Breaking Age Barriers

An Age Liberation Movement.

Raven picked up an audio-book from the library, and after he listened to the first disk, he suggested I do the same. The book turned out to be one of those that revolutionizes the way I think.

In this case the subject was aging.

Do you know that most Americans hold negative age beliefs? That most Japanese hold positive ones? That their outlook on aging contributes to the longest lifespans in the world? That positive age beliefs have been proven to add as many as 7.5 years to your lifespan?

The book is Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs about Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live by Yale researcher Becca Levy, PhD. I highly recommend it.

I had been clueless.

Test Yourself

Right now. Think of an old person and list five words or phrases that come to mind. Do it. Think of an elder. What are the first five things you think of? What’s your image of aging?

If the words and phrases that came to you are negative, then you’re in trouble. (I asked my mom this question, and the first thing she said was “falling apart.”)

But you can easily change.

Negative beliefs about aging

1. Shorten our lifespan

2. Inhibit our ability to heal

3. Slow our gait

4. Impair cognition

5. Impact our will to live

6. Increase hearing loss

7. Make heart attacks more likely

8. Make it less likely that we pass on our knowledge

9. Affect our memory. Yes! Levy found that positive beliefs about aging affect how we remember, even for people who carry the APOE e4 gene(s) for Alzheimer’s. There is no such thing as a “senior moment.” People of all ages have momentary lapses of memory.

How people think about and approach the idea of old age is more important to longevity than gender, income, social background, loneliness or functional health.

Just this Week Online, With Me Paying More Attention

1. Know how we love Throwback Thursday? We get to post photos of what we used to look like. One friend posted a photo with this caption: “We once were young and beautiful!” Correction—This woman is more beautiful—I am not lying—at 75 than she was at 40. She is unbelievably lovely exactly as she is. People do not get less beautiful as they age.

2. One friend was visiting a new place and had packed in a lot of activities that day. She had paddled six miles on a wild river. She said: “This old woman is tired!” Correction—A person of any age would have been exhausted by her day’s schedule.

3. From a Goodreads review—”I'm also the primary caregiver for my 86-year-old mother who lives with my husband and me and suffers from dementia and severe osteoporosis. Every day, she admonishes me, ‘Don't ever get old.’” Correction—We’re all going to get old. It’s a wonderful time of life.

4. “Old fart.” Correction—Two wrongs don’t make a right.

5. In one of my classes, a writer said, “I’m 75 years old. Who wants to hear from a 75-year-old?” Answer—All of us. Maybe we don’t realize it. But we need to hear from you.

Why the Aging Information Hit Me Hard

Recently I enrolled in an online class about archetypes that turned out to be like one of those first-year courses at university, the kind held in a lecture hall with 200 students. The professor was about 30 years old. During class I poked around on Zoom, investigating the other students—most were in their 20s and 30s. I panicked a little, honestly. Finally I found a handful of people in their 40s and 50s, then a woman who looked to be slightly more experienced than I.

(Frankly, Zoom is weird in that you can click on a person and see their home, their room, their supper plate, their table manners, their attention span, their habits. I keep reminding myself to stay a couple of feet from the camera. It’s an incredibly invasive media, and we mostly don’t think about how invasive it is. We would never let a person, unless it was a lover, be staring at us from a foot away, but we let the computer camera do it.)

In this archetypes class, the teacher divided the large group into smaller breakout rooms—some of the divisions were neurodivergent folks, BIPOC folks, LGBTQIA folks. I know that I’m supposed to be rooting for intergenerational everything, but I felt so weird that I didn’t go into the breakout room. By “weird” I mean I felt as if I didn’t belong, as if I’d landed

in the wrong class, the wrong country, the wrong planet. If I felt this way, I can only imagine how marginalized others must feel.

We had two painter friends for a luncheon last week. The house was in good order, and Raven and I divided the cooking—he prepared shrimp salad and I made a cake. Both of the women are in their early 80s. One is a widow and the other is the primary caregiver for her husband, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. Coming out to the farm was a little getaway for them.

