Latest / Age Like a Badass Mother / Ep. 57: Sophy Burnham: If You Fear Aging, Listen to This: 88-Year-Old Author Tells Us Why It's an Extraordinary Time

Transcript

Ep. 57: Sophy Burnham: If You Fear Aging, Listen to This: 88-Year-Old Author Tells Us Why It's an Extraordinary Time · Age Like a Badass Mother

• 0:00
  Hi, friend.
• 0:01
  This week on the Age Like a Badass Mother podcast, I'm joined by the remarkable Sophie Burnham, an 88 year old bestselling author whose latest book celebrate the wonder and happiness of being old.
• 0:14
  Sophie has lived an extraordinary life and it's only getting better.
• 0:18
  And don't miss the end of our conversation.
• 0:20
  We dive into the book that made her a household name in the 90s, a Book of Angels, which led to two appearances on Oprah.
• 0:29
  I could have talked to her for days.
• 0:30
  You're going to love this one.
• 0:33
  A couple of months ago on the podcast, I shared how I reversed my heart disease with a whole food plant based diet, and I've been making short videos and posting them on the Age Like a Badass Mother YouTube channel so that you can get ideas for meals.
• 0:47
  If this is something that you want to explore.
• 0:50
  Please check it out, subscribe and post any questions that you have in the comment section.
• 0:55
  I will definitely answer you back.
• 0:57
  You can also email me at Lauren at age like a badass mother.com I love hearing from you and I am eternally grateful that you are here today and listening.
• 1:09
  Thank you.
• 1:10
  Hi friends, I'm Lauren Bernick and I'm flipping the script about growing older.
• 1:16
  My guests have been influencers since before that was even a thing.
• 1:21
  Welcome to the anti Anti-Aging podcast.
• 1:25
  Welcome to age like a badass mother.
• 1:31
  Sophie Burnham is the New York Times bestselling author of 17 books.
• 1:36
  She's written novels, nonfiction, short stories, poetry, award winning plays, films, radio plays, and scores of articles, many syndicated around the world.
• 1:48
  Her 2019 New York Times essay For Modern Love about love in Your 80s, elicited responses from both men and women across countries and generations.
• 1:59
  She is here to talk to us about a lot of things today, but, her new book, The Wonder and Happiness of Being Old.
• 2:09
  Please welcome Sophie Burnham.
• 2:11
  Welcome, Sophie. Oh, I'm so glad to be here.
• 2:14
  Thank you. I like it. I'm so cool.
• 2:18
  Same, same. So this is our second time recording because we had some technical difficulties.
• 2:25
  So I feel like you're an old friend already.
• 2:27
  It's. It's actually kind of nice.
• 2:29
  So, Sophie, you know.
• 2:32
  I talk. About this.
• 2:35
  The book.
• 2:35
  Do. You said you had a reading about your for your book the other night.
• 2:39
  Is that right?
• 2:39
  I did, I had a book launch, chocolate story that belongs to a friend of mine.
• 2:47
  And it was packed.
• 2:50
  And most of the audience, I did not know it was way above the fire department's regulations.
• 2:59
  I sold out some people buying two, two copies.
• 3:03
  More than one to give to a friend.
• 3:06
  And so I felt it was just a triumph.
• 3:10
  It was my first effort to talk about the book.
• 3:16
  After you've written a book, you know what it's about before you write it.
• 3:22
  You don't really know what it's about.
• 3:25
  Yeah.
• 3:25
  As I discovered that what this book is about is ageism.
• 3:31
  And yes.
• 3:32
  I can begin with how it started.
• 3:38
  So I am now 88, and it started when I was 85.
• 3:42
  Okay.
• 3:43
  I got the ageism.
• 3:47
  For the book.
• 3:48
  I can say how old I am and I can say, oh, you cannot.
• 3:53
  Okay, I will not.
• 3:54
  I had no intention.
• 3:57
  Well, that's my thought on ageism.
• 4:00
  But again, the book began when I was in Paris having an espresso with my young cousin, and she turned to me suddenly and changing the subject, she said, I'm 59.
• 4:15
  In a few years I'll be 60.
• 4:17
  What's it like to be?
• 4:18
  And then she choked on the word old ageism, you say?
• 4:24
  Yeah, well, I could say to her, oh, you won't even notice your 60s.
• 4:30
  I was 68 when I bought my horse.
• 4:32
  I was I stopped foxhunting in 80.
• 4:37
  But I want to read you something.
• 4:42
  Yes, please.
• 4:43
  It's about.
• 4:46
  Of course she's afraid.
• 4:49
  Who wouldn't be afraid?
• 4:51
  You go to 60 and you move now to the stage of Crone and hag.
• 4:57
  Fear is mostly what we hear about aging.
• 5:00
  Fear of wrinkles, fear of loss, fear of diminishment, humiliation of being unwanted, abandoned.
• 5:09
  Fear of the inexorable decline into chronic pain and death.
• 5:14
  Fear of finding ourselves like King Lear.
• 5:16
  Crying naked on the cliffs in the raging storm.
• 5:21
  And it's a fear exacerbated and created.
• 5:27
  Really created. Think about that.
• 5:29
  In spite of $48.4 billion beauty business telling 18 year olds that they've not got good enough skin and they need to buy their products.
• 5:43
  So that is right away.
• 5:46
  In the beginning, even though I didn't know about it, I was writing about ageism.
• 5:53
  Yes. And you know what?
• 5:54
  It's interesting.
• 5:54
  You called your cousin young.
• 5:57
  You said my young cousin.
• 5:59
  Is only 59.
• 6:02
  She's 59, for God's sake.
