Remembering Nüshu, the 19th-Century Chinese Script Only Women Could Write
Nüshu, is a script used about 1000 years ago by Chinese women letter writers. Inventing this secret language that men could not understand and writing poems and letters to each other was an act of rebellion, punishable by death. Some of these letters survive and show that they wrote down the centre of each page leaving wide margins for the recipient to add her own words. Wouldn’t it be great to have our own Midlife Secret language?
Playtime: Inside Out
This Playtime uses something that was invisible to us prior to writing this book. We think it is a clever way to, lift the veil on our Midlife invisibility. Our attention Was drawn one day to the bank envelopes we routinely receive in the mail.
By chance, we found various intricate patterns printed on the inside of these
security envelopes, something that had been invisible to us before.
These patterns developed for security, ensure no one sees what lies inside. We felt it was the perfect canvass for our Playtime. Using old bank envelopes,
open them up to reveal the different marbled patterns. Each bank has their own design and colours so you should easily be able to collect a few different ones for this exercise. By repurposing these envelopes, using the hidden patterns to design our paper doll collection, we artfully make our hidden beauty, and Midlife wisdom, visible.
STARDUST ( from “The Pillar of Peace” in our book Just Push Play-on Midlife.)
“Together we can illuminate each other’s path when the road gets dark, and believe in each other when the trail appears to end.
Collectively we can heal ourselves, and our troubled planet.
It is in our DNA to want to cluster, after all, we came from star dust.
So at this point in our lives, we can shine alone, like the rogue runaway stars, to
simply twinkle cool, faint and separate, almost unseen in the vast night sky.
Or, we can exist in a collective Galaxy, forming the oldest and brightest light in our heavens, creating beauty in unison and producing enormous energy as we orbiting each other forever.
This book is our contribution to help us light up that Midlife night sky.”
Write Your Story 