To get here, one has to travel for many miles through rural countryside, making a few turns along the way, and I admit that I worried about our friends getting lost. But no. They came straight to the house. They were feeling fine. One had never been to the farm, and she was especially ebullient and joyful. A glass of champagne only lifted spirits higher.

Although they’re octogenarians, both women are incredibly creative, active, and independent. One just sold nine paintings at a solo show. (I bought one.) I love listening and absorbing their wisdom and also listening to and feeling their pain. They inspire me.

I’ve always loved older people. Many of my heroes are older. The “okay, boomer” nonsense has been hard to live through. A culture that sexualizes all of us and positions attractive ovulating women above all others is maddening.

Ageism is Oppression

Ageism: the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or towards oneself based on age.

To identify ageism, substitute “aging people” with another marginalized group, such as “women.” If a hospital board chair says, “We need to get rid of all our doctors over 55,” try this as “We need to get rid of all our women doctors.” The oppression becomes very clear.

In fact, ageism the most widespread and socially acceptable oppression. It won’t necessarily get you locked up or hurt or killed, like being BIPOC will. And it won’t affect you directly until you’re older. But it affects or will affect all of us, even people already marginalized by a primary oppression.

Ageism affects all of us, no matter our race, sex, gender, region, nationality, neurodivergency, identity, and religious beliefs. Twenty-four percent of the world is over 50 years old.

Ageism is internalized.

Ageism operates unconsciously. Often we have an implicit bias against aging, even when we know rationally that it’s wrong. Our brains make decisions about 10 seconds before we consciously make them—this is why we get out of bed before we decide to get out of bed. We unconsciously stereotype old people even when we don’t intend to. As we know all too well from racism and sexism, implicit biases lead to structural biases. Implicit ageism leads to structural ageism.

Ageism increases in power as we age.

Ageism impacts our health.

Places to Spot Ageism

Start paying attention. Add ageism to the list of marginalizations you look for.

What do movies show? What do ads show? What do articles say? Are older people represented? If so, are they represented positively or negatively? Are they marginalized? Are they excluded completely?

Look at

* anti-aging products
* safety and mobility aids
* medical professionals (who won’t treat older people)
* activities in care homes
* speech and vocabulary
* exercise and sport
* pop culture
* media, newspaper, magazine articles
* entertainment
* television, film, documentaries
* role models
* technology
* advertising
* clothing, hair styles
* travel destinations & travel packages
* senior discounts
* continuing education
* libraries
* housing

If you see ageism, ask yourself “Who profits?” It it’s an anti-aging cream, the manufacturer profits. Luminosity profits. Think about grab bars, gorilla-grip bath mats, large-button telephones, reacher-grabbers, GrandPads, sound amplifiers…

Resist & Reverse Ageism

1. Stop yourself from using ageist remarks. Ban the term “senior moment.” A senior moment should be a moment when an older person imparts information, knowledge, or wisdom to a younger person.

2. Counter ageist remarks you hear others say. Please do it lovingly and creatively.

3. Go out of your way to tell people your age, especially if you’re over 40. I am 61 years old. I was born Feb. 2, 1962.

4. Reclaim wrinkles. As Levy writes, “reclaim the natural beauty of all ages.”

5. Integrate older people into your communities. Insure that groups, homes, events, retreats, staffs, and everything else are intergenerational.

6. Lobby for older models in advertising.

7. Confront ageism in the media.

8. Think about your five closest friends. How old are they? How can you increase your intergenerational contacts?

9. What is an action you can do this week to increase intergenerational contact?

10. Remove age-based barriers in matters that you control.

11. Interrupt stereotypes like “Old people don’t care about the planet.” (They recycle more than any other age group.”) or “Old people are bad drivers.” (People in their 20s are more likely to die in car accidents.) Arm yourself with facts.

12. Read Breaking the Age Code.

Writing Prompt

Write about one of your heroes who is past 80. If you post it online, I invite you to use the hashtag #writingwithjanisse.

Full Moon

I was thinking about you all on full moon this month. I decided to name this month’s “Dewberry Banks Moon.” If all those blooms become berries, we’re in for a banner year.

Photographing the blooms wasn’t easy. I’m not even sure what’s in focus in this photo.