• 6:04
  She's got 40 years left of her life.
• 6:08
  And she's thinking she's finished.
• 6:12
  She has 40 years.
• 6:13
  She lives to 100.
• 6:13
  But today. Right? People.
• 6:17
  A lot of women live to 100.
• 6:20
  Women live longer than.
• 6:23
  Yeah.
• 6:24
  And I love.
• 6:25
  Okay, so I just had this conversation with my friend literally this morning we met for coffee because I'm also writing a book.
• 6:33
  And it's very funny that you said before you start your book, you don't know what it's about, because I sat there with 50 rabbit holes with her and I was like, what is this book about?
• 6:44
  We just were literally having this conversation because I'm, I'm writing about the lessons that I've learned from age, like a badass mother.
• 6:53
  But as we're drilling down on it, I said, it's really also about fear of aging, because I'm, you know, I started this podcast because, yeah, I started this because I wanted to bring the good news about aging.
• 7:09
  I didn't want to talk about, you know, just your looks and whatever.
• 7:16
  I wanted to talk about the good things about aging and how people were aging well.
• 7:20
  But if I'm being honest and the more honest I am, I am afraid of my looks changing, of being invisible.
• 7:32
  Of all. The things that you mentioned.
• 7:34
  Start being invisible at 40.
• 7:38
  That's when men stop Whistling Straits.
• 7:41
  Or maybe men. Right?
• 7:43
  Because they are scared to.
• 7:44
  But when I grew up, I walked in a stream of praise.
• 7:52
  Yes, of course, I looked at 40.
• 7:55
  I was bereft.
• 7:57
  Let me tell you a story.
• 7:59
  I lived in Italy for a while and all.
• 8:02
  Whenever I walked down the street they were saying that.
• 8:04
  Lena. Bellissima.
• 8:06
  Dora. Billy.
• 8:09
  And so I'm in Rome once visiting.
• 8:13
  I'm. I'm now in my 40s, and I hear a scooter behind me.
• 8:17
  And the woman, man shouts out, filling up, and they say about, Scusa, senora.
• 8:26
  And I'm running out laughing.
• 8:29
  I had moved by looking at the back of me.
• 8:32
  He couldn't tell when he saw the front of me.
• 8:35
  I was suddenly his mother, and I was not to be.
• 8:40
  Yes, but listen.
• 8:42
  Yes, this is the good news.
• 8:44
  At 85, I can say that this is the most fascinating and happiest period of my life.
• 8:52
  And that is what this book is about.
• 8:55
  It's about why is this period different from any other?
• 8:59
  Why am I so okay?
• 9:00
  Tell us, why is it so fascinating?
• 9:05
  Why all throughout the book there is my own relationship to old.
• 9:15
  It's only at 85 that I began to admit that no matter what, I fall into that.
• 9:24
  Into the category of old.
• 9:27
  But inside I'm young, right?
• 9:30
  I'm 30 years younger.
• 9:33
  I don't feel 88.
• 9:35
  I feel 55 sometimes at 55.
• 9:40
  That's interesting. 35.
• 9:44
  And you mentioned your horse that you you stopped fox hunting at what you said 85.
• 9:51
  No, I stopped fox hunting at 80, but I was still right at 80.
• 9:55
  But you but I'm still.
• 9:56
  But you were jumping with your horse right?
• 9:59
  Until 80 years old. Until I was eight.
• 10:02
  Then I thought I better stop because a false horse is really dangerous.
• 10:07
  And at any age.
• 10:09
  And your bones get weaker, so I.
• 10:12
  So I no longer jump.
• 10:15
  But I do still ride her.
• 10:17
  That's great.
• 10:19
  Gently. We're not doing any.
• 10:20
  Gently.
• 10:22
  Stuff.
• 10:23
  That's beautiful.
• 10:25
  Okay, so tell us more of the good stuff about the wonder and happiness of being old.
• 10:29
  Why, why why should we not be afraid of aging?
• 10:34
  What we're afraid of?
• 10:39
  We're not afraid of age and wrinkles.
• 10:43
  We're afraid of being abandoned.
• 10:45
  We're afraid of being cast out and no longer wanted.
• 10:51
  We'll be put into a nursing home and nobody will visit us.
• 10:56
  We will no longer be interesting to people.
• 10:59
  What I find is.
• 11:03
  Oh, I don't even know where to begin.
• 11:07
  I'll tell you where I'll begin.
• 11:08
  I'm going to read another little section of this. Yeah.
• 11:11
  Tell me if I can find it.
• 11:14
  This is Tina Turner, by the way.
• 11:16
  My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself.
• 11:23
  All through the day, Sarah, these little wonderful quotes.
• 11:28
  Yes. And, one that I liked very much is by Oscar Wilde, who said the tragedy is of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. I'm going to go back to this idea of feeling 55 or 60, 30 years younger than I am.
• 11:52
  20. Yes.
• 11:57
  It's because inside we are eternal, immortal beings of light.
• 12:06
  So of course we feel young.
• 12:10
  And the tragedy of old age is that you're young is that people don't treat you that way.
• 12:17
  So that's what we're afraid of the thing I noticed most about getting old.
• 12:23
  And mind you, it's only this year that I allowed myself to say elder is. It was when I came.
• 12:31
  Loss of energy.
• 12:32
  Okay. I also have urgency.
• 12:34
  I don't move as quickly or gracefully anymore.
• 12:37
  No one asks if I used to be a dancer.
• 12:40
  It's not that I've lost curiosity or enthusiasm, but sometimes the expression of my happiness seems muted.
