Talking how babies smell, intergenerational friendships & more with Isabel Cowles Murphy

Thank you

David Roberts

,

Abigail Thomas

,

Joan Stommen

,

Holli McCormick

,

Francesca Bossert

,

Thomas E. Ricks

,

Robb Bunnen

, and many others for tuning into my LIVE video with

Isabel Cowles Murphy

!

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Yesterday’s conversation revealed much that

Isabel Cowles Murphy

and I have in common; as well as the differences, from her perspective at 40 and mine at 73. I think we covered almost everything we’d agreed to talk about:

• On the topic of how I make younger friends: I told her I chatted up everyone who sat next to me on my recent solo trip to Paris. Apparently, doing so in French is a “status flex,” a term I learned recently from

  David Roberts
  .¹

• Isabel says she thinks of herself as being in her mid-80s; despite that, she is grieving over being done with having more babies. (She has four young sons.)

• What stands in the way of making an older, or younger, friend is the fear of being judged, as well as the …