by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here)
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
I just returned from a weekend retreat with high school girlfriends from a class year far back in the last millennium. While we wouldn’t yet admit to the “old people” appellation, all of us could be described as works of art. The unique beauty of age comes from the challenges and choices of a lifetime.
A recent compilation of essays You’re Doing What? features women describing triumphs and adventures that have given them the depth of wisdom.
“We tell our stories to make sense of our experience and to point the way to others,” writes the book’s editor Marjorie Penn Lasky. “All are embracing new adventures and changing what it means to be an ‘older woman.’”
One essayist, Rosemary Trimberger Lache, biked her son to daycare and then on to work “long before it was trendy to bike.” Approaching age 50, she decided she hadn’t reached her athletic potential and trained to run her first marathon. That turned into 15 marathons before age 60, and finally a triathlon.
“I chose the all-female Danskin Triathlon, whose motto proved prophetic: ‘the woman who starts the race is not the same woman who finishes the race.’”
In late 2015, she celebrated turning 70 by placing first in her age group in the Boston Athletic Association Half-Marathon.
Writer Vicki Ryder was inspired to “raise a little hell” after reading about a woman who walked across the United States at age 89 to call attention to the need for campaign finance reform.
Ryder, 71, had just moved to North Carolina. She was frustrated with new laws being enacted there limiting Medicaid, unemployment benefits, voter registration, and environmental protections.
After joining weekly Moral Monday protests at North Carolina’s Legislative Building, she stood firm and was arrested along with many others. Their trials continue, as does her activism.
Another of the essays is penned by local author Sharon Dirlam, who chose to serve in the Peace Corps with her husband in far-east Russia when they were in their 50s. The experience challenged their endurance, but her love endures for the Russian people.
They “invited us to their apartments and shared their gossip, explained their culture and opened their hearts,” Dirlam said.
Two other local writers appear in You’re Doing What? Barbara Lindemann, whose essay reflects on retirement, appears in an online version of the book. Mary Kolada Scott, a Ventura resident, describes having her first solo art show at the age of 50 after aspiring to be an artist from the age of five:
“When I receive payment for my artwork I remember [my grandmother saying] that art doesn’t pay. For me, it does,” Scott said. “When people tell me that seeing my work makes them happy, that’s the ultimate payoff.”
My Joshua Tree retreaters encouraged each other’s latent art talents with a paint party on the final evening. Experienced and novice painters alike found it rewarding as well as entertaining to develop our own works of art.
For your own rewarding pre-Mother’s Day armchair adventure, you might consider joining essayists Lasky, Dirlam, Lindemann, and E. Kay Trimberger for readings at 4 p.m. Sunday, May 5, at Chaucer’s Bookstore, 3321 State St.
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.