• 12:49
  The other day at the market, I saw a young mother with two little girls, maybe three and five, and they were both hopping between the displays of the vegetables, the piles of apples excited by the pyramids and hill tops of bottles, the wide glasses of cellophane.
• 13:08
  They would take a step stop, almost overwhelmed by the riches spread before them, grab each other's sleeve and say, look! And I thought, yes, that's what I have lost.
• 13:20
  It's that sense of wonder, wild anticipation.
• 13:23
  When everything is new and magical.
• 13:26
  By the time you get into your 80s, you've seen so much.
• 13:30
  Or you say, I have seen so much that I find my mind comparing everything to everything else judging, criticizing, analyzing, losing the beginner's mind. But.
• 13:47
  At the same time, there comes an inner stillness, this calming of energy that maybe is what they mean by wisdom.
• 13:59
  I look at my two children and four grandchildren feel it.
• 14:02
  They're wiser than I am, but everything I look at now is so precious.
• 14:09
  Even the things I don't like.
• 14:12
  It's a totally different period.
• 14:15
  I can see back generations with more understanding and forgiveness.
• 14:27
  My mother was only 30 when she offended me, and I took that little grudge and held on to it for 30 years and I look back on it now, and I think, oh my God, she was only a little baby.
• 14:42
  What did she know with her tool box?
• 14:44
  Of course she's going to do it.
• 14:46
  So right away your past is washed by compassion and forgiveness, and your present, I think because you understand how temporary everything is, even yourself, even this body, the shadow of death on your shoulder at all times, will be that be the last time that I see you are looking so beautiful like that.
• 15:18
  I'm really seeing you.
• 15:21
  Does this make sense?
• 15:22
  Do you know what I mean?
• 15:23
  I am. Oh, absolutely.
• 15:26
  That was a beautiful passage you read out of the book, and I think that it makes a lot of sense that you really have a different perspective from maybe from this point in your life, because it is everything is precious, like you're saying, you know, it's it and washed with compassion.
• 15:45
  I love that you say washed with compassion because you you do have more of an understanding of how life works.
• 15:52
  You know, the longer you go on.
• 15:54
  And that is a beautiful take on life.
• 15:57
  And I can see how it would be more peaceful.
• 15:59
  And even I'm start.
• 16:01
  You know, I'm 56 years old and I am really starting to feel that way.
• 16:07
  All the things that you mentioned, I feel are blossoming in me right now.
• 16:12
  That's right. It doesn't have to be 88.
• 16:14
  But I want to say, Lauren, you're just at the peak of your powers now.
• 16:19
  You're beginning to feel your empowerment.
• 16:24
  And it's not about, yeah, wrinkles.
• 16:27
  It's about confidence.
• 16:30
  And knowing what you can do and setting out and doing it and knowing your own judgment, knowing your own mind.
• 16:41
  It's a wonderful period.
• 16:42
  You're just beginning it.
• 16:44
  You're six terrific.
• 16:46
  And you won't notice your settlements.
• 16:49
  So yes, they live well.
• 16:51
  Since then, the only little humiliations.
• 16:55
  But don't equate sickness with old age.
• 17:01
  We look at.
• 17:02
  Oh yeah.
• 17:03
  And you're looking at someone who's sick in a wheelchair maybe.
• 17:09
  But that's not age.
• 17:12
  That's not old age.
• 17:13
  What, what. Yes.
• 17:17
  Illness. Right.
• 17:18
  You don't I mean that's a completely different thing.
• 17:20
  But I want to ask you, you know, we were talking about ageism.
• 17:24
  I'm about to have, Do you know who Ashton Applewhite is now? She wrote this chair rocks a manifesto.
• 17:32
  She's.
• 17:32
  She wrote a whole manifesto about ageism.
• 17:35
  I'm about to interview her next week, but, I what are some things that we shouldn't say?
• 17:42
  What are things that, like, are offensive to you?
• 17:45
  That, I mean, like, I know people like, say, oh, you're adorable.
• 17:49
  I think that's really condescending because you're a frickin accomplished woman.
• 17:56
  You like that?
• 17:57
  Yeah.
• 17:58
  Why do I think?
• 17:58
  I mean, there's a compliment.
• 18:02
  Okay, it doesn't seem condescending if they say, like you're adorable.
• 18:05
  Because you know why?
• 18:07
  Because you're a gorgeous woman, and I feel like adorable is, like, little old lady or something.
• 18:13
  I don't know, and you're.
• 18:13
  You're beautiful.
• 18:16
  I would not I would despise cute.
• 18:18
  I'm of the age when you got out of school and you were supposed to get married, and if you were not married by 21 or 23, you were an old maid.
• 18:29
  You were over the hill, right?
• 18:32
  I mean, they got homes that we used.
• 18:34
  You were a matron.
• 18:36
  I remember my nephew, five years old, taking my hand in his when I was getting married and examining the palm of my hand and saying, when you come down the aisle, you'll be old.
• 18:53
  And I felt the same way.
• 18:56
  Oh, wait, I.
• 18:59
  Read that's.
• 19:00
  You're talking about something deeply ingrained in us.
• 19:04
  Now let's add another to this deeply ingrained in our DNA.
• 19:09
  Lauren, is the fact. That's.
• 19:12
  True, that only a very short time ago, an independent woman or a widow.
• 19:21
  Would be, I wouldn't say could, but would be charged with witchcraft, burned it to stay drowned, and if she survived to drown the second time, crushed by a millstone on her chest.
• 19:41
  It is very dangerous to be a woman without a man when they are an old or older woman, especially if they have property that somebody might use.
• 19:59
  Let's bring it back to what it's about.
• 20:01
  Yeah.
• 20:02
  And that's that's true.
