Letter from the Editor #36
"Unlearning" as learning as we get older: A conversation with anti-agism O.G. Ashton Applewhite...
Readers,
Greetings from Kingston, NY, where the sky is orange, the air smells like a campfire, and it all feels kind of surreal.
I’m busy working on the forthcoming Oldster anthology (it’s going to be such a good book), and Brian and I are getting up to speed on podcast stuff. We’re scheduling in-person interviews and video shoots—The Oldster Radio Hour is going to be both audio and video. It’s all very exciting!
I really love conducting interviews. I’ve always been curious about people—famous and not—and I love to ask them questions. I do it a lot, both here, and at Memoir Land, as I’ve done throughout my 40-year career.
For fun, here’s an interview I did with Jennifer Aniston 30 years ago:
I also play the role of interview subject now and then, and I particularly enjoyed a conversation I recently had I had with Alexis Mera Damen. She asked me questions other interviewers haven’t, and it led me to some different insights. Thanks for having me, Alexis.
Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Click here to get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email…
“Thanks for the excellent work you're doing as a writer, curator and cultural trendsetter. I love Oldster! It feels old school and new school at the same time." - Joelle Hann, paid subscriber.
“Unlearning” as learning as we get older: A conversation with anti-agism O.G. Ashton Applewhite...
Speaking of interviews, the other day I got to chat with someone I’ve long admired, anti-ageism “O.G.” Ashton Applewhite, a long-standing author on the subject, who just launched a smart newsletter here on Substack called Things I Used to Say.
I first became aware of Applewhite through her old blog, which shared a title with one of her books, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.
Applewhite has truly been a pioneer in calling attention to, and fighting back against, ageism in all its forms and presentations. She’s been educating people for years about age-related bias, and is truly an inspiration.
The gist behind her newsletter’s name is this: As she’s gone along through her life and career, she’s realized she’s had to do some unlearning. That means questioning—and sometimes dispensing with—old assumptions, dated beliefs, and no-longer-accepted ways of phrasing things.
We talked about that, and agreed how important it is to keep an open mind, be amenable to change, and to interrogate long-held approaches to things—if we want to evolve and stay relevant as we get older.
As Ashton Applewhite has gone along through her life and career, she’s realized she’s had to do some unlearning. That means questioning—and sometimes dispensing with—old assumptions, dated beliefs, and no-longer-accepted ways of phrasing things.
One of the areas where Applewhite says she’s always unlearning is ageism itself. We talked about how we all have some internalized ageism, thanks to the youth-obsessed culture we’ve been marinating in, and how important it is to recognize it when it rears its ugly head, then do the work necessary to reorient our minds.
I’ve been open in this newsletter about times when I’ve bumped up against my own internalized ageism, and tried to self-correct. Old attitudes…wrong assumptions…unfounded fears—all unconsciously absorbed, just by living in this culture. Gaining this new awareness has been one of the great learning (er, unlearning) adventures of publishing Oldster.
We also talked about a new development in Applewhite’s life: At 72 she’s started walking with a cane. She had to dispense with some old biases in order to embrace this assistive technology, but now that she has, she’s glad to have the support a cane provides, since she’s grown less stable on her feet.
It was a fun conversation, and you can check it out right above. ⬆️
What about you? Have you had some unlearning to do as you’ve gotten older? What assumptions about aging (or other things) have you let go of? And do you use a cane, walker, or any other assistive devices? Did you have to overcome any internalized ageism in order to accept that need?
That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝
-Sari
Here's the correct link for the Alexis Mera Damen's interview with me: https://www.meramagazine.com/p/sari-botton-writer-author
Yes! I’ve had to do lots of unlearning. This Chair Rocks was a good start for me. I changed so much else in my life just as I was entering my seventies— A year into th pandemic I retired from almost 50 years as a child and adult psychiatrist, my father died at 99, we moved to Amherst from the Boston area, my husband (my first marriage at 62 who has post-polio) became more disabled, and we got our first dog as adults. Oh and I turned serious attention to my poetry. Oh and aging seems to involve reworking all my childhood trauma. AND I’m happier than I’ve ever been interspersed with a lot of crying. SARI THANK YOU FOR OLDSTER!!