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Interview
with Stephanie Raffelock,
What inspired you
to write A Delightful Little Book On Aging?
I came of age on
the cutting edge of feminism. Like many other women I know, that historic fact
informed my entire adult life. As a result, I’ve reinvented myself many times.
Each reinvention is a step to awakening, and awakening is not a destination but
a continuous process. I experienced a turning point in that process when I was
writing for a large web site whose demographic was women sixty years and older.
As I got to know them, I grew to know my subject matter better. I realized that
these were the women who, like me, walked with feminism into their coming of
age and never looked back.
So here we were,
approaching the retirement years, and most of my readers wanted nothing to do
with the word “retire.” Instead, they were rising up, embracing their mature
voice, their mature being. They were making things–art, gardens, schools,
encore careers, a place in the political world. We were not only reinventing
ourselves but the cultural definition of what it means to grow older. And damn
if there wasn’t a tremendous amount of vitality in that action.
A Delightful Little Book On Aging is a compilation of some of my original
essays and posts about aging, as well as some newer material. The underlying
theme of the book is that aging is a remarkable and noble passage, one that
asks us to embrace our years.
What’s your best
piece of advice for aging gracefully?
Through cultural
conditioning and advertising, women often get the message that aging gracefully
has to do with looking and acting younger than our years. As we start to embody
the gifts of our older years, it’s easy to redefine that message because the
newer message is not only for us, but for the younger generation: Our
value in life has nothing to do with smooth skin or wrinkled skin. It has
nothing to do with the size of our thighs. It’s not about how we look, period. That’s
the message that we want young women to carry with them as they age, too.
Aging gracefully
has everything to do with the expansiveness of our heart to be
self-compassionate as well as compassionate to the younger women around us. We’re
at the head of the line now, and we have to carry the banner: Aging
gracefully means how we walk in gratitude, how we love ourselves and others,
and how we nourish the attitude that we are strong and resilient in spirit. We
want to be a light for each other and for a younger generation of women so that
they too can know this sense of fullness. Aging gracefully is to become whole,
and that is a path that only ends at death.
What has
surprised you most about this book’s journey?
I didn’t realize
that I would become such an outspoken activist and advocate for positive aging
or how satisfying that would be. I’m being invited more and more to speak with
various groups of women in corporate America about positive aging. I also
started a podcast, called 上youtube加速器which
has turned into a wonderful platform for sharing the message and the movement.
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My writing life
is some combination of joyful chaos, self-doubt, and exhilarating creativity. I
write early in the day for at least a couple of hours. I like mornings the best
because there are no phone calls, errands, or demands to be addressed. I always
caffeinate myself with a combination of strong black tea and chai. I’m usually
working on a manuscript of some sort. As a rookie, many past manuscripts were
filed away in the bin labeled “Practice.” Sigh. It’s a tough piece
of truth, but as writers, we have to become intimate with and unafraid of the
delete key. In addition to the manuscript, I’m always creating content for my
website and for other sites and publications.
What are your
future plans?
A Delightful Little Book On
Aging was published by She Writes Press on April 28, 2020. I’m
currently putting the final touches on a
full-length manuscript about the emerging strength and voices of mid-life women
and beyond. The book will also be with She Writes Press and will be published
in August of 2021.
Writing has
always been for me a doorway into the examined life. The more I write, the more
I understand things about myself, and that’s led me to a vision for my
sixties and seventies: I want to be a woman who uplifts other women. I want to
be a woman who encourages and supports younger women to find and follow their
passion. And I want to be a woman who focuses daily on a heart that grows in
love and gratitude for all beings and for this precious life.
Posts