• 20:04
  I, I don't know why I'm so afraid of having a millstone put on my chest, but I can imagine.
• 20:12
  Who you think that happened in another life.
• 20:15
  I can imagine that it did.
• 20:17
  Maybe I have a more nature of fire.
• 20:21
  And I have never been in a fire.
• 20:24
  And I have inordinate fear of having something push on my chest.
• 20:33
  And yeah, I don't like anybody to touch my neck okay, so I read your book.
• 20:37
  The publicist sent me.
• 20:39
  Your publicist sent me your book, and I thought, oh, this is incredible.
• 20:42
  I have to have this woman on. I have to talk to her.
• 20:44
  So I read the book I loved it, but then I started researching you, and I was like, okay, are you kidding me?
• 20:51
  You're so modest.
• 20:52
  You didn't even say any of this in your intro or anything like that, but you have lived such an incredible life.
• 20:59
  I mean, we alluded to it that you've written 16 books, but you you literally wrote the book on angels.
• 21:06
  You were on Oprah twice.
• 21:07
  You that you wrote a book of angels, which started off the big angel craze like I was when I read about you and I.
• 21:16
  I told you this before that I was like, wait a minute.
• 21:20
  I remember seeing this woman on Oprah because it really struck me.
• 21:24
  I went back and and I looked and I, I found that clip.
• 21:30
  I didn't find the one I was looking for because you were on Oprah twice, but you, you were on.
• 21:37
  I mean, can can we talk a little bit, or are you tired of talking about the Book of Angels?
• 21:40
  I have to talk about it.
• 21:43
  And, Okay, it's on YouTube.
• 21:46
  There are lots of.
• 21:47
  Yes, they are on YouTube, but I think.
• 21:49
  It's a clip and there's a yes.
• 21:53
  And there's this clip I think you're talking about, your book, it might have been your is your, is it, the art crowd or is that your first book?
• 22:02
  I've crowd was my first book.
• 22:05
  I was yeah.
• 22:06
  There's a clip. Of you was published and I'm.
• 22:12
  I'm finished.
• 22:13
  I'm 33.
• 22:14
  Tolstoy already wrote history book.
• 22:16
  By this time, I haven't done it.
• 22:21
  Well, you had some time, but, I mean, there's a clip of you, talking about your book, and you're like, you said, you're 33, and people have to.
• 22:29
  You look like Meryl Streep from, Kramer versus Kramer.
• 22:32
  In that clip, I was like, oh my God.
• 22:34
  I mean, it's incredible, but okay, so let's talk about a book of Angels.
• 22:40
  So, what can you give me the short version of why you wrote that book during.
• 22:47
  I'll say, The Book of Angels and what I know about the spiritual dimension impacts my fascination and understanding and happiness in this period of my life.
• 23:01
  There are people who have. Why is that?
• 23:04
  No spiritual inner life at all?
• 23:08
  And they do not see how magical everything is.
• 23:12
  But I have been fortunate enough to have seen angels, had my life saved by an angel.
• 23:21
  See them periodically when I'm giving a reading to people, I do psychic readings to people.
• 23:29
  And sometimes an angel comes.
• 23:31
  Not always.
• 23:33
  Sometimes his spirit comes.
• 23:34
  Not always.
• 23:36
  But this informs my life.
• 23:41
  It's not that I don't get depressed.
• 23:43
  Of course.
• 23:44
  I fall into deep troughs and have to pull myself out with prayer and gratitude when I'm hungry, eat.
• 23:54
  And if I'm tired, go to sleep.
• 23:56
  I have to pay attention to what's going on.
• 24:01
  But all the time underneath is this idea that the world is on my side.
• 24:10
  The universe is blessing me.
• 24:13
  And if I can use the word God, what's more for me than I could possibly imagine, it doesn't mean that I'm not afraid.
• 24:28
  I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm afraid of the pain that usually accompanies it.
• 24:34
  Or I'm afraid of dementia and leaving my children taking care of me.
• 24:43
  Poor things.
• 24:44
  I wouldn't want that. I don't want that.
• 24:47
  Right?
• 24:48
  Yeah. Nobody does.
• 24:50
  No. And that can can be happen.
• 24:55
  But that's part of what we're afraid of now.
• 24:57
  Is that ageism, or is that a reality, or is it that I'm still strong and look okay and can ride my horse and walk?
• 25:14
  So I just haven't reached old age yet at that?
• 25:17
  Women, that part of old age where you're locked in your body and and waiting to see if you can leave yet.
• 25:28
  Right? Right.
• 25:30
  Yeah.
• 25:31
  I mean, that's the scary part, but I mean now.
• 25:34
  But there's no point in scared about it because it may not happen.
• 25:37
  Maybe I'll make you run over by a truck, right?
• 25:40
  No, no, nobody knows.
• 25:42
  Nobody knows. But what? So. Yeah.
• 25:45
  When, when did you see an angel?
• 25:47
  Like, what was the first?
• 25:48
  Can you tell that story about your ski accident?
• 25:50
  Quickly?
• 25:54
  I was 28, and my husband and I went skiing in France, in Val d'Isere.
• 26:02
  Val d'Isere is very high in the Alps, way above the tree line.
• 26:07
  And you can ski all day.
• 26:09
  One one slope down to a village and take a bus back home.
• 26:15
  And that takes a day.
• 26:19
  And, it had not snowed in a long time.
• 26:22
  So the, the, snow is packed hard and at a certain point I fell off of the track.
• 26:33
  The piste.
• 26:35
  Now in Val d'Isere, they do not, there is no ski patrol, and they do not go after you and find the people who are lost or anything.
