This is 53: Eleanor Anstruther Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

"I try hard these days to listen closely to my body instead of telling it to pull itself together. It’s one thing to be tough, but I’ve no desire to be stupid."

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”

Here, Eleanor Anstruther responds. - Sari Botton

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Eleanor Anstruther lately.

Eleanor Anstruther arrived on Substack two years ago, driven by the need to connect with readers, and have agency over her work. Having successfully published her debut with mainstream imprint Salt Books, she’s now an indie author in partnership with Troubador. A Memoir in 65 Postcards & The Recovery Diaries came out last June, In Judgement of Others, her latest novel, will be out in January 2025. She’s passionate about challenging the publishing landscape to allow independent authors of literary fiction an equal bite of the cherry. She writes The Literary Obsessive.

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How old are you?

53.

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?

Yes, in my mind I’m about 35, which is an odd age to choose as my children were two (twins), I was about to embark on a messy and long-winded divorce, my debut novel was nowhere near completion, and I was in all ways exhausted. Yet physically, that’s what I expect to see when I look in the mirror. It’s only lately, having done some conscious work to change it, that my reflection isn’t a shock.

It was imprinted from an early age within the family rules and regs that you did not grow old, at least not if you were female and wanted to retain an ounce of flavor. Seeing as this trope was simultaneously coming at me from society, my unconscious was ploughed with a deep groove that age is a failure. I’ve spent the last few years walking those fields, harrowing and planting seeds, filling in the lines I find there, rather than the ones on my face.

Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?

I feel young for my age, but I don’t know what 53 is supposed to feel like, so perhaps I’m right on point. I’m pretty in step with my peers, give or take. I stopped drinking four years ago, and smoking, too, both of which I’d been enthusiastic about since I was 11, so I think that’s made a huge difference to skin and brain and no doubt other organs, liver, obviously but also adrenals. Then again, I see friends who are still smoking and drinking away, and they look great, so who knows. I just know it was time for me to stop, and I feel better.

I’m pretty healthy, but we also have a law in my family that illness is for losers; absolutely no truck was given for any complaints, physical or otherwise, and the remedy for all ills was a run around the block, spit spot, stuff and nonsense. So I’m aware that unconsciously I HAVE to be well, otherwise…. I try hard these days to listen closely to my body instead of telling it to pull itself together. It’s one thing to be tough, but I’ve no desire to be stupid.

What do you like about being your age?

The confidence to speak my mind; I’m sure you hear that a lot. The gloves came off about three years ago—God bless the menopause. I keep meaning to write an article about it. It was the best thing that ever happened to me—and since then, that rocketing through my system has meant I’ve no truck with time-wasters. Say it or ship out has become my m.o.

The gloves came off about three years ago—God bless the menopause. I keep meaning to write an article about it. It was the best thing that ever happened to me—and since then, that rocketing through my system has meant I’ve no truck with time-wasters. Say it or ship out has become my m.o.

What is difficult about being your age?

Vanity, very tricky. I’ve had to do quite a lot of work on that. It was imprinted from an early age within the family rules and regs that you did not grow old, at least not if you were female and wanted to retain an ounce of flavor. Seeing as this trope was simultaneously coming at me from society, my unconscious was ploughed with a deep groove that age is a failure. I’ve spent the last few years walking those fields, harrowing and planting seeds, filling in the lines I find there, rather than the ones on my face. If you’re lucky, age happens, and when the thought drifts by that I could inject this or lift that, I think of Joan Rivers who said, “You can either look old or weird.” There’s no third option.

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?

Somewhat flying in the face of my last answer, I spent a great deal of my childhood looking forward to my 50s; I had it in my head that it would be when my life began, and it turns out, I was right. How I imagined my life at this age is pretty much how it is. Perhaps I knew that being no longer pretty and young would release me from family binds, the kind of relevance that depends on those two qualities, and once out of there, I’d be free. It’s that word, relevance, that’s been a surprise. I feel relevant now. I was subconsciously told I wouldn’t matter, yet here I am, mattering to me. I have energy and focus, I know who I am and who you are, and all that societal and familial cladding is falling away.

Eleanor Anstruther at age 16, “thinking I was immortal.”

What has aging given you? Taken away from you? 

The knowledge that things usually work out is the gift of aging that keeps on giving. I’m no less fretful, I’m more aware of how much I value life, relationships, material accoutrements. in the worry I give all three. But I’m also keenly aware of three other things: that I’m going to die, that the strength of my attachments is in proportion to my suffering, and that things normally work out for me. As long as I understand that my death will be a version of things working out for me, then I’m okay. Conversely, age has dismantled the fantasy that I am immortal, indomitable, unstoppable, and in all ways not a member of the human race. It’s brought me up sharply to admit defeat; I am, as it turns out, human after all.

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?

