Where did I leave my keys? What did I come here to buy? What’s her name?

As we go through life, we need to remember many things. Though this may seem harder as we grow older, it isn’t necessarily so.

I.C. Robledo’s concise, informative new book Practical Memory: A Simple Guide… cites a recent study which showed that seniors performed better at most memory skills than did millennials – and that is encouraging to us. His book has useful tips for doing even better; a few are discussed here.

Here are a few practical memory tips for older adults.

Eliminate Memory Disruptors

Robledo developed memory problems in graduate school, a most inconvenient time. A doctor alerted him to some basic memory inhibitors: inattention, lack of sleep, nutrition/medication problems and stress. Here are some guidelines:

• Mindfulness must replace the lack of attention to what we are doing.
• Sleep deprivation must be dealt with: exercise, medication, scheduling.
• Eating well and having appropriate medication treatment is important.
• Stress reduction methods – such as meditation, exercise and yoga – can help memory as well.

Where Did I Leave My Keys?

One strategy to finding your ‘missing’ keys is to always put them back in the same spot. If you are not sure you’ll remember that spot, picture it in your mind as you put the keys there. Then, when you need to find them, picture what you were doing when you were putting them down.

Going beyond that, you can write yourself a note, and place it in your wallet.

When traveling, before you leave the hotel or restaurant, place anything you fear you’ll forget – and cannot carry on you – right by your keys, so they all come with you.

To find your car in the parking lot, note the aisle letter/number or where the aisle begins or ends. Picture mentally how you entered the area and parked.

What Did I Come Here to Buy?

Like most people, I maintain a grocery list. Sometimes, I’m away from the refrigerator, where I keep my list, yet I am within reach of the store. Have I forgotten my list? Not exactly.

After writing the list, I use the first letters of the items to form a word or near-word to help me remember: Milk, Bread, prescriptions (Rx), Tape… MBRT could become “My BRaT,” ignoring the lowercase letters. This usually works for me.

What’s Her/His Name?

Putting a name to a face has two elements: remembering who the person is and what her/his name is. When introduced, try to note the association/relationship you have with her or with the introducer.

For association, think of where you met, who was there, why you were there, what happened when you were there… Paying attention to these at that time will make remembering easier. Perhaps physical appearance can be linked to the person’s name as well.

To remember her/his name, use it several times as soon as practical, and then look for things to link it to: people and places, words that sound similar.

I remember that a new client, Cheryl B., is a retired RN, as is my old friend, Cheryl C.

A structure to link your memory to is the alphabet. When trying to remember a person’s name, go through in order: Alice, Ann, … ; Barbara, Betty, … ; Carol…

Memorize Some; Record Some

You may lose your purse and cell phone and need an important number. Some numbers should be memorized, as I had to do decades ago as a child. When you have your cell phone and some spare time, memorizing some phone numbers is worth doing.

Also write down crucial information. The Chinese say, “The palest ink outlasts memory.”

In Conclusion

Our memories are probably no worse than they once were, and we can battle forgetting by using some simple tactics as outlined above.

Do you have a good memory? Which tactics might you use? What memory tips can you share with our community? Please join the conversation below!

Tracy Tutor’s Black One Shoulder Top and Skirt on Instagram

Million Dollar Listing LA Season 12  Episode 1 Fashion

Tracy Tutor’s black one shoulder top and skirt on Instagram is the outfit of a winner which is obvious because she totally is one. On this week’s episode wheeled and dealed the buyer then got to wine and dine her clients, all with everyone’s best interest in mine which—ending up in their dream home.

Side note, her clients seem to be just the most amazing people ever. I mean my goodness their long list of humanitarian life accomplishments…wow! It always makes me happy when good people get what they want, like Tracy getting the house sold and Ishmael and Pricilla getting the deal they wanted and continuing to save the world. And of course me getting Style Stealers of Tracy’s outfit.

Sincerely Stylish,

Jess

Click Here To See Her Sold Out Solace London Renata One Shoulder Top

Click Here To See Her Sold Out Rick Owens Green Midi Skirt

Click Here To Shop Ishmael Beah’s Book ‘Radiance of Tomorrow”

Photo & ID Credit: @tracytutor

Originally posted at: Tracy Tutor’s Black One Shoulder Top and Skirt

When I walked into the calm atmosphere of Jenny’s Beauty Supply in Dallas, it was a far cry from the cramped stores I visited as a child. I saw people who were in between hairstyles and others who had clearly just finished a work shift. Very few wandered aimlessly. It seemed as though the majority of patrons had clear intentions. A new wig, a pack of hair. My intent was clear as well. Before this year, I had never installed my own kanekalon hair, a synthetic fiber that replicates kinky textures and is worn everywhere from the red carpet to fashion week runways to my own neighborhood.