• 26:47
  So if you go on track, you start an avalanche, or you fall off a cliff and nobody will find you.
• 26:54
  So I'm tearing down this hillside off of the piste headfirst with my skis at night in the air.
• 27:03
  And I can't bring my skis around the way you usually do.
• 27:07
  But through the through the skis looking upward, I see the sky and my God, it is unbelievable.
• 27:17
  Beautiful colors.
• 27:21
  It's not just blue, it's, a mass of colors.
• 27:26
  And at the same time, my heart is wrenched out of my body as a home, I think, and it doesn't matter if I die.
• 27:35
  And at that moment I was stopped by a man who had ski past my husband, standing at the top of the hill, past me, planning himself.
• 27:51
  So I landed against his legs, head first, and you know.
• 27:56
  And you didn't knock him over.
• 27:59
  I should have broken my neck or he shoved both of us should have fallen down in the right.
• 28:05
  But that didn't happen.
• 28:06
  What happened then? Move.
• 28:09
  Wow. He didn't even move.
• 28:10
  I landed as gently as if I'd been put into a cradle.
• 28:16
  And I stood up and I looked at him and he's dressed all in black.
• 28:22
  I'll never forget it. All in black.
• 28:25
  His eyes were black.
• 28:28
  He did not have sunglasses on and they were pools of love.
• 28:34
  They were just unbelievable.
• 28:39
  Look toward me loving the way you really want to be loved.
• 28:45
  Wow. The way we never have anyone look at us.
• 28:49
  And then he turned without a word, and he went up the hill and skied away.
• 28:56
  I went running after the after him up the hill.
• 29:01
  And David at the top of the hill says, are you all right?
• 29:05
  I said, I'll talk to you later.
• 29:06
  And I got shooting off after him because I wanted to look at his again.
• 29:12
  I wanted him to look at me like that.
• 29:15
  And when I turned around the corner, there was nothing in this whole valley.
• 29:22
  Whole no. Man. Little town.
• 29:24
  Way, way, way, way down with little tiny black acts, which were the people.
• 29:29
  And I thought he couldn't possibly have skied that fast, but he had just vanished.
• 29:35
  And off to my left I saw where I'd fallen at the top of the hill.
• 29:40
  And it stopped in a cliff that ended in gigantic boulders.
• 29:46
  So I would have fallen off of that cliff.
• 29:50
  And, been killed.
• 29:53
  So of course I did what anybody would do.
• 29:57
  I said, well, that didn't happen.
• 30:00
  Well, I mean, who am I who am I?
• 30:03
  Did your husband see that?
• 30:04
  Did your husband see the man?
• 30:06
  Do you know he didn't remember it?
• 30:10
  How did he think you stopped it?
• 30:12
  Just thought I stopped.
• 30:14
  But was he watching you plummet down this hill?
• 30:17
  He was watching me and he saw a man come tearing past me and stop.
• 30:23
  But it didn't make an impact on him.
• 30:27
  So he did see the man. Okay.
• 30:31
  I asked him about it and he basically said, no, you just stopped, I don't remember. Wow.
• 30:38
  What was why? That's incredible.
• 30:40
  That's an incredible story.
• 30:42
  And then why did you write the book?
• 30:44
  Like, what other things happened that spurred the book?
• 30:47
  Oh, I know that you.
• 30:47
  Things, Laura. And that happened not only.
• 30:54
  Well, I was brought up as a daughter of the enlightenment.
• 31:01
  We went to church, but it wasn't as if you were really lived the life.
• 31:09
  You just socially went to church and had drinks afterwards with people, and we were confirmed and and it was expected that you went to church, but it wasn't a serious matter of your life.
• 31:25
  But it's there were all of these things that happened that were not answerable according to the rational, reasonable, scientific way I'd been brought up to work.
• 31:39
  Well, it works, yes.
• 31:41
  Telepathy.
• 31:43
  Angels.
• 31:45
  The little tap on your shoulder that says, go here, don't go there.
• 31:51
  The way when you don't trust it, you say to yourself, I knew I shouldn't have gone down that path and I didn't listen.
• 32:00
  Okay. Next time I'll listen.
• 32:02
  Are those angels. Listen.
• 32:04
  Those are angels.
• 32:06
  They're giving you thoughts telepathically okay.
• 32:09
  So we each have our own angels that are like in charge of us.
• 32:14
  Everybody has their own angels.
• 32:17
  It's, I think that everybody has two angels, to tell you the truth to people I see.
• 32:22
  I have two angels.
• 32:24
  But are they people who know us?
• 32:27
  Are they?
• 32:28
  Are they strangers?
• 32:30
  Are they relatives who have passed?
• 32:32
  No. They're angels.
• 32:32
  They're a different species.
• 32:35
  And they. Didn't understand.
• 32:37
  When you were born and they live with you all your life long, and they will take you away when you die.
• 32:46
  They're your companions because it is very, very hard to be a human being. Yes.
• 32:56
  But you understand now we're well out of my book, The Wonder and Happiness of Being Old.
• 33:03
  But this is the base that informs that you understand that you voluntarily agreed to be born, and to have the life that you're living, right? And and I can only bless the heroes and heroines who choose war and homelessness.
• 33:24
  And because they're teaching us so much by by their heroism.
• 33:36
  But anyway, you decide to come and you hear what your life is going to be like saying, okay, I can do that.
• 33:43
  That'll be a cinch.
• 33:45
  You get down here and you discover what you you discover.
• 33:51
  You feel fear, anxiety, uncertainty.
• 33:56
  Vulnerability.
• 34:01
  All of the things that trauma, if you've gone through trauma, ordeals that people go through, these are not easy things at all.