#radicalsustainability

I had no idea that you can buy deodorant in cardboard containers. Why isn’t this national policy? Why are we still producing such nauseating, disgusting amounts of throwaway plastic? What about our poor oceans, our poor ocean creatures?

Another step in a plastic-free life.

Here’s what the deodorant looks like.

This is not an advertisement. A number of companies, I learned, are producing plastic-free packaging for deodorant. Do an online search.

Use nothing. Use salt. Just, please, boycott plastic.

Loon Boy

This essay, “Loon Boy,” won terrain.org’s nature-writing essay contest recently. My friend Simmons Buntin, the founder of Terrain.org, had asked me to be the judge, which I was honored to do. Their staff winnowed the entries down to four, which they sent me. In the end, I chose the essay that was the most old-fashioned of the choices, I think—it’s more typical nature writing—but there is something so generous about this essay that it becomes tremendously powerful. 

It’s a 19-minute read, a love offering to you.

A Quick Farm Report

A cold front moved through this week. It brought temperatures that dipped briefly down to 33 degrees. After the warm winter and the hot spring (temperatures in the mid-80s already), this makes us nervous, because most of our fruit trees have bloomed and set fruit, or are blooming. The pea-sized figs are super-cute.

Raven has been hard at work in the garden. Potatoes are coming up, and the broccoli and cabbage seedlings are almost a foot high. I have pots of seeds started, but only the kale is up.

The native azalea is blooming. The coral honeysuckle is starting, and the buckeye is in full glory, although we haven’t seen a hummingbird yet. A glorious and heady scent of orange blossoms fills our waking and sleeping hours. Spring ephemerals—toadflax, sheep sorrel, violets, clovers—linger.

A red hen is setting on a clutch of two dozen eggs below the porch steps, where hopefully she’s protected from the foxes. One night last week a fox nabbed a hen who refused to go into the pen that evening. Two of the horses are allergic to the winter hay, and I’m ready for the green grass that will heal them.

Two weeks ago I saw the first snake print in the sand of the dirt road, where I walk in the mornings. Two days later I saw a green snake crossing the road. A very large oak snake has been hiding out in the hollow of the ancient redbud tree. I can see it looking out its little doorway when I walk past. Its presence makes the Carolina wrens very nervous. They flit around, making their anxious buzzing.

We saw the first swallow-tailed kite of the year on Sunday, high in the sky. Sunday’s rain filled the creek.

Do You Have a Secret (or Not So Secret) Desire to Write?

I am teaching a Level 1 class in creative nonfiction and memoir starting in April. If you have a story or book that is burning inside you, now is the time to begin.

It happens for 6 weeks in a row on Tuesday evenings from 7-9 Eastern, which means April 4 | April 11 | April 18 | April 25 | May 2 | May 9. In that class you get to write; think about writing; hear about writing; shore up your writing life; craft micro-memoir, flash essay, outlines, timelines, and stories. I break the process down for you step by step, and I’m forcing myself to slow down and move at a speed where I don’t leave anyone behind.

This class will be larger than usual, and I say this because it helps shy people. You won’t be one of 5 people, feeling obligated to show up, turn your video on, and interact. You will be invited to and welcome to interact, but in truth, this will be me leading you & guiding you & holding your hand as you navigate the dark and stormy world of making yourself do the hard work.

People of all ages, skin colors, regions, nationalities, identities, neurodivergencies, genders, sexes, and faiths—we need all stories—are invited to participate.

I talk a lot about craft, meaning technique and structure, and I also talk a lot about the invisible forces that help push your work along. I’ve had many scientists take my courses, and they don’t seem to mind me talking about the imaginal, spiritual realm.

In my current class I have a New Orleans writer who has no children, but is determined to leave a book of family stories for their beloved nieces. I had a 1:1 conference yesterday with a new writer, a farmer, who began to cry when they received my edits on one of their essays—they told me that they finally felt seen. I got tears in my eyes too. I have an Episcopal priest writing a much-needed memoir about their work with immigration reform. I have a therapist from Utah who just got approached by a press for a book proposal. I have a writer exploring their childhood as an adoptee; they are looking at what family means for them. I have a Virginia writer who completed a book and loaded it to a self-publishing platform, only to find that their grown child disapproved of the book, so they took it down and are rewriting it. I have a Michigan academic writer who is allowed, for the first time, to explore the emotional landscape of their childhood. I have an Atlanta writer who just decided to quit her job and move home to the Black Belt of Alabama.

