{"id":45791,"date":"2025-07-05T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T07:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=45791"},"modified":"2026-06-05T06:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:55:07","slug":"older-but-wiser-or-when-life-gives-you-lemons-freeze-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/older-but-wiser-or-when-life-gives-you-lemons-freeze-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Older, but Wiser? Or, When Life Gives You Lemons, Freeze Them"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"older-but-wiser-or-when-life-gives-you-lemons-freeze-them\"<\/a>
Older, but wiser? When life gives you lemons, freeze them. My neighbor presented me with a couple dozen lemons this spring. I still have a bag full of them in my freezer. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nicole Graev Lipson has written a lovely book. It has a lot in common with the book I’m working on right now.<\/p>\n

Lipson’s “Mothers and Other Fictional Characters,” is a memoir in essays about a woman in her forties, struggling to have it all and make it all work — career, husband, children.<\/p>\n

My book, is a memoir in essays about a woman, also in her forties, also hoping to have it all.<\/p>\n

The voice in Lipson’s book speaks from the twenty-first century.<\/p>\n

The voice in my book calls out to its readers from the late twentieth century.<\/p>\n

Older, but Wiser? Or, When Life Gives You Lemons, Freeze Them<\/h5>\n

Lipson’s essays are long and leisurely.<\/p>\n

Mine are a brisk 750 words, conceived to fit into a single, nineteen-pica newspaper column.<\/p>\n

Lipson’s essays were published in book form three months ago, in March.<\/p>\n

Mine were published once a week, from 1987 to 1992, as columns in the Oakland Tribune.<\/p>\n

Lipson writes about in her vitro babies. She describes consenting wearily, night after night, to reading just one more bedtime story.\u00a0 She confesses to lashing out in anger at a recalcitrant son. She admits to a private desire to get in the car and drive away from it all.\u00a0And so do I.<\/p>\n

\"older-but-wiser-or-when-life-gives-you-lemons-freeze-them\"<\/a>
Nicole Graev Lipson’s book, “Mothers and Other Fictional Characters,”<\/a> was published in March<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m old now. Lipson is still in her middle years. Toward the end of her book, the forty-something Lipson draws a chuckle across the years from this eighty-something reader.<\/p>\n

Nicole Graev Lipson’s Neighbor<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The chuckle happens when Lipson describes spotting a neighbor working in her garden. The neighbor is a retired rabbi whose name is Barbara. (Barbara!)<\/p>\n

Lipson feels respect, but more than just respect, for her neighbor. She imagines neighbor Barbara — and her older self — to be “some archetypal figure of my unconscious: the wise woman, the crone, the great mother” whose words might carry “the generous lucidity of truth.”<\/p>\n

“People come to her for wisdom,” Lipson declares.<\/p>\n

That’s when reader Barbara laughs out loud.<\/p>\n

Forget it, Nicole. Our heads might be gray, and our skin wizened, but that doesn’t make us wise.<\/p>\n

We can’t help you with the big stuff, like how to hold on to a marriage that’s gotten shaky, except to say, hold on.<\/p>\n

We don’t know what to do with the obstinate 8-year-old or the fretful 5-year-old, except to say, do stuff with them.<\/p>\n

What We Know for Sure<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There’s only one thing we elders know for sure: we are dying.<\/p>\n

We live alongside death, we old people. Parents die. And then a spouse and friend after friend. Another old friend lives in a memory care unit now, half here, half gone. I was there for his birthday celebration yesterday. I’m not sure he knew who I was.<\/p>\n

We can’t give you bona fide wisdom, we old people. But we can give you some tips. I think they’re called life hacks these days. I’ve picked up a few good ones recently:<\/p>\n