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Nancy Harris Mclelland
Poetry, Prose, Opinions about Aging from an Ex-cowgirl Octogenarian.
Maybe it's not so bad to be called a hag...(I'm not convinced)
"… in folklore, the hag, while appearing to be the epitome of people’s fears about aging, is actually a positive archetype. 'The hag is a...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
It's NOT the same old you...
You are not the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or a week ago. You are always growing. Experiences don't stop. That's life....
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
To hell with the twenties, eighty is the time to go a little crazy!
Your 20s (80's) are the perfect time to do a few things that are unusual, weird, bold, risky, unexplainable, crazy, unprofitable, and...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
It's always going to be comic, rather than tragic
“Old people like to give good advice, as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.” ...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
The artist as energizer bunny
“I’ll go on until I fall over,” David Hockney, 85
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
If Herbie Hancock has advice, take it.
LASTLY, WE HOPE THAT YOU LIVE IN A STATE OF CONSTANT WONDER As we accumulate years, parts of our imagination tend to dull. Whether from...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
Are you surprised by what you remembered--in the middle of the night? This morning while you were brushing your teeth?
The events in our lives happen in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order…the continuous thread of...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
Seek out the odd balls, for heaven’s sake!
Investor Josh Wolfe on the best advice he ever received: “The best, most useful advice I ever got was from Jim Watson, [the scientist...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
Aging into Health
“I feel healthy. I feel stronger in aspects of my being that I did not have when I was younger. So I call it aging into health — find...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
And he did!
“Life teaches you how to live it if you live it long enough.” Tony Bennett, a legend who died at 98, July 2023
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
And maybe reflection on our reflection, if you know what I mean..
We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience. – ...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
You tell 'em, coach
Sleep in? … “Lay there and stare at the ceiling?” he groans. “I’m 84. I’m not sure how many days I’ve got left to live, but I know one...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
You GrrEighties out there...
Walk like you know where you are going.
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
Stay interested. Stay interesting.
Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotch-potch of impulses, our perpetual miracle — for the...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
January 12th, 2024
Everyone will be old in their own way. And what does anyone really know about being old until they are old themselves? It’s just how we...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
We're NOT the same, you and I
Everyone will be old in their own way. And what does anyone really know about being old until they are old themselves? It’s just how we...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read


The Family Gathering Abecedarius
There's always someone with an Affliction you can't mention Because he's in denial. "Cats!" Why are we talking about cats? There's always...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read


A Grey-Haired Woman Goes Through Airport Security
A badged man waves paper over my hands. I ask what he wants to find. "Traces of explosives," the man explains. "Wow!" I remark to my...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read


Lucretius Leaves Tuscarora
You leave this place quite sure you won’t return before another year has come and gone. You know that in the interim you’ll learn of...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read


Below Zero
I doubt you would like this place. Blue light on crusted snow, sage drained of chlorophyll, grey sky mirrored in the pond. You say, "The...
Nancy Harris Mclelland
May 13, 20241 min read
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