Video Soothing: Dogs + Elder Verve + Sally Cronin’s Memoir Wisdom

These past couple of days, I’ve been soothing myself with simple pleasures. Being upset over things does nothing for my creativity, optimism, and motivation (especially as I search for a great literary agent to represent my novels, which you can learn about here). Walking our darling K-D doggie with my even more darling husband, Khashayar, we were awed by the beautiful purple tint of these grasses at a nearby park…

Much as I love music, unexpectedly captivating sounds are what I adore most. The sound of duck feet against pavement is sheer joy! When I was a child, I loved the sound of my mom’s heels along the concrete driveway outside our apartment window, because it meant she was finally coming home from work! These days, I can’t get enough of K-D’s noisy chomping on any treat she mind-melds Khashayar and me into sharing with her. How does she sound adorable, yet the din of my eating is obnoxious?… Once I stumbled across a video of 97-year-old gymnast, Johanna Quaas, I couldn’t resist going down a rabbit hole of researching her and now sharing this with you… Here’s an article from the American Psychological Association’s site, that surely Johanna would appreciate: “Ageism is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices. Psychologists are working to change that,” by Kirsten Weir. And another one she’d like is, “It’s Never Too Late and You’re Never Too Old to Do Almost Anything. Then again, don’t we need to be realistic as we move up in years?” by Bette Ann Moskowitz.

Today’s guest post is courtesy of author/blogger/globetrotter Sally Cronin. Here she discusses the importance of telling our tales and of self-publishing…

Making the most of getting older – Memoirs and Biographies by Sally Cronin

There is a great deal written about the downside of getting older regarding the physical, mental and often emotional changes we all undergo. However, I believe like a good red wine, I have matured quite well, and whilst there are some twinges and wrinkles I have to accept at 71 as part of the process, I like to think my mind is still as sharp as ever. My memories of my life are also as sharp, and the experiences, both good and bad, have provided valuable lessons for me. Particularly those of childhood and in my 20s when there was a great deal of change in my life due to being a naval brat, and making a disastrous decision to marry at 20 to someone I should have stayed well clear of. It used to be that celebrities and the nobility were the only ones who published memoirs and they were some of the best earners for publishing houses. Today with self-publishing, anyone can write a memoir or biography of their family history and self-publish with a world-wide audience curtesy of Amazon, and I believe that is an excellent development. As with my own life experiences, there are millions who have known similar joys and sorrows and learnt from each and every one of them. Sharing them can be cathartic for the writer but can also offer those reading it a form of comfort. For anyone who has suffered from physical or emotional trauma or devastating setbacks, there is a sense of isolation and of carrying the burden without support. Reading about another’s similar experiences we can relate to, eases that burden and often adopting someone else’s coping strategies can be therapeutic. Another side of both memoirs and biographies of past family members is the preservation of living history. Every generation has memories of significant events in the world they lived through, the music and films they have enjoyed across the decades, the environment and the advances in medicine and even in living conditions and appliances. Passing them along to others including the younger generation is a wonderful way to illustrate that things were not always as easy in the recent past compared to what we have access to today. I enjoy reading this genre and I can certainly recommend these authors who demonstrate the diversity of subject matter in this category. D.G. Kaye who writes emotionally and relatable memoirs, Alex Craigie who has a series on all aspects of life in the post war years, Miriam Hurdle who wrote a moving memoir on her survival of cancer and Joy Neal Kidney with her family biographies centred around life and loss for her family in the early part of the 20^th century and the devastating loss they suffered during WWII. There are many others written by members of the blogging and writing community and I applaud their courage in writing about personal and devastating issues as well as those who entertain and inform us. My own book Size Always Matters, which is both a weight loss guide and a nutritional approach to health, was inspired by my own journey which began 30 years ago when I was 41 years old and weighed 330lbs. I designed my own eating programme to lose over 150lbs and kept a journal which became the first edition of the book in the 1990s and inspired me to train as a nutritional therapist and to work with hundreds of clients in the last 26 years. It led to some interesting career options in broadcasting and inspired me to write more health books as well as fiction. If you feel your life story would inform, comfort, evoke memories or inspire someone who needs support to make changes in their lives, I do recommend you consider writing it down and publishing it for others to read. If you feel a book would be too challenging at first, you can start by writing posts for a blog and the feedback you receive will offer you some idea of the feasibility of taking it further.

Have you, or anyone you know, been snubbed for being regarded as too old or too young?