In her breakthrough generational memoir, Boomer expert Carol Orsborn relates the ups and downs of a tumultuous year spent facing, busting, and ultimately triumphing over the stereotypes of growing old. Along the way, she nurtures a love-starved friend through a doomed affair with a younger man, wrestles with the meaning of an exploding fish, and regains her passion for life at the side of her squirrel-crazed dog, Lucky.
The message is as deep as it is engaging. In Carol’s own words,
“Plummet into aging, stare mortality in the eye, surrender everything and what else is there left to fear? The way is perilous, danger on all sides. But we can be part of a generation no longer afraid of age. We are becoming, instead, a generation fierce with age.”
Innehållsförteckning
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Wild Space
Part One: Fall
1 Epiphany
2 The Elf
3 Self-Image
4 Just Lucky
5 Fame
6 Deepak Wrote My Book
7 Ten Legs
8 Close Encounters
9 Prayer Shawl
Part Two: Winter
10 Ice Storm
11 Best Friend
12 Facebook
13 Message from Cancun
14 Maggie’s Yearbook
15 My Special Day
16 Witness to a Life
17 Old friend
18 Last Course
19 Dis-Robed
20 Journey by Flashlight
21 The Exploding Fish
22 Boiled Chicken
23 Snow Booties
24 Skype
25 The End of the Story
26 Ordinary Happiness
27 Evolution
28 Budgeting
29 Unhinged
30 At the Borderline
31 Whack-a-Mole
32 Keen Insights
33 Maggie’s Visit
34 Debrief
35 Withdrawal
36 If Only
37 Something
38 A Strange Being
39 Slipping Down the Pyramid
40 The Dance
Part Three: Spring
41 The Last Cappuccino
42 Revised Numbers
43 Clarity
44 The Promised Land
45 Smote
46 Giving Notice
47 Pinch My Thigh
48 The Clue
49 Stripped
50 The Portrait
51 The Last Time
52 Reckoning
53 Mea Still Culpa
54 Fierce With Reality
55 The Party Next Door
56 Fiercer Still
57 Freedom Revisited
58 120 Years Old
Part Four: Summer
59 Just Make One Dog Happy
60 Spiritual Training
61 Skele-Elf
62 Bone Mountain
63 Bear Me Away
64 Flashlight On
65 Forty Years
66 Story Time
67 Our Last Walk in Brooklyn
68 The Alter
69 Ready to Move
70 Turning toward the Future
Carol’s Prayer
Appendices
11 Things I Learned about Aging
Sources
Q&A