• 34:13
  Now, I want to say about the happiness of being old.
• 34:20
  It is not dependent on having money, but money can certainly ease it.
• 34:27
  And I am very well aware of the fact that that I have enough to live on.
• 34:40
  Yes, and that's a big deal.
• 34:43
  It's a huge deal.
• 34:45
  But can you see this chart there? Yes.
• 34:49
  The it looks okay and most people are listening and not watching it.
• 34:52
  It looks like a smile.
• 34:54
  It's a yes. It's a it's a chart of happiness.
• 35:00
  From the Brookings Institution, a chart of happiness that begins at one corner when you're a child, child of 16, you're just a teenager, and I get up to 95, in a huge smile.
• 35:20
  And you will notice the low point in your life is 40. Yep.
• 35:27
  Why is that?
• 35:28
  Because you're just grinding at that point, you know, making a living, taking care of kids, that kind of thing.
• 35:34
  Taking care of kids and maybe taking care of parents.
• 35:37
  And yeah, you know. Having being away.
• 35:39
  And having ambitions and struggling, trying it.
• 35:43
  You haven't learned yet to let go and unless things evolve.
• 35:50
  So your happiness at happiest at the beginning of your life and at the end of your life.
• 35:55
  And at the end of your life, it's much higher than the big.
• 35:58
  It's magical. Yes.
• 36:00
  And independent of money.
• 36:07
  This is across the sky.
• 36:08
  All colors, all economic people.
• 36:13
  Yeah, yeah, all the all the people.
• 36:16
  You just get happier as you get older.
• 36:19
  Now, this is a big secret.
• 36:21
  They don't tell you that in in the beauty business.
• 36:27
  No. Right, right.
• 36:29
  They just tell you you are lacking.
• 36:31
  Something more and more comfortable with who you are yourself.
• 36:36
  If you're living authentically, not if you're still pretending things, but if you're living authentically, you become more and more, open, more openly vulnerable.
• 36:54
  That's a huge strength.
• 36:58
  I think that you're like, I do think that, we're able to live more authentically as we age.
• 37:05
  I'm finding, you know, saying no to things I don't want to do that I would have said yes to before, just to try to make everybody happy or things like that.
• 37:14
  Now I'm like, no, I don't want to thank, you know, and things like that.
• 37:20
  I just, I'm trying to make myself happy and not be a jerk to other people.
• 37:24
  But, you know, that is a.
• 37:27
  There is one thing that will make you very happy.
• 37:31
  Of course, the spiritual thing for me is huge.
• 37:36
  But don't forget that you never stop loving, and you never stop being loved.
• 37:44
  So in 82, I fell madly in love with a man, and I just was wild about him.
• 37:51
  He was 22 years younger than me, so he was 60 something. And I felt shame that if he had only to defer to my years, I thought, oh, how can how can this be?
• 38:13
  No one can really love somebody who's 82.
• 38:18
  And so at the end of two years, being as ecstatic as teenagers, we broke up and a part of the breaking up was mine because of my own ageism.
• 38:35
  Ageism towards yourself.
• 38:37
  Ageism towards my age.
• 38:40
  Yeah.
• 38:41
  Sophie, do you feel like you let somebody go that you were meant to be with?
• 38:46
  Now, do you have regrets about that?
• 38:48
  No, I think well, it was very painful, but I think it was right.
• 38:54
  I could I.
• 39:00
  You know, men can fall in love at 70 something with a 25 year old girl and think that it's suitable, but we're not allowed to as women.
• 39:15
  And I had two years of a great love affair, and I could never get over the insecurity.
• 39:24
  I didn't feel secure enough.
• 39:27
  And maybe that was him.
• 39:32
  He. Did he make you feel that.
• 39:34
  No. I think this is interesting.
• 39:35
  Did he make you feel insecure?
• 39:38
  Our own traumas and he had, he had plenty of his, he had plenty of baggage.
• 39:48
  And let it come out and I was not wise enough maybe to.
• 39:55
  You are not old. Enough.
• 39:56
  And my challenge you want to.
• 40:02
  Okay.
• 40:03
  And so another thing about happiness, you're happy if you maintain your connections, if you have a, a group of friends or a few close friends don't, don't give them away.
• 40:21
  Yeah. No. Call them up.
• 40:24
  Yeah.
• 40:25
  You them I this is.
• 40:26
  Yes you have it is not about money.
• 40:30
  Although the absence of money can be fearful.
• 40:34
  Sure it's about trust connection and knowing people have your back.
• 40:43
  And that's incredibly important.
• 40:46
  Do you get together with a group of people often.
• 40:49
  Yeah.
• 40:51
  Yeah I do and I, I belong to a pack and a wolf pack.
• 41:00
  Yeah. Sort of.
• 41:02
  Yeah.
• 41:03
  How often do you, how often do you see each other.
• 41:09
  I see people every day.
• 41:11
  Oh good.
• 41:12
  Yeah.
• 41:13
  Yeah I think it's wise to see people every day.
• 41:16
  Different people.
• 41:18
  But if you have a, an acquaintance it's not difficult. But.
• 41:27
  I am so very aware of how lucky I am.
• 41:32
  Yeah.
• 41:33
  And you've had a good life.
• 41:35
  So writing this book.
• 41:42
  You, and you also wrote for Vogue.
• 41:45
  I mean people, people need to understand like you are the real deal.
• 41:50
  Not only I mean, you have done, amazing different things over the years.
• 41:57
  I worked.
• 41:59
  At the Kennedy Center, the fund for the Kennedy Center, and I mean, you're you're the real deal.
