• SERCCA Quarterly e-Newsletter, review of We All Become Stories, September 2013
• Manitoulin Expositor, review of We All Become Stories by Isobel Harry, September 2013
• Forward to We All Become Stories by Ellen Ryan, September 1, 2013
• Open Book Toronto, response to We All Become Stories by Pamela Mordecai, October 2013•
• Herizons magazine, “Spring Reading” featuring We All Become Stories, Spring 2014
• Forthcoming: Canadian Woman Studies Journal, Trudy Medcalf, Review of We All Become Stories
» Read excerpts from: We All Become Stories
We All Become Stories: Make Yours a Good One is about aging and memory and what lies ahead for all of us. Aging, though a universal experience, is a difficult topic for many Western readers.
There are many books and articles on help for caregivers; the impact on the economy, health care system, housing etc. of the “tsunami” of the aging population; and some listing the “strategies” of dealing with old age, often focusing on “staying young.”
We All Become Stories takes a uniquely welcoming perspective by exploring aging and memory, so integral to the human condition, from the experience of the old themselves. I met and talked with a diverse group of 12 old people as a part of my research in gerontology for doctoral studies at O.I.S.E. We met in seniors’ centres and retirement homes in Toronto, through my own family, and on Maine’s Monhegan Island.
As I came to know them I slowly began to realize that something was going on that flew in the face of what ‘oldness’ was supposed to be — a sort of general physical falling apart and mental deterioration that marginalized the old from the larger community — useful and interesting no more.
The people I talked with were none of these. They were resilient and persistent in finding different ways to accommodate to old age. Each of them had made, or was in the process of making, changes that allowed them to shed ideas of what they were supposed to be like. They risked alienation from peers and community to discover hitherto-neglected parts of themselves, warts and all, so they could reconnect to community from their own centre.
While none of them suffered from any form of dementia, had intellectual difficulties or more than a few signs of recent memory loss, they perceived any physical, mental and emotional challenges — including lifelong habits like not remembering names — as the inevitable consequence of the aging process itself. It was very hard for them to dislodge this belief, even though they readily acknowledged that it didn’t stand up to the evidence of their efficient daily practices. Because of the hold this stereotype had, and since all them agreed that memory dysfunction would be far worse than any physical problems they were currently experiencing, this book focuses on memory.
As we explored the many different experiences of being old and of memory, our conversations opened up a world of oldness not often spoken about, as well as the much broader and deeper domain of sensory memory, which neither any of them nor I “had ever thought of in that way, as memory,” as Ruth observed after one of our talks.
When I first began to wonder bout my own aging I shared the common belief that memory is in “in our heads”, separate from our bodies, social relationships and environment. When I had finished writing We All Become Stories my story and my beliefs had changed to a more integrated feminist perspective: from their experience and from my own expanded horizons I saw that the sensory is the basis of memory. And I knew that body, mind, social relationships and environment are inextricably intertwined.
People are living longer now than ever. Most live on their own, some in retirement residences, a small percentage of the very frail in nursing homes. I think it is critical, and a timely feminist project, to speak to the conditions that empower old people and allow them to live life to the fullest no matter what stage of “old” they have reached.