When Being Over 40 Does Not Mean Life Is Not Wonderful
I am thrilled to have Leslie Leyland Fields share a space on the blog today. Leslie is an award-winning author and editor of eleven books, including, The Wonder Years: 40 Women over 40 on Aging, Faith, Beauty, and Strength--a compilation of writings of women over 40 with poignant first-person stories, including Ann Voskamp, Kay Warren, Joni Eareckson Tada, Madeleine L'Engle, Luci Shaw, and Elisabeth Elliot.
The book is currently #1 on Amazon in the Mid-Life Management Category and has been #1 in the Aging and Christian Living (a huge plus to place in that category!).
As a cancer survivor who was diagnosed at age 48, I often tell people, "Live with the end in mind while celebrating LIFE in ordinary and in beautiful ways." Age has never been a limiting thing to me and I was thankful the variety of ladies in The Wonder Years embraced that philosophy as well. (Even though author Leslie Fields confessed to being tossed in FB jail for changing the age on her profile too many times.)
Go on a rowing trip while in your 70's? Sure. Find beauty in your backyard after a debilitating diagnosis? Absolutely. Speak around the world in your 80's? Why not!? Life is still wonderful when you are over 40.
Leslie took some moments away from salmon fishing for the interview below:
Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do when you are not writing?
My life in a thimble! I live on Kodiak Island, Alaska with my husband and two teenage sons. My four older kids are all off in their own life adventures. I spend way too much time writing and reading (which involves a lot of breast-beating, sniffling, prayer-wrestling and overwhelmedness). So, to survive, I hike a lot. I kayak on the ocean, pick berries, make jam, smoke salmon. (We’re commercial salmon fishermen in the summers.) I travel a lot to faraway places where I get the incredible privilege of speaking and teaching God’s word. I don’t know how all of this happened. My present life is a tableau of God’s mercy.
What do you want your readers to learn or experience as they read "The Wonder Years?"
I want them to know that no matter how old they are, whether they’ve just turned 40 or 90, that God’s not done with them yet. Our cultural narrative about aging is sad. Once you hit a certain age, you either trade in your business suit or your apron for a spa towel and don’t even ask about serving in the nursery anymore---the notion that there’s an expiration date to serving others. OR, now that your kids are gone and you’re retired, and you’re no longer a size 4, you just fade away into invisibility and irrelevance. I want my readers to catch God’s vision for their lives! That aging is not about losing; it’s about gaining. There are 40 women attesting to God’s miraculous work within them, through flabby thighs, disabilities, divorce, menopause and even to death. I hope and pray that they’ll be empowered to face the second half and latter years of their lives with confidence and joy.
Your book is a compilation of essays from many incredible women. How and why did you choose this slate of writers to contribute to the book?
I was looking for particular qualities and content. I wanted essays of literary quality, and I wanted essays and writers that exemplified this crucial message. Finding women writing thoughtfully about aging was difficult. Women mostly don’t want to talk about it. I understand this. I kept my age a secret until now. Then I realized, “What the heck. I’m 60 now. It’s time to be proud of making it through all these decades.” I tracked down some beautiful writing that had already been published, but most of these essays were commissioned, meaning I wrote to women I knew and admired and asked, “Could you write something for this book?” And, incredibly, so many said yes. Then there are a handful of my former students and workshoppers who I knew had stories to tell. I’m super proud of them. Their essays in this book are their first publications. It’s incredibly gratifying to hear readers’ responses to all these women. I’m over the moon.
If a friend of yours was having a hard time with aging, what would be your advice?
It depends on what exactly she was struggling with, but I’d put a copy of The Wonder Years in her hands so she wouldn’t feel alone. I’d take her to lunch. I’d listen to her laments, and she would have to listen to mine! And then I’d remind her who she was, all she had been through and how precious all that experience was. And it wasn’t to be wasted. There are so many around us, so many young mothers, so many struggling to find a way through life, and we know something about all of that. “Don’t waste what you’ve survived!” I’d tell her. No matter how great our losses as we get older, someone out there still needs us. Serving and loving others is the real fountain of youth and freedom. I have a friend who’s 95 and people are still knocking on her door for advice, for prayer. She loves serving God this way. That can be us! We’d wipe our tears and then celebrate with mojitos and turtle cheesecake.
What was the most challenging part of writing this book?
I almost gave up a number of times. The book proposal was rejected by just about everyone. I knew there were innumerable women out there just like me who wanted and needed this book, but publishers didn’t get it. I’m thankful that Kregel said yes. And the book has been flying off the shelf. It went into a second printing six weeks after release. It was an Amazon bestseller last week in three categories. I’m smiling and I’m trying really hard not to say, “I told you so!”
Is there anything else you want to tell me as the author of The Wonder Years?
This is not a glib, facile, Christianized version of “You go, girl!” that denies the difficult realities of our lives as we get older. We’ve got to acknowledge our losses. We’ve got to be honest about that. But that’s less than half of the real story about aging. I want to end with the last two paragraphs of Michelle Novak’s piece, “Of Bodies and Birds.”
She was diagnosed with dystonia, a debilitating condition that has taken away much of her mobility. Now, immobilized, she has taken to studying birds, just as her mother did. Here, though her hands often shake uncontrollably, a chickadee alights in her palm.
In a moment, he flitted into my palm. I liked the soft pinch of his feet and he seemed to like sinking into the flesh of my hand. We looked at one another with the same long quizzical gaze. A few seconds later, he lit from my hand to the tree. We were companions now. I knew he would stand in my palm again.
He came because I held my hand out to the birds from January to almost June. In my old life, I would never have had the patience to wait and be still.
As it is with everyone whose soul is hidden in Christ, my brokenness has been redeemed, and I am whole. I'm twisted but whole. I know who I am: I am a helpless creature who must wait on the Lord for every good thing.
And he has cared for me in my new state and allowed me to care for others. I have a pair of robins nesting in my yard that come when I call them. I named them as Adam must have when things were new, and slow, and he had fresh eyes allowing him to truly see every wonderful creature which God presented him, creatures who came to him as these come to me.
They wait for the food I give them. They drink and bathe in the water I pour out for them. They frolic and nest in the trees and grass I tend for them. I've finally learned why the birds made my mother so joyous, even in her pain and immobility.
And in these creatures, I see a new world coming when my body is made as whole as my soul. In that day, I will crawl out of my broken exuvia, stand erect to feed my chickadees with strong, steady hands.
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Leslie Leyland Fields
You can connect with Leslie on her blog: http://www.leslieleylandfields.com/ and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leslieleylandfields/Leslie offers a free study guide for The Wonder Years. The Wonder Years is available wherever books are sold.