Instead, I sat between the legs of someone else, who would intertwine it with my natural hair to craft thick, golden cornrows and micro braids, respectively. However, a recent move inspired a change to match my new environment. So after looking at old photos of TLC member T-Boz, I knew I wanted to pay homage. 

Brooklyn White. Shutterstock.

In the midst of my impulse transformation, I realized just how second-nature a trip to the store for kanekalon hair had become not only to me, but the Black community in general. Though it isn’t exclusive to our culture, most assumed it’s a Black innovation because we invest in it the most. Even if we aren’t responsible for its creation, its legacy started with our demand for it. And as with most trends started by PoC, kanekalon hair is entangled in both celebrated pop culture moments and oft-repeated controversies, the latter of which is still exacerbated by the fashion and beauty industries today.

Ryan Winters.

Its origins are muddled, to say the least. Though it’s most closely associated with and bought by Black women, its original purpose may have had nothing to do with textured hair. Some say that kanekalon was intended to be a wool alternative when it was initially created in the 1950s. However, a more widely-known origin story is tied to the uprising of Korean beauty supply owners, who cornered the industry in the 1960s and were meeting demand from its majority-black consumers. According to In-Jin Yoon’s book, On My Own: Korean Businesses and Race Relations in America, 1967 is a more accurate birth date. And once more beauty supply chains started profiting from it, Hollywood wanted a piece of the pie, too.

https://twitter.com/delafro_/status/1149325874585657344

By the mid-1970s, the fashion and beauty industries weren’t just utilizing the synthetic fiber for magazine shoots and the runway. They began creating brands of their own, too. It became normal to see Kanekalon wigs sold through ad placements in Ebony and worn by white consumers. For example, most forget that Lauren Hutton was the face of a Kanekalon brand in 1972. 

The irony of its rapid and lucrative trajectory is that the most popular Kanekalon options were poor replications of what Black hair looks and feels like; the hair attached to women who helped make it a hot commodity in the first place. So when Black supermodel Naomi Sims retired from the runway in 1973, she utilized her status to create Kanekalon Presselle, one of the few brands to curate products that accurately matched the hair of the consumer.

https://twitter.com/veraslang/status/959631732499800064

According to Sims in a 1980 interview with The Washington Post, 40% of women buying wigs were Black women, which all but confirmed the quality of the supply definitely didn’t meet the demand. There was also the influence of Sims’ own modeling career, which helped inform her post-retirement move. Oftentimes, she was tasked with doing her own hair or equipped with wigs that looked nothing like her own. Instead of settling, she mastered a recipe that would become the blueprint for her company years later.

“I bought several Caucasian-type, silky-haired wigs, wet them with setting lotion, rolled them with steel rollers and put them in the oven…I baked them at about 175 degrees for about 15 minutes and when they came out they looked like black straightened hair,” she shared. According to The Entrepreneurial Spirit of African American Inventors, Sims’ products became best-sellers and helped secure kanekalon’s spot as an enduring haircare staple. In other words, the investment of a Black woman once again helped propel the staple to new heights. 

https://twitter.com/kaaaylisenby/status/542159588712542208

By the 1990s, it had settled into its legacy and become synonymous with pop culture moments we still fawn over today. For example, Janet Jackson’s box braids in Poetic Justice (1993) are just as popular as the movie itself. The hair used to create Jackson’s ‘do was likely Tiara II, a range within the Kaneka haircare line created nearly 15 years prior.

Shutterstock.

With a legacy clearly elevated by Black women, it’s sadly unsurprising when credit is given to those merely influenced by something they had no hand in creating, especially in the social media era. For example, when Kim Kardashian’s crimped kanekalon ponytail and slicked baby hairs were featured on Vogue’s website in March 2019, it was described as “modern” on Instagram. In other words: complete erasure of the people who innovated and wore the style decades before. Thankfully, social media has made it easier to challenge the people and spaces who make such assumptions.

https://twitter.com/kuwonustesoro/status/1106637757596737536

In response to Vogue’s ratioed tweet, Twitter user named Micah Nicole shared four photos of Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Beyoncé and Janet Jackson wearing a similar look months or years prior and from there, others used to opportunity to co-sign her annoyance with media’s misinformed takes on beauty. Similarly, Ariana Grande has been accused of wearing kanekalon braiding hair, though she maintained her hair is simply crimped.

https://twitter.com/KILOGNASH/status/1166068792755195906

But unlike celebrity hair moments, the runway has been more definitive in its borrowing of looks rooted in the Black community. For instance, white models were fashioned with jumbo, blonde kanekalon braids and baby hairs for the Blonds’ Spring 2015 NYFW show. The hairstylist called the hairstyle “madness”, which many rightfully took as offensive. 

