Still Working My GPS

First, many thanks to all those who sent along best wishes in response to my July 19^th blog post.  Each sympathetic expression matters as I continue to recover from my two quite inconvenient injuries.

And so, not surprisingly, the ”G” in my GPS is getting quite the workout, including the daily gratitude list I make each day in my trusty 6 x 4 inch green memo book.

Also getting a workout is the “P” required for me to slow the hell down and do the daily back exercises and wound tending.

As for the “S,” that’s mostly come from lying in bed on top of the hot pad and reading. Right now, I’m plowing through three books on aging—surprise, surprise—paying special attention to writers like Joan Chittister who acknowledge both the “burdens and blessings” of living a long, relatively healthy, life.

And while I’ve missed keeping my weekly writing schedule—including not posting last week—I believe, as Samuel Johnson said, that the “greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man [sic] will turn over half a library to make one book.”

As for the library I’m currently turning over, I offer this selected list. It is a work in progress, as books on aging keep finding their way onto my shelf and into my hands.

John Banville, Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir

Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Further Life

Wayne Booth (ed), The Art of Growing Older: Writers on Living & Aging

Joan Chittister, The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully

Cicero’s treatise, On Old Age (65 BCE)

--How to Grow Old: Ancient Wisdom for the Second Half of Life, (Cicero translated and w/ an introduction by Philip Freeman)

Dudley Clendinen, A Place Called Canterbury: Tales of the New Old Age in America

Thomas Cole, The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America

Frank J. Cunningham, Vesper Time: The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older

Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: the Art of Old Age

           

Ken Dychtwald, Age Wave: The Challenges & Opportunities of an Aging America

--Age Power: How the 21^st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old

Betty Friedan, The Fountain of Age

Michael Gurian, The Wonder of Aging: A New Approach to Embracing Life after 50.

           

Carolyn Heilbrun, The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty

James Hillman, The Force of Character and the Lasting Life

Institute of Medicine/National Research Council, America’s Aging: Productive Roles in an Older Society

Jeremy James, The Power of Experience: Great Writers over 50 on the Quest for a Lifetime of Meaning, (ed.)

PD James, A Time To Be In Earnest

Anne Karpf, How to Age (The School of Life series from Picador

Daniel Klein, Travels with Epicurus: A Journey To A Greek Island In Search Of A Fulfilled Life

           

Maggie Kuhn on Aging: A Dialogue, Dieter Hessel

Gerald A. Larue, A New Vision of Growing Old in America, Golden Age Books

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 years After 50

Barbara Lee, God Isn't Finished with Me Yet: Discovering the Spiritual Graces of Later Life

Eda LeShan, Safe at Last in the Middle Years

Martha Nussbaum, Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations About Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret

Nancy A. Pachana, Ageing: A Very Short Introduction

Charlotte Painter, Gifts of Age: Portraits and Essays of 32 Remarkable Women

Parker Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old

Mary Pipher, Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders

Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Getting Over Getting Older: An Intimate Journey

Lewis Richmond, Aging as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemplative Guide to Growing Older & Wiser

Richard Rohr: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Salman Schachter-Shalomi & Ronald S. Miller, From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older

Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters

Studs Terkel, Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century By Those Who Lived It