One of the gifts of menopause, should you accept it, is a clear sense of identity. I added that caveat because not everyone likes what they see. I’m aware of angry women trying to batten down that rage and I want to say, “Stop. Be angry. You’ve every reason to be, and beneath it is you.” I don’t, because unsolicited advice is irritating, and they’re already at boiling point, but I think it. When it came to me, the torrent of wild that coursed through me, fifty years of unspoken roar, I let it out.

I was and remain outraged by what we have put up with. Letting it pour has led me to knowing myself, knowing what I think and what I feel; I no longer disregard hunches. If I think it, I go with it. This, another caveat, is off the back of ongoing recovery and commitment to the work of the interior world. I’ve learnt my checks and balances; I’m now licensed to put them into action. I have opinions, I’m ready to share them, I’m not averse to changing them. I’m also very keen on not knowing and being okay with that. It’s my experience that all of this is made possible by knowing myself.

I spent a great deal of my childhood looking forward to my 50s; I had it in my head that it would be when my life began, and it turns out, I was right. How I imagined my life at this age is pretty much how it is. Perhaps I knew that being no longer pretty and young would release me from family binds, the kind of relevance that depends on those two qualities, and once out of there, I’d be free.

What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?

I kind of want this bit to last forever and imagine the next two decades, until my mid-70s, to be the most artistically productive years of my life with the right balance of energy, experience and confidence to achieve what needs to get done. If I can hit my marks, then I guess my 80s might be fun, I can free wheel a bit, and by my 90s I can put my feet up. I find it hard to recognize this culture’s expectations from here on in. Grow old and frail, fall over, die? That might be me one day, but not for a long time yet.

What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?

For looks, my mid-30s for sure, but for everything else, now. Absolutely now. I’m sober, awake, alive and in charge while knowing clearly that I’m a thread in a wonderous tapestry already made. I am me experiencing myself. On bad days, it’s terrifying, on good it’s the ride of my life.

I kind of want this bit to last forever and imagine the next two decades, until my mid-70s, to be the most artistically productive years of my life with the right balance of energy, experience and confidence to achieve what needs to get done. If I can hit my marks, then I guess my 80s might be fun, I can free wheel a bit, and by my 90s I can put my feet up.

Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?

I’ve a friend a few years older than me who was my menopause idol. She passed through it with such grace, it was inspiring. And a few years ago I went to listen to Diana Athill at one of Damian Barr’s salons in London, and she, aged 99 was immediately added to my aging idol list. Brilliant, hilarious and the most extraordinary life, a superb writer, she carried her age with aplomb. It was beautiful. She was beautiful.

“With my children, mid-divorce.”

What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?

I wear looser clothes; comfort has taken priority. And when I want to smarten up, a well-made suit. I spend summers in the south of France, and about a decade ago I found a woman at a local brocante who brings cast-offs from her Parisian clients to sell. I’ve found Dior, YSL, Chanel. As Vivienne Westwood said, and she’s another on my list of idols, spend money on a few good things and wear them well. That’s what I do.

I also gave up the idea of makeup a long time ago, felt a huge resistance to doing myself up for the male gaze, noticed how straight men don’t wear makeup so why should I etc., and for the same reason, stopped dying my hair. I’m letting it all happen, this aging process, in the glare of the public eye. Not that anyone cares, but it serves well to challenge the idea inside of myself that people do, that I have some sort of standard to live up to. Why pretend it’s not happening? And why pass on the lie to the next generation when it's so clearly been the world’s greatest effort for me to get out from underneath it?

I like challenging stereotypes, and I also can’t be bothered to make myself “pretty” for the sake of some misguided notion of belonging. Fuck that. I had a friend who only used to shave the front of her legs for all those same reasons. It made me laugh and laugh. I call my greying hair and exposed face my feminist cry for help.

But health, the interior, is a different matter. About that I am avid, obsessive and unrelenting. I’m a cold bath, meditating, AG1, mushroom complex, raw fermented goat’s milk freak, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Each to their own. I don’t imagine what works for me to be a golden bullet for everyone else. I keep it to myself.

What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?

I honestly can’t think of one. I’ve friends who refuse to give into glasses or grey hair, but that’s not me. If I think of something, I’ll come back to this question.

I gave up the idea of makeup a long time ago, felt a huge resistance to doing myself up for the male gaze, noticed how straight men don’t wear makeup so why should I etc., and for the same reason, stopped dying my hair. I’m letting it all happen, this aging process, in the glare of the public eye. Not that anyone cares, but it serves well to challenge the idea inside of myself that people do, that I have some sort of standard to live up to.

What turn of events had the biggest impact on your life? What took your life in a different direction, for better or worse?

Getting divorced the second time was a huge eye-opener for me—it changed me for the better in myriad ways, it set me on the course I’m on now. It was a terrible time, an acrimonious fight that ended up in court, and I really had to learn my business, by that I mean my financial business. I’m an heiress, I grew up being financially carried with little understanding of how the engine worked. But when that tsunami hit, I had to sit up and take notice.