Of course, for every snafu is a celebration that feels like a healing balm. The random, but joyous DMX challenge was one of the more recent and unexpected tributes to the beauty supply staple. Using the rapper’s classic “What These B–tches Want” second verse, where over 40 names are recited, social media users (the majority of which were Black women) made mashup videos that showed various hairstyles syncing with each name.

https://twitter.com/tthingtwo/status/1169778006010806272

“I’m 16 and hair is one of the ways I express myself. Especially in braids. You have..Passion, Havana, and Marley [twists], [and] twists that are put into a bob,” Twitter user Abygail Metellus told me in the midst of the challenge. “Then you have the actual hair…My favorite color is purple, so you will always see me in purple. But never the same hue – [I like] dark purple, plum, lavender, and ombré. I constantly change my style and never look the same although I always have the same color in my hair…”

Oh! Virgin Hair owner Jasmine W. also shared the ways she wears kanekalon, writing “I use it for a ten minute ponytail, a long Rapunzel braid, twin buns, or a braided bun! When I have no time to play and I still need to slay, [I] just lay a ponytail out and pop that bad boy on.”

Fleeting viral moments like these have a way of highlighting just how intertwined–in this case, both literally and figuratively–certain products or looks have been integrated into our culture. Kanekalon hair is undoubtedly one of those things. Though its genesis and eventual advancement are arguably multicultural, no one has embraced and invested in it more than the Black community. And regardless of what hair innovations are created in the future, it will be impossible to divorce from our rich history. 

Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

My car has a feature which I find totally annoying. When I’m close to what the ‘powers-that-be’ determined is my next required maintenance, a little box pops up on the dash-screen announcing “Maintenance required soon!” and stays on until I’ve acceded to its request.

When I called the service center to find out how much maintenance is necessary, the very polite and friendly service rep asked, “Well, it depends on your mileage. How many miles do you have on your car?” I reply, “Oh, I don’t know. I just drive the thing.”

And then it hit me – why don’t we do that with our age? We certainly know we’re past babyhood, technically past adolescence, well into adulthood (we hope), so what good does it do us to obsess over our exact number of ‘miles’ (or kilometers), as in 60, 70, 80 or however years old?

I’ve decided I’m going with “I just drive the thing,” as in I’ll just happily inhabit my body, love it, treat it well and give it regular oil changes – well, not really, but you know what I mean.

Enjoy the Ride

What a freeing thought! What if we just “drove the thing,” ignoring the numbers on the odometer, and enjoyed the ride? You don’t usually check the odometer before driving all over town to find that special gift for your grandson.

Why would you check your age before buying those skinny jeans? Or learning to kayak? Or taking art classes? Or anything else you feel inspired to experience?

Certainly, you always want to be mindful of your body’s capabilities before taking on something new. But heck, you had to do the same thing when you were 30. You know, that magical day when cold pizza for breakfast just didn’t work for you anymore.

Embrace Your Age

What if the age we embrace is the age we feel like on whatever day? For the most part, I feel 40, except for those few days when I feel 103. Yet, I clearly remember there were days in my 20s when I felt I was pushing 100, so nothing has really changed.

Attitude matters! According to recent Yale University research, how you view aging has tremendous impact on your physical and mental well-being, even on something as apparently inevitable as a genetic predisposition to dementia.

A group of 4,765 individuals was studied with an average age of 72. Every single one of them had a gene variant linked to dementia, yet those who had positive attitudes about aging were fully 50% less likely to develop dementia, as opposed to those who had pessimistic or fearful thoughts about getting older.

Positive attitude towards aging alone is a significant health-and-longevity factor.

One such positive thinker is Leah Chase who considers herself the luckiest woman in the world. At 93, Leah is the queen of Creole cooking, creating her dishes at the famous Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana.

She works from 8:00 am to midnight – as she has for 70 years – sporting her signature red chef’s jacket.

In addition to her many awards as a chef, Leah received the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s Loving Cup Award for her service to the community, and the coveted American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana’s Ben Smith Award for her work to promote racial equality.

