Good morning. Israeli leaders approved Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to take control of Gaza City. Here’s what we know:
We have more news below. But first, a visit to a unique retirement community for women, by women.
Making a home
When I drove through the electric gate and into The Bird’s Nest, a retirement community in East Texas, I felt as if I had entered a fairy village. One of the tiny homes was pink with white polka dots. Another was surrounded by towering sunflowers. Nine dogs roamed freely. Eleven women, most of them single, live there. They tend the grounds themselves, planting gardens and laying pipe. They’re trying to create what so many people seem to want in their later years: privacy and autonomy, caring and mutual support, friendship and laughs. I recently visited the Bird’s Nest to learn about the community these women have made and the solutions it offers for the problems of loneliness and affordability so many of us wish we could creatively avoid. Here’s what I found. An uncluttered life
When Robyn Yerian founded The Bird’s Nest back in 2022, affordability was her main concern. Yerian — divorced, mother of two, now 70 years old — was “out of options,” she told me. She lived and worked in Dallas and couldn’t retire comfortably on what she had. Her problem was a common one. According to the AARP, 64 percent of single, working American women ages 50 to 64 have less than $50,000 in retirement savings. (That’s true for around 50 percent of men.) So Yerian cashed out her 401(k) and bought a cheap plot of land on a remote stretch of prairie. She charges others just $450 a month in rent. The women of The Bird’s Nest told me they were drawn there in part by that affordability. They were at the end of their working lives and didn’t want to live with family. The tiny-house lifestyle also appealed: A 300-square-foot home has a small footprint, it’s easy to clean and it can be customized. But what the women really liked about The Bird’s Nest, they said, was Yerian. Cheerful, generous and energetic, she is an excellent baker, skilled with power tools and concerned about every member’s day-to-day happiness. Her vision, which has evolved over time, is now one of “women empowering women.” She sees it as a retirement destination where women can relax with uninhibited ease. As one of the members joked, she has “unintentionally created an intentional community.” Fast friends
The women of The Bird’s Nest moved from Illinois, Tennessee and Arizona, among other places. They are straight and gay. Republican, Democrat and independent. Religious and agnostic. They disagree, sometimes passionately, over politics. But long lives have given them a similar perspective. “There’s no sense in arguing over what you can’t change,” one member told me. The first rule of the community — unofficially, because Yerian doesn’t like rules — is “no drama.” My visit there made me think about friendship. I have long had the fantasy of retiring together with my friends from college, buying a big house and chipping in for accessibility ramps as needed. And I know many other people with a similar dream. But the truth is that friends in established groups don’t get ready to retire at the same time. They are differently tied down to careers, partners, neighborhoods, kids. They have different levels of financial need. It’s far better to think about how you want to live in your last chapter, and how much you can afford. And then, as Yerian did, recruit other people to join you. Just as we made friends in earlier chapters of our lives — high school, college, the workplace, parenthood — we can make new ones for this stage. All the women at The Bird’s Nest would agree. Yerian now says she has “instant friends, best friends at 65. I never saw these people before in my life, and now I can’t imagine them not being here every day.” Read more about the community.
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