The particular terror of being a beginner at fifty is not the fear of failure — most women of that age have developed a working relationship with failure. It is the fear of looking foolish.
The neuroscience of learning in midlife is considerably more encouraging than popular culture suggests. The adult brain continues to generate new neural connections in response to novel experience and continues to be capable of genuine expertise acquisition.
The things women learn in midlife tend to have a particular quality: they are chosen. Not assigned. Chosen because something about them called to you. This quality of chosen-ness makes the learning different.
The piano lessons begun at fifty-two are not about becoming a pianist. They are about the experience of learning to hear music from the inside. The Italian lessons are about the particular pleasure of having a language that is entirely your own project.
The beginner's mind is not an embarrassment to be concealed. It is the most honest and most open relationship with the world available to us.