In her new memoir, Abigail Thomas ruminates on aging during the confines of COVID-19 with her trademark mix of humor and wisdom, including valuable, contemplative writing tips along the way.
As she approaches eighty, what she herself calls old age, Abigail Thomas accepts her new life, quieter than before, no driving, no dancing, mostly sitting in her chair in a sunny corner with three dogs for company—three dogs, vivid memories, bugs and birds and critters that she watches out her window. No one but this beloved, best-selling memoirist, could make so much over what might seem so little.
Memories fall like confetti, as time contracts, shoots forward, dawdles, and there she is, back in her twenties in Washington Square Park, drinking, having sex with strangers, falling in and out of love, believing in a better world. Whole decades evaporate as she sits in her chair, and a spider takes up residence beside her, who will become her boon companion for the next week.
Sometimes dread arrives, inhabits her body like a shadow and all she can do is write it away, pay attention to what catches her eye, sticks in her brain. Whatever keeps her in the moment.
Pull up a chair, have a cup of tea and enter Abigail Thomas's funny, mesmerizing, generous world.
YOU KNOW YOU'RE OLDWhen you email a friend about a change in your blood pressure because you know she will be just as interested as you are. When you check your watch to see how long you have to lie in bed until morning. When nothing embarrasses you. When you understand you are breakable by breaking. When you forget what you’ve forgotten. When at your yearly checkup they ask you to count backwards by sevens. One hundred, ninety-three, eighty-six. When you no longer drop everything to answer the phone just because it is ringing. When you don’t wonder what you’re missing. When you can’t remember the last time you felt guilty. When you stop trying to fix people. When you find the moment roomy enough to live in. When you relish your own company. When you don't mind repeating yourself. When you see a young woman with her whole life in front of her, and your first thought is think thank god that isn't me. Seventy-nine, seventy-two, sixty-five, fifty-eight. But you wish her well.