• 42:04
  And you've written, like I said, 17 books.
• 42:07
  It's incredible. And this is a great one.
• 42:09
  You in the in the book, you wrote four letters to yourself at different ages.
• 42:13
  I love that that was incredible.
• 42:16
  Like when you were 21, you wrote to yourself at 42, and then at 42, I think you wrote to your 63 year old self, and then at 63, what you were how old?
• 42:25
  84, 80.
• 42:27
  Four.
• 42:27
  84, 85 and so what are some of the things you told yourself at these different ages?
• 42:33
  I don't know why I thought of this.
• 42:36
  I don't know how I thought of it, but I do remember being in my college dorm at Smith on my 21st birthday, the night before my 21st birthday, before I'm 21, and sitting down at my desk and taking dipping my pen into the ink.
• 42:58
  Oh wow. We used ink and pen. In those days.
• 43:01
  We didn't have ballpoint yet. Wow.
• 43:04
  What year was that?
• 43:06
  1958.
• 43:09
  You have ballpoint pens?
• 43:11
  I don't think so. If they. That's crazy.
• 43:14
  But I.
• 43:15
  I was using a real pen, a fountain pen and dipping the ink.
• 43:20
  And I wrote a letter to myself to be opened when I was 42.
• 43:26
  I always knew that something special was going to happen at 42.
• 43:32
  And I.
• 43:36
  I just wanted.
• 43:39
  What happened at 42.
• 43:44
  I sat at this little desk and I began a letter in it.
• 43:48
  I tried to set down in a few words who I was filled with desires and self-examination, the meaning and purpose of life, my hopes for my future self, my wish that she would have had a happy, good life.
• 44:05
  I really wanted the best for that future woman because she was me.
• 44:09
  Of course.
• 44:11
  And when I was 42, before I opened that letter from my younger self, I wrote another to be opened in 21 years at age 63.
• 44:21
  The second letter, written at 42, was much longer than the first full.
• 44:27
  By then I was a writer and writing came easily, and also a lot had happened in those years.
• 44:34
  It seemed magical and mysterious, as if I lived in a fairy tale.
• 44:38
  I reported three transcendent experiences asking, were there really angels, invisible forces intervening on my behalf?
• 44:48
  This is before I'd written the Book of Angels.
• 44:51
  I had more questions at 42 than I could have imagined at 21, when in my arrogance, I thought I knew a lot.
• 45:00
  At 42, confused and conflicted.
• 45:03
  I was the mother of teenagers and moving toward divorce.
• 45:06
  At 42, I felt I was walking blindfolded and barefoot down a gravel road, testing the path with my feet.
• 45:17
  Anyway.
• 45:20
  At 63, I wrote a third letter to myself and that one was so long I had so much to say that I wrote three separate letters.
• 45:30
  Finally, last year at 84, I wrote my last letter to myself, and though I likely will not live to read it, I folded it neatly with the others in a it's actually in a bureau drawer in my office.
• 45:49
  At 84, I found myself writing more to my young selves than to to the woman I might become at 105.
• 45:58
  And all the letters are about being tender and kind toward ourselves, and about daring to dive into the world and love letters to myself.
• 46:09
  So it's. So beautiful.
• 46:11
  It's interesting that you confirmed when you were in your 40s just what we were talking about, that you were in the thick of raising kids and walking on gravel and going through a divorce.
• 46:22
  That was your low point.
• 46:23
  Like you said, and then that you were happiest at the beginning.
• 46:28
  In the end, or, well, we don't know that you're near your end, but that, you know, in the later years.
• 46:33
  And I love that you wrote love letters to yourself.
• 46:37
  Well, what did in your last letter when you wrote to your younger self?
• 46:41
  What what did you say?
• 46:42
  Just everything's going to be okay or.
• 46:46
  No, I'll tell you what I said.
• 46:54
  Wait a minute.
• 46:55
  I tell in the book what I've learned.
• 46:59
  Curiously, what I had to say at 84 was not much different from what I had to say at 21.
• 47:06
  I remember that at 21, my modest injunction to myself was simply to do any harm.
• 47:12
  To do good felt overly ambitious.
• 47:15
  Even then, I understood the gulf between intention and execution.
• 47:22
  At 84, I did not wish myself a happy future or easy death.
• 47:27
  Instead writing to the brave young women I had been and who had struggled on their journey, sometimes without even proper tools in their kit, I offer generosity and admiration, reminding them that all that is required of us is purity of intent.
• 47:46
  What happens to our bumbling efforts, or how others receive them is not our responsibility.
• 47:55
  Only intention.
• 47:56
  Only motive matters.
• 47:58
  I urged my younger self, which I guess is myself today, to forgive themselves for failing, for falling into fear, greed, pride, or for struggling awkwardly, for status or safety or honors, or the desire to hide even from themselves, the depths of our fear and inadequacies.
• 48:19
  To forgive ourselves does not mean to forget or put ourselves back in an ugly and dangerous situation.
• 48:26
  It means to drop the rocks of regret and resentment and move on.
• 48:31
  Emotionally liberated, free and.
• 48:39
  It's so important.
• 48:41
  I asked a whole mass of people what this period of life is, because this is the last period of my life, the last of four periods, each one really different.
• 48:56
  And in this period I get to understand what is happening, which is hard to do when you're 21 or 42 or even 63.
• 49:10
  You're still.
• 49:11
  Yeah. See.
• 49:14
  It reminds me of you.
• 49:16
  Do you practice yoga?
• 49:18
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 49:19
  And so, you know, at the end of yoga, you do shavasana, a corpse pose, so you can absorb the practice.
