This Creative Midlife is a project I began in 2017 at the age of 49 inspired by the unfathomable fact that I would soon be turning 50. Fifty? What the hell?
Although I have had a personal blog in various iterations since 2005, I decided I wanted to start a new site dedicated to coming to a better understanding of what it means to be what we generously refer to as “middle age” or “midlife.”
I am especially curious about the role of creativity plays and hopefully will continue to play later in life (thus the title). It seems that in recent years, creativity has become more important to me and feels like it will be an important element of my life as I grow older.
I have long been a writer and have had short stories published in Ayris Magazine, Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, The Casserole, Contraposition, and The Penmen Review. A couple of those stories appear in my collection, Kindred Spirits.
In addition, I have had poetry appear in Small Brushes, Superior Poetry News and The Vermillion Literary Project. I have also had several professional publications associated with my 25 year (and counting) career as a librarian. Twenty-five years? What the hell?
Although I have been interested in photography for a while, I have only recently begun taking that interest seriously in the past few years. Some of my photos have appeared in several travel blogs, The Huffington Post and the websites for Forbes and Discover.
Even more recently, I have started dabbling with drawing and graphic design.
I have also written an introductory post explaining my intentions in more detail.
Testing My Pentacon Six
In my post about my new Olympus XA, I wrote a little about how I have ended up with more film cameras than I intended to own and being more intentional about buying... READ MORE
April 2021 Update
The big news from April is that Holly and I both got our COVID vaccination shots! The second one was toward the end of the month so we’ll be fully vaccinated early in... READ MORE
Spring Walk with Olympus TG-5
So far, we’ve had a rather spring-like spring here in Philadelphia. In recent years, it’s felt as if we’ve gone quickly from winter to summer temperatures skipping over pleasant days in the 50s... READ MORE
New to Me Olympus XA
I’ve been more diligent about not impulsively buying new cameras and being more intentional about what I do buy. Earlier this year, I bought a couple of cameras to replace non-functioning cameras which... READ MORE
Canon Rebel 2000 with Kodak Color Plus
A few weeks ago, Holly and I went for a walk along the west side of the Schuylkill River. I wanted to shoot film but also wanted to make sure I got some... READ MORE
March 2021 Update
Thanks to the change of weather, March was a better month than we’ve had for a while. Not only have we enjoyed the warmed days and extra daylight, but March ended with some... READ MORE