Stephanie Raffelock
author of the A Delightful Little Book on Aging
Stephanie Raffelock is the author of A Delightful Little Book on Aging. (She Writes Press, April 2020). A graduate of Naropa University’s program in Writing and Poetics, she has penned articles for numerous publications, including The Aspen Times, The Rogue Valley Messenger, Nexus Magazine, Omaha Lifestyles, Care2.com and SixtyandMe.com. She’s also the host for Coffee Table Wisdom, a program that promotes healthy aging in body, mind and spirit. A recent transplant to Austin, Texas Stephanie enjoys life with her husband, Dean and their Labrador retriever, Jeter (yes, named after the great Yankee shortstop). She lives an active life of hiking, Pilates and swimming trying to offset the amount of time that she spends in her head, thinking up stories and essays.
Me: What inspired you to write A Delightful Little Book On Aging?
Stephanie: 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.
Me: What’s your best piece of advice for aging gracefully?
Stephanie: 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.
Me: What has surprised you most about this book’s journey?
Stephanie: 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 Coffee Table Wisdom, which has turned into a wonderful platform for sharing the message and the movement.
Me: Describe your writing life.
Stephanie: 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 have been filed away in the bin that’s labeled “practice.” Sigh. It’s a tough piece of truth, but as writers, we have to become intimate and unafraid of the delete key. In addition to the manuscript, I’m always creating content for my web site and for other sites and publications.
Me: What are your future plans? (writing, life, etc.)
Stephanie: A Delightful Little Book On Aging will be published by She Writes Press, April 28, 2020. The follow-up book, A Delightful Little Book On Nourishment (also, She Writes Press) publishes April 27, 2021. There is a third book, partially written – A Delightful Little Book On Love, for 2022, that completes the trilogy. In the meantime, I continue to work on a much larger manuscript about the emerging strength and voices of mid-life women and beyond.
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.
Click here to buy A Delightful Book on Aging by Stephanie Raffelock.
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