• 49:24
  I feel like maybe what you're saying is this phase of life, you're absorbing what it's all been and processing.
• 49:30
  And that's why you're happiest?
• 49:33
  Because you know what it all means now.
• 49:36
  And you're still living it.
• 49:38
  I mean, every day is a blessing.
• 49:42
  I spend a great deal of time staring at my garden.
• 49:49
  I do.
• 49:49
  Too, and I'm just left in awe.
• 49:54
  Oh, look at that blossom.
• 49:58
  And yeah.
• 50:01
  And it isn't as if I haven't seen blossoms, but so much of my life was spent passing them by. Yes.
• 50:08
  And now I get to be quieter and slower and really see.
• 50:17
  That's beautiful.
• 50:19
  So you don't.
• 50:22
  Feel so good.
• 50:23
  Enough to live to old age.
• 50:26
  It's all beautiful.
• 50:27
  It's so wonderful.
• 50:30
  You really have made me feel better today.
• 50:33
  And especially because you're 88 and you're writing books and you're out there and giving talks.
• 50:40
  And are you writing another book right now?
• 50:42
  Sophie.
• 50:43
  Oh, no, you probably will.
• 50:46
  I bet you will.
• 50:48
  I probably will, you probably will.
• 50:51
  Because you're a writer. Yes, exactly.
• 50:53
  So what's your if you had to distill it down, what's your one best piece of advice for aging?
• 50:59
  Well.
• 51:02
  Begin young.
• 51:05
  And okay.
• 51:06
  Well, what if you're 60.
• 51:07
  Well, that's still. Very. That's young.
• 51:11
  Yeah.
• 51:11
  I mean, don't wait.
• 51:14
  One of the things that I'm most afraid of is getting onto my deathbed and thinking I could have done it, and I didn't take the dare.
• 51:24
  So take the.
• 51:25
  Day of sitting in your, in your 60s, in your 50s if you can.
• 51:32
  Don't be afraid to go for it.
• 51:35
  Right. To go for whatever.
• 51:37
  Right.
• 51:37
  Go ahead and be afraid.
• 51:40
  Okay.
• 51:40
  Be afraid but still do it.
• 51:43
  But do it and do it as well and authentically and with excellence and purity of intent and you'll have such a wonderful life.
• 51:52
  That's wonderful.
• 51:54
  Even when you're, when you're much older that's you know.
• 51:59
  Yes. That's beautiful advice.
• 52:01
  Do you, do you what's the best piece of advice you've ever received.
• 52:07
  Doesn't have to be about age.
• 52:11
  Oh I have no idea.
• 52:12
  You have no idea.
• 52:13
  Dude, what's the best, concert or what's your favorite concert you've ever been to?
• 52:19
  My favorite concert?
• 52:21
  Yes. I'm Matt, the drummer of the Grateful Dead.
• 52:25
  I wish that I had never been to a Grateful Dead concert.
• 52:31
  He invited me to join him in his limousine to the to the side.
• 52:38
  Everybody did.
• 52:39
  What was his name? What's.
• 52:41
  Who's the drummer for the Grateful Dead?
• 52:41
  I've never.
• 52:43
  Bill Kaufman.
• 52:45
  Bill Kaufman. Okay?
• 52:45
  I've never been a Grateful Dead fan.
• 52:47
  I am a huge music fan.
• 52:49
  That's why I ask everybody this.
• 52:51
  You know, it's so funny.
• 52:53
  I had on another guest, Doctor Gold Hammer, who said, I've only been to one concert, and it was the Grateful Dead, and I was the guest of somebody.
• 53:00
  That's the.
• 53:02
  Second.
• 53:03
  But, well, he wasn't the drummer, and he wasn't trying to pick up a beautiful woman to take her to the concert.
• 53:08
  So did you get to watch, if I may?
• 53:11
  Because I, I've never been to anything except a except the opera or or other kinds of concerts.
• 53:19
  So I didn't know about the Grateful Dead at all.
• 53:22
  And he and he put me in this place, and I listen to this concert that came backstage during the intermission.
• 53:30
  He said, how do you like it?
• 53:31
  I said, why, it was fine, but I couldn't see you playing.
• 53:35
  He said, oh, well, you better stay on the stage than to hear me.
• 53:38
  Fine, because you can't see on unless you're on the stage.
• 53:41
  So I watched the second half of the concert from the stage and, and all you could see was this haze of marijuana and.
• 53:50
  Oh, yeah.
• 53:51
  I'm sure lights.
• 53:54
  I'm sure I just.
• 53:56
  Only rock concert I've ever been to him.
• 53:59
  I knew you were going to have a good story about it.
• 54:01
  I don't know what I had an intuition about that.
• 54:03
  I was like, Sophie's going to have a good story about that.
• 54:08
  Oh, well, I can't thank you enough for sharing all your good advice and making us feel better about, about aging.
• 54:19
  That it sounds wonderful.
• 54:20
  It sounds like it's going to be a good, good part of life.
• 54:23
  It's going to be so. Sophie.
• 54:23
  Yeah. So good.
• 54:26
  What the wonder and happiness of being old.
• 54:31
  So by Sophie Burnham and I. For this.
• 54:33
  Day, it's sold in England.
• 54:37
  And then dominions in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Japan.
• 54:45
  And so it's, it's going to go around the world in five countries anyway.
• 54:51
  Well congratulations and thank you for sharing with us and I hope that I will see you again, my new friend.
• 54:57
  Thank you Sophie. Bye bye.
• 55:00
  By Lauren.
• 55:02
  Thanks for listening, friend.
• 55:04
  From my heart to yours.
• 55:06
  Be well. Until we meet again.