Anna Quindlen has always seemed like a friend to me. She doesn't know me, but I know her, and we are very much alike. She was born one day before me, July 8, we both married young and maintained our profession. We each had three children. We have grown older together, and I have followed her through her New York Times articles, her novels and her Newsweek blogs. I have missed her writing, and now, here she is, writing about the times of her life.
Anna talks about her times of life from a child to young woman to aging adult. And, as she says, she realized that when one of her children told her 68 was elderly, and she tried to refute that and make her own definition of elderly, that 'Old is whatever you haven't gotten to yet'. Oh, I agree with that phrase. I am in my sixties, but I don't feel much older than forty, except that some parts of my body are lower than they used to be.
This is a book for all of us. A guidebook of sorts, of where we have been, where we are now and where we might be going. Anna tells us her story, but if you are of her age, it is all of our stories. With our time from early adult to an aging one. We have all collected 'stuff', and like Anna I could do without most of it. They are things that meant a lot and still do, but are only things. My computer holds most of the pictures I value. My children have the important things from their childhood. We raised our children the best we could. I was not a helicopter mother, I was too busy and that came years after. Like Anna, we were trying to raise our children, keep our marriage intact and work at the job we loved. This was after the women's revolution, we were the lucky recipients, but at an early age we felt the sexism inherent in our jobs. Pinched bottoms and all, the bosses were usually all men, and we had to work very hard to get to a level that was satisfactory.
Anna writes in chapters, and they are all significant and meaningful. She begins with "Life in the Fifties'. We were the most liberated of American women, and we knew it. The early years, through our first job and then marriage and children. Then to the era of our 'Solitude', knowing that we can get through one more terrible day. She says:
"We women spend our whole lives going up and down hormonally, being one thing on Wednesday and another on Sunday, feeling bloated and then svelte, juicy and then played out. And our bodies have changed so often during our lifetimes- puberty, pregnancy, menopause, premenstrual, post menstrual, post hysterectomy, sometimes post mastectomy- that having a different body than we had at thirty, comes as less of a surprise to us than it does to many men."
Anna talks about Faith, she was brought up a Catholic, but as time has gone by religion per say has not played as important a part in her life. She began to question why women were not allowed to be Priests, and the topper was the sexual abuse of children by Priests. This resonates with me, it is not that we don't have Faith, we just don't practice it in a church. We give the fundamentals to our children and let them choose what is next.
Retirement was a natural progression of one generation to another says, Anna. But nowadays we are living longer and working longer, and the young are waiting for their chance, for us to leave. Some have to work longer and some want to. And, then we think of our death, and what we want. Most of us want to live longer. It is inevitable, but not quite yet.
Anna Quindlen has written an honest, thoughtful book about life, her life and experiences, but it also mirrors many of our lives. The writing is superb, and I was sorry to see the last sentence, but as Anna says, To Be Continued.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 02-23-12
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