NOON in NYC: Talking to Americans about midlife

It’s been quite the week! I flew home to London after a pinch-me week launching my book Much More to Come in America. (Luckily I was flying before the chaos at Heathrow!)

Beneath me, the Eastern seaboard of the United States glimmered in the sunshine; Nantucket, Fire Island, Newhaven, Salem read the places on the inflight map. I looked down and saw miles of white beaches, green islands and endless blue, blue sea. From the plane, the earth looked huge and peaceful. My experience of this week, though, is that the world is weirdly small. So many friends in New York City, so much serendipity.

• How to get a good night’s sleep in midlife
• Can we be heard over the strongmen?
• I lost the job I had for 23 years. I thought my life had ended. Now I’m glad

Just take the morning of my flight. I was sitting at 6am in a JFK restaurant feeling bleary, eating an omelette and drinking coffee and there, at the very next table, was Paul Muldoon, the brilliant Irish poet whom some of you will remember I spent 3 days with in Ireland at a literary festival in the autumn! He was en route to Dublin where he is currently Professor of Poetry.

We chatted about John Donne and Talking Heads (all kinds of severed heads – he’s writing a lecture about what they tell us in poems and history). He was, as always, “super happy” – his catchphrase. He is not only one of our finest living poets but a warm and wonderful human being. What a treat to bump into a mate in a foreign airport!

NOON made its debut in Times Square

I was in New York to launch my book. I arrived humming, “I want to wake up in the City that never sleeps…” and – presto – there I was on Monday morning being filmed for PIX11, a New York TV station, talking about the Queenager revolution and my book. In Times Square!

If someone had told me when I first set up NOON that one day this would happen, I would NEVER have believed it!

Queenager presenter Monica Morales interviewed me, and we talked about how midlife is the age of opportunity. Together we did a vox pop with people on the street, who all attested that midlife really is when it gets good for women. One giant of a man wept (wept!) as he told us about his own mother’s midlife reinvention, how hard it had been, how she had cared for him and his siblings all through her troubles (she was injured in 9/11). “Queenagers are amazing,” he sobbed. Humbling.

We’ve been hearing a lot recently about America’s, ahem, challenges, but returning to NYC blew me away. I love Americans! They are so immediately open and trusting. (Shout out to my Editorial Director Jennifer, a Texan who lived in NYC for 10 years and fits the bill.) It’s ok to blow your own trumpet here – expected even. Everyone expects you to sing the song of yourself. It’s a total “go you!” culture.

That local attitude helped me not feel a total prat to be standing in front of a cameraman, enthusing about NOON and Queenagers in Times Square as people rushed by. I was wearing my signature green, and it was St Patrick’s Day, so we got lots of appreciation!

NOON was celebrated in NYC

I turned up at the splendiferous Hearst Tower next to Central Park to discover my US book launch event was being held in the penthouse. Ooh-err. The Hearst Tower was designed by Norman Foster and features a waterfall in reception. The views and art are incredible.

I was being hosted by Michael Clinton, former President of Hearst and publisher of GQ who now runs ROAR forward, a kind of business-focussed version of NOON. (I mentioned Michael and Roar forward in last week’s newsletter.) He also wrote a book called Roar: Into the Second Half of Your Life.

Michael is passionate about the longevity conversation, preparing individuals and companies for the 100-year life. He’s also a septuagenarian who looks 50-something (an adventurer, he was off to Santa Fe the next day to ski) – he’s a complete a kindred spirit with NOON and us Queenagers.

Meet America’s version of Davina McCall

Michael had arranged a midlife panel featuring the editor of US version of Women’s Health and Tamsen Fadal, America’s answer to Davina McCall.

Tamsen is an American TV anchor who has just published a book called How to Menopause and made a taboo-busting documentary called The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause. She’s won Emmys for her reporting.

I felt a real affinity to Tamsen. Like me, she’s been a journalist for decades. She’s focussed on the same issues we are at NOON, just on a different continent. And there was also another a really spooky coincidence: She and I share the exact time, date and year of birth. Cosmic twins!

How NOON fits into the US’s midlife movement

Tamsen’s focus on midlife was sparked by her personal experience while she was at the top of her game. At 49, she collapsed on air during a broadcast, because of menopausal symptoms she didn’t even know she had. Since then, she has cultivated her knowledge about menopause, hosted a 70k-strong online event called The World’s Hottest Menopause Party – it featured special video messages from Halle Berry and Naomi Watts (who’s written her own book called Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause). Tamsen has made it her mission to puncture the silence in America around “the change”.

“This isn’t something I ever expected to be doing,” she told me. “But it kind of found me and now it is my crusade!”

This was an exciting realisation: All of us here at NOON are on the forefront of a real international MOVEMENT. The US and UK are wonderfully complementary on these issues. It demonstrates that this discussion is becoming more and more essential to the larger cultural conversation.

A big thank you to Michael for being such a generous champion of me, the book and everything we’re all doing here at NOON.

Surprise: We’re further along this path than the US

There’s a tendency for us in Britain to feel we are a bit behind the States. But actually we lead the world on so many aspects of culture. Let’s not forget super-Queenager Carolyn Harris MP was one of the first politicians in the world to talk about menopause. She chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Menopause. She said the words “vaginal atrophy” in Parliament. Thanks to pioneers like her, Davina, Kate Muir (read on NOON about her menopause journey), our own Tina Backhouse and so many more, the UK is a pioneer on midlife.

It was fascinating to see that America is behind us on this journey.

Another panellist was Dr Susan Loeb-Zeitlin of Weill Cornell Medicine, who explained that until a couple of years ago, there was no specialist unit for menopause in the whole of New York City. She’s an obstetrician and gynaecologist, where they have just created a special menopause clinic. Menopause had been under the radar even for doctors. We’ve had that issue here but thankfully things have changed over the past few years.

Our view of midlife: Looking beyond menopause

I believe NOON and our Queenager community is particularly exciting because while we do talk about menopause, we also focus on the bigger picture: Midlife collisions, what comes next and reframing our real sense of purpose into our 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond!

At the event at the Hearst Tower, I talked about how, in the UK, while we welcome the new conversation about menopause and busting the taboo, we would rather be seen as Queenagers than walking hot flushes.

I explained our mission to move beyond the menopause conversation to create a new map of what is possible for women at 50+, what we are capable of as we age.

For example, nearly a third of Queenagers don’t have kids – we’ve got to have some new stories to tell about older women beyond just being grandmothers!

There were more than 100 women in the room and the response to our definition of midlife was overwhelming. After the discussion so many came up to tell me they loved our outlook. (I signed so many books, my hand got tired!)

The audience in New York agree with our attitude – supporting each other through midlife collisions while looking forward with optimism.