(I usually use he/she/they, but I’m using “they” in that last paragraph to protect the identities of the folks with whom I work.)

I say again, this class will not be a tiny (online) circle. It will be a large (online) room filled with comfy chairs and soft lighting. It will be you in the comfort of your home, working on your secret wish to leave a legacy or up your game or get a better job or improve your writing skills or write a bestseller. And that secret stays with you and me.

I will not be teaching intense structures or schemas in this course. It will be slower, happier, lighter, more inclusive—hopefully a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours a week, motivate you to sit more with your typewriter, and get your vital, useful, interesting stories on the page.

Your dream is not going to happen without you. It’s not going to happen without hard work. I promise you that. It’s not going to happen without some information.

But it can happen.

Okay, if you’re interested in signing up, you’ll have to go to my website. I’m adding the link here. There is no hurry. You can sign up until just before class on April 4 (although you’ve got to give me time to get the link to you.)

A Recipe for You—Calliope Cake

Pardon me, any of you who are diabetic, vegan, gluten intolerant, and paleo, for posting a cake recipe that is forbidden to you.

Cakes are a tradition that I find difficult to give up, especially when visitors are scheduled. When Judy and Vonnie came last week, I made a Hummingbird Cake. Instead of crushed pineapple, I used organic mango in a can. Canned mango is not something I buy. Over a year ago I accidentally ordered a case of it from our buying club, thinking it was frozen mango, which I could use in smoothies. For over a year I’ve been slipping cans of mango into Little Free Pantries and into the hands of my friends. Because of the substitute, I changed “hummingbird” to “calliope,” which is the smallest hummer in North America, although it winters as far south as Central America, where mangoes and bananas freely grow.

And instead of baking the batter into layers, with a cream cheese frosting, I made it into a bundt shape and stirred up a Buttermilk Sauce, which is basically caramel.

Calliope Hummingbird Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

3 eggs, beaten (I used 4)

1 cup cooking oil or butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 can crushed mango in juice (or use an 8 oz can of crushed pineapple in juice)

2 c chopped bananas (some recipes call for mashed but chopped is great)

2 c chopped nuts (pecans) (I left these out)

Blend dry ingredients. Add eggs and oil. Fold in vanilla, mango and juice, nuts, and bananas. Pour into a bundt pan (or in 3 9-inch cake pans)—it’s important that these be greased AND floured. Bake for 45-60 min for bundt or 25-30 minutes for layers.

Farewell

I bid you a loving farewell until next week.

If you’re in north Georgia, I’m speaking at the Courthouse in Blairsville with the Woods Family tomorrow, March 16, in the evening. I don’t know if tickets are still available.

On Friday I’ll be leading a 4-hour nature journaling workshop at the Tennessee Wild Ones’s native plant conference. It’s full already. I just wanted to tell you about it. Raven the artist is not coming with me, so I’m a little nervous about it. The organizer kept saying to me, “We just want to have fun.“ I think he thinks I’m too serious because the workshop I suggested was on eco-grief. Can you imagine crying for 4 hours? Therefore, I literally have listed all the fun things I know—chocolate, gifts, balloons, wine, nice people, each other, jokes—and I’m planning to incorporate all of these, except for balloons and alcohol, into the workshop. If you can think of anything else that people consider fun, please let me know.

If you’re anywhere near Chattanooga, I’m speaking Saturday at the same conference on the topic, “Why the Climate Needs Trees, and Why Every Tree Counts.” I’ve got to burn off Substack right now and get a PowerPoint finished for that.

Thank You

Please accept my deep and wide gratitude for your interest, your support, your well-wishes, your love, your good work in the world, and for getting this far in this very long post.

P.S.

We could try substituting the word “venerable” for old. Then “aging people” becomes “more venerable people.” What do you think?