're engaging with others through your writing is invigorating and empowering.
Yes! I made myself invisible as a teen too! Hair covering my face, shoulders slumped to hide my breasts, quiet to not make anyone mad. That's a great point, that writing is a way to be seen, heard, felt, understood and empowered.
Same! Yes, I always wore baggy clothes and hid in the back of the room. What I did crave, though, was the times when English teachers had us read our work aloud in class or when the latest edition of the school newspaper (which I wrote for) was released. That was my time to shine! Sadly, I don't think anyone read the school paper aside from the teachers. Lol.
@owasco Love the silvery hues of hair and the experience you have shared. It was very difficult for me to decide which community to post too as well. My brand of posts with my wildlife photos and thoughts sparked by them spans across many topics so, I too had the same dilemma till I found Silver bloggers.
I just love the attitude that you have so aptly worded -
Cheers
Someone called you a gold blogger, I wanted to make a joke about being a gold digger but I don't know what's your mood 😃 today haha, so instead I will say that you are like alchemy, and can switch from gold to silver, at ease!
Disaster adverted!
Knowing your propensity toward humor and joy, I doubt there's much you could say that would insult me.
Hey, are you single? Do you have money? I know you have potatoes.
My wife's got money!!! I got potatoes!!! 😄 We'll figure out something!
I love this so much!!
All of it. The "communities" to pick from. The little voice in our head telling us nobody cares to hear what we have to say anyway (ok that's me not you) and "especially women" noticing "as we age, we fade in the minds and assessment of others. We become, sometimes literally, invisible. Shop keepers ignore us, men no longer cat call as we women walk by (now regarded as a crime, like so many other harmless things), it's harder to get a drink at a bar, and really young people walk by us without a glance." But, but, "In Silver Bloggers we are seen again! Our age is celebrated and rewarded!"
BRAVO!!!
Thank you Silver Bloggers and Stacey.... and may we be VISIBLE when we want to be, heard when we feel the need to be....
Thank you Carol dear. My words sound so much better when you speak them!
Thanks for the reminder to stop and notice all the beautiful women in my life! I love the SSG community as well
!LUV
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