Since then I run the show, and it woke me up to the enjoyment of it, and of being involved as a whole in my life as an active participant, rather than a passenger to whom things happened. I run my author life as a fulltime business, too, and that sense of agency and excitement, risk and ambition has trickled through into all areas. I’m in the driving seat. The buck stops with me. I like it.

Order Eleanor Anstruther’s memoir, and/or pre-order her forthcoming novel…

What is your number one regret in life? If you could do it all over again, what is the biggest thing you’d do differently?

I regret not understanding, at various moments in my children’s lives, that they were simply being children. Occasionally I would lose my shit, and I have memories of my children’s upset that haunt me. They were only small, they didn’t realize they were being annoying, it was my job to keep the balance, and there were times I catastrophically failed.

I was an angry person trapped inside a drinker, ignorant of what drove me. Years later I found out, the unpacking began, as did sobriety and recovery. I’ve talked about it with them, sweetly they say it was fine, it wasn’t as bad as I think, and friends too will let me off the hook, remind me fallibility is human, I was a single mum of twins, it was hard, but still, I wish I could go back and be a little kinder. My advice to parents now is always, remember they’re just being 5. This is what 5 looks like.

I feel relevant now. I was subconsciously told I wouldn’t matter, yet here I am, mattering to me. I have energy and focus, I know who I am and who you are, and all that societal and familial cladding is falling away.

What is high up on your “bucket list?” What do you hope to achieve, attain, or plain enjoy before you die?

I want to win the Booker Prize. That’s been an ambition for as long as I can remember. I’m not kidding. I remember when Bernadine Evaristo won, in an interview she was refreshingly candid about it; she’d aimed at, she’d got it, it felt great. I love that.

I also want to change the landscape of how indie literary fiction is treated by the mainstream industries—booksellers, publishers, reviewers, literary festival organizers and award boards. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and I’ll be writing about it on my own Substack soon, but to keep it simple, the challenge is twofold, quality control and stigma. I’m working on an idea, a kind of Sundance for literary fiction, whereby an equivalent word would send the same signal to industry professionals: that the book is good.

Meanwhile I’m using the quality of my own work to challenge prejudice. Precede any other creative medium with the word indie, and it signals interesting. Stick it on the front of literary fiction and it’s assumed you’ve failed. Proper writers get book deals, right? By the time I die I would love to have smashed that statement and laid the trail for brilliant literary fiction published by the author themselves to have equal access to industry processes, and the resulting chance to fight the good fight alongside their mainstream peers. That’s it. Oh, and riding horses in wild and far off places all over the world. And a pilgrimage around Mount Kailash.

“At the launch party for my debut book.”

Is there a piece of advice you were given, that you live by? If so, what was it, and who offered it to you?

Know yourself. I don’t remember who gave that to me, but I live by it.

What are your plans for your body when you’re done using it? Burial? Cremation? Body Farm? Other?

I want my body put in a mushroom coffin and buried in the woods—anywhere will do, any woods, but behind the farmhouse where I live now would probably be most fitting. I also want a plaque in the family chapel up in Scotland so that descendants will know I existed. Lastly, I quite fancy a small engraving in one of the stones of the stone circle, with my name and connection to the site.

After I die I expect my soul to once again become one with the universe, or rather, the illusion that it isn’t to evaporate. As for my spirit, it will skip on its merry way, perhaps reincarnating, perhaps not; it depends on how far I get. She’s pretty good humoured, so I don’t think she’ll mind another round. I, meanwhile, am all too aware of how lucky I’ve got this time, despite a shaky start, so have mixed feelings about rolling the dice again. Still, if I must, I must. I’m here until I’m done learning.

I was a terrible birthday person until one day my therapist said, “Have you ever thought that your friends might want to celebrate you?” which I hadn’t. So now I make a song and dance about it, announce it on social media, give everyone the chance to send me a message, generally embrace how stupid it all is and remind myself that complaining about elements of your childhood once you’re over 50 is simply not cool.

What do you expect to happen to your “soul” or “spirit” after you die?

Into a million pieces I will go! A starburst, a fractal sun splinter and into the great blue yonder. I practice every day the knowledge that I’m part of something, that this body is a flash of density temporary beyond words, that I belong in the cosmos, a piece of dust, intimately connected with everything. We are one. It’s a fact, and death proves it.

What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?

Now we’re getting to it. I’ve spent a lifetime crying on my birthday, feeling disappointed, alone, all the terrible of childhood. I was pretty convinced I didn’t exist except when alighted upon by the eyes of others, and birthdays seemed to bring that home.

So I was a terrible birthday person until one day my therapist said, “Have you ever thought that your friends might want to celebrate you?” which I hadn’t. So now I make a song and dance about it, announce it on social media, give everyone the chance to send me a message, generally embrace how stupid it all is and remind myself that complaining about elements of your childhood once you’re over 50 is simply not cool.

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