PROVOKEDmagazine: For women who are nowhere near done.

Touched by Time: I Went to See Cave Art. I Left With a New Understanding of Myself

In the depths of a French cave, 17,000-year-old drawings cracked open something I didn’t know I was missing.  Spiritual is not a word people commonly associate with me. My sister in New York is the one who channels and manifests. I’ve long said the wrong sister moved to California. No personal God or goddesses for […]

Smart Women are Going Fractional After 50—and Taking Control 

Fractional leadership isn’t a consolation prize. It’s how women over 50 are finally making work work for them. There’s a new F-word in the workplace: Fractional. And for a rising number of women in their 50s and 60s, that means freedom, not failure. Sick and tired of being passed over, aged out, or overworked for […]

She Didn’t Just Move to Paradise. She Bottled It.

she bottled paradise

Beauty, Scent, and the Courage to Start Over When Isabelle Ramsay-Brackstone lost her husband, she didn’t flee Bermuda—she stayed, turned grief into craft, and built a perfumery that captures the scent of a life fully lived. Standing in Isabelle Ramsay-Brackstone’s tropical walled garden, surrounded by oleander, passion flower, jasmine, and more, it was easy to […]

The Woman Who Thought She Had Everything

Having it all

Turns Out, Having It All Isn’t the Goal. Knowing What’s Worth Having? That’s the Win. At 30, I thought I had everything: a job, health insurance, and a fiancé. Looking back, that was just the “starter pack” women were promised in our youth. I followed the rules, ticked the boxes, and believed I was doing […]

Who Killed the Audience? And Can We Get Them Back?

Ballet audience

How One Night at Lincoln Center Changed My Understanding of the Audience  Date night, 1979. Avery Fisher Hall. Lincoln Center. I showed up in my only dress; my boyfriend (now husband of 42 years) wore a corduroy blazer (it was the ‘70s). We were clearly out of our league. Everyone else looked like they had […]

Still Pulling G’s: Patty Wagstaff on Flying, Aging, and Staying the Course

Patty Wagstaff doesn’t care if you think she’s too old to fly upside down. At 73, the aerobatic legend is still defying gravity—and everyone’s expectations. As the first woman to win the U.S. National Aerobatic Championship, she broke into a male-dominated world and never looked back—flying on her own terms. Patty Wagstaff: The Sky Is […]

Marking My Son’s Birthday—With a Gift to Myself

Water Therapy

I stared at the chain dangling before me. Did I dare? I took a breath then yanked it, dumping a bucket of ice cold water on my head. I shivered. Holy shit that was cold. I smothered a small yelp. It was so invigorating, I wanted to do it again. This was how I was […]

The 10 Commandments of Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping

Given the fact that the employees at my local grocery store see me grocery shopping more than my own family does, it’s safe to say that I have quite a bit of experience pushing a full cart around. While I generally enjoy the experience because a) I love finding and checking things off of a […]

Take Me Out to the Ballgame: Why Women Love the Game

Women's baseball

“Baseball is not only for the guys. Women are nearly half of the fanbase of MLB,” said Kevin King, founder and coach at Anytime Baseball Supply in Los Angeles. He’s a die-hard baseball fan who has spent his life playing, coaching, and sharing the game with others. “Baseball is special because of its speed; you […]

The New York Times Is Now an Online Word Games Company

online word games newspaper crossword puzzle

All the Online Word Games That’s Fit to Print The New York Times is no longer a news company. It’s a gaming empire with a newsroom attached. And it’s more than crossword puzzles online or word games on a website. The New York Times was the pinnacle of serious journalism for over a century: the […]

Finding Purpose After Retirement: Is It as Hard as You Think?

Finding purpose after retirement - a purposeful life

Can you reinvent yourself if you don’t know what you’re reinventing for? Can you find purpose after retirement? Purpose has been called life’s compass—the thing that guides us and pulls us forward. But for many women, finding purpose after retirement feels more like drifting into the Bermuda Triangle. Grandma Moses, who discovered her purpose at […]

Craft Hobby Hoarding: The Retirement Pastime Trap

Craft hobbies retirement hobbies

In a world that tells women over 60 to slow down and enjoy a retirement pastime, hobby hoarding is our way of saying, “We’re just getting started on our craft hobbies.” Hobbies in Retirement Retirement. At long last, the world is your oyster. You’ve been dreaming of this moment for decades—fantasizing about all the retirement […]