Clearly, Leah just “drives the thing” with joy, exuberance and a smile that lights up the whole restaurant. What a wonderful example for us all!

So yes, get your regular check-ups, do whatever is needed to keep your body and mind healthy and happy, and go for it! Life is as good as you allow it to be, whatever your age.

What do you do that isn’t seen as “normal” for your age? Have you ever used age as an excuse for not trying something new – and then regretted it? Please share your stories below!

Over the last months, everyone everywhere has lost someone or something. The whole world is suffering as the virus that causes Covid-19 continues to spread and impact millions.

Like so many thousands around the world, we are grieving the loss of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbors, colleagues. These special people meant so much, but now we can only grieve alone, isolated from the comfort of the world.

We are all grieving the loss of normalcy and routine during this global crisis. Easing back into life after a loss is difficult under ‘normal’ circumstances. Nothing feels even slightly normalish now. 

My Personal Loss

On May 15, 2020, my family suffered a tragic loss with the sudden death of my mother-in-law, Patricia Blumberg. After two days in the hospital and four days in hospice care, this perfectly healthy woman passed away.

She had been talking of shortness of breath and sleepiness, and though the virus test came out negative, we aren’t inclined to believe the results.

The graveside service was small, immediate family only, covered in sorrow and masks. If we were not in the middle of this pandemic, the chapel would have been overflowing with love from her friends, extended family, and community. 

Too Many Losses at Once

The loss of Patricia brought an unexpected revival of the grief I’d felt over losing my mother to cancer more than 31 years ago. I thought I had grieved that loss fully, but now the old grief has rushed back and is present alongside this new loss.

Like many others, I feel overwhelmed by personal losses, business losses, the loss of friendly hugs, alongside the losses resulting from the global pandemic and the racial injustices.

Sitting with the silence of grief during this time is hard, really hard. I know I can’t rush the grieving process, but how I wish I could!

What I do instead is listen to Manoj Dias, a mindfulness teacher, who says that allowing our bodies to feel the weight of our emotions without creating a story around them is how we transform our heartbreak into compassionate action.

My Truths

I know that I am more sensitive than the average person – several therapists have told me so, and my own experience has confirmed it. I am sensitive to the world around me; I feel others’ pain, happiness, joy, and sorrow. I can feel all the nuanced changes in my body, including all the little aches and pains.

This sensitivity is not a good thing or a bad thing. It is not a character fault or shortcoming. I look at it as part of my DNA. It simply is. It is one of the reasons I am good at what I do for a living. It helps me to be empathetic and a good listener.

Ways to Unfurl Grief

I know that everyone grieves differently, and there’s no one way to go about it. Here are some things that are helping me on this journey:

Reading

I know that books don’t necessarily hold the answers, but I read them because they offer me comfort and inspiration Some particularly good titles are Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl, When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, and More Beautiful Than Before by Steve Leder.

Taking Care of Myself 

I look after the things I have a bit of control over – my health and wellness, my schedule, and my business.

Going Outside

I get out of my head and my house on a regular basis to mitigate my anxiety. 

Seeking Support

I know I don’t have to do everything on my own, so I created ‘Team Sharon’, a small circle of loving souls to support me in this time. Asking for help is out of my comfort zone, but I need to honor my need to receive in times of challenge.

Practicing Gratitude

I pay very close attention to the words I am using. For example, I say “I am grateful that I have been loved by two mothers” instead of “I have lost my mother in law.”

Research has proven that gratitude buffers the challenges we all face in life. For me, it is important to activate that sense of gratitude and to do so on a daily basis. It is helping me cope.

Not Giving Up

I remind myself that being resilient doesn’t mean that I will bounce back quickly or without setbacks. It means having the tenacity to not give up no matter the circumstances. It also means to leverage my strengths to maintain my physical and emotional wellbeing during the time of crisis and uncertainty.

Working on My Patience

I am not the patient type, and it has been hard to work through the residual feelings of fear and exhaustion. On a daily basis, I try to be patient and compassionate to allow myself the time to heal from the losses.

I know that grief takes time and requires love, patience, and support from family and close friends. With my team close by, I will handle anything.

“Pain diminishes us, and it is so important to remember, in the midst of pain and everything that pain takes from you, that still… you are enough. You are enough just as you are. You are worthy of love and kindness. You are enough. And you have enough.” – Steve Leder

What are you grieving in this time of Covid? Which of your losses has been the most painful? How do you work through grief? What practices have helped you cope with the present situation of grieving in isolation? Please share with our community and let’s have a conversaion.