Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach has fallen for Anderson Cooper. His podcast, anyway. On it, he unpacks his grief at the death of his famous mother, the heiress and fashion trendsetter Gloria Vanderbilt, and the suicide of his brother, Carter. Like most people in their 70s, Sternbach has lost loved ones and has become accustomed to carrying her grief with her. “The older we get, the more we lose,” she writes in this latest column on aging. “And yet, as we continue on, we are expected to carry more. More memories, more grief, more tools to deal with said grief. We fill up a virtual backpack with it all and just keep walking as the load gets heavier.”
More from Claudia Sternbach
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Need an escape from bad news and politics? Try fiddlin’ in the forest
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is amazed at her friend Nora, who at 68 took up fiddling in 2019 and recently performed in the Valley of the Moon Fiddle Extravaganza at DeLaveaga Park. Sternbach attended and was mesmerized by the range of emotions the music brought. “I had gone from foot tapping and clapping to sobbing silently, a lump in my throat the size of a boulder,” she writes. “I thought of the people I miss. The people I loved.” She also got a brief respite from the woes of the world. “Who knew that such a small instrument could provide such an abundance of joy?”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The secret to aging in Santa Cruz: Wear that tiny bikini on the inside
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is sometimes surprised at the gray wave sweeping Santa Cruz. On her regular beach walks, she sees “more and more older folks out catching some rays.” Census data confirms the trend; the county’s 65-84 age bracket grew by 81% between 2010 and 2020. Sternbach, in her 70s, shares her thoughts as she grapples with her own age-related ailments and “being transported to this other existence.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I lost my longtime friend to suicide. I’ll never recover.
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is mourning the loss of her friend of almost four decades, who took his own life last month. Here, she shares her grief, sense of helplessness and hope that her friend has found “some kind of peace.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I think my mother-in-law has discovered the Fountain of Youth
Juan Ponce de León never found the Fountain of Youth. In fact, he never even looked for it; that is just a weird rumor. But Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach, who often writes about life in her 70s, believes her 93-year-old mother-in-law, Rozzy, holds the secret many of us crave — the recipe for longevity. Rozzy is coming to California next week and is still wave jumping and making airport runs and hard to tire out, even in her ninth decade. She is also making Sternbach rethink her attitude about aging.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I’ve been dancing to the Grateful Dead for 50 years … I just wish I could remember it all
When you can’t trust your memory, it’s time to whip out your phone and push the record button, says Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach, who is in her 70s. Sternbach is growing frustrated by her memory gaps — and that “there isn’t a single person left who might be able to confirm or deny” what she does remember. Here, she recounts a recent memory she wants to hold — a celebration of 50 years of Grateful Dead shows — and the freedom she experienced on the dance floor. Luckily, her husband caught it all on his cell.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Where in the Bible does it say, ‘and thou shalt have guns?’
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is outraged at the latest spate of gun violence gripping our nation. She blames the National Rifle Association and its hold on Republican politicians. “Can someone please tell me what the endgame is here?” she asks. “Can someone tell me when gun proponents and the NRA will say enough is enough?”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
How did I get old enough to have dead former boyfriends and a dead ex?
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach once again shares her thoughts and humor about aging. She ponders her “inevitable ‘sell by’ date,” her “Jeopardy!” weaknesses (Tik Tok for $600, anyone?) and how many men she has known in the “biblical sense” who are no longer living. “How am I supposed to feel about these romantic figures from my past at this late date?” she asks. She admits she is too old to have played with Barbie, but finds solace in the relationships that shaped her life.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Storm injustice: Pajaro residents deserve more than to be ‘penciled out’
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is horrified by the mud, water and sludge oozing into her husband’s longtime Pajaro tractor business. But she is furious at the human impact of the floods. “People with low incomes and lesser means, who have so much stacked against them, continue to lose out in our society,” she writes. “Someone took a good look at the price of creating a levee that was much less likely to fail and weighed that against actual human lives and decided money was more important than the lives of those living right across the county line.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
They say getting older isn’t for the weak, so I’m gonna need to get tough
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach has a succinct message: “Aging sucks.” Here, she humorously guides us through her sadness at the changes she’s noticed now that she’s a septuagenarian and offers a few bits of inspiration for those who, like her, struggle to hear in loud restaurants and order food on a computer, not via a human.