Coventry Kessler, DCL Staff

Like many other middle-aged women, I enjoy Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and have watched the movie many times on DVD.  Who wouldn’t like the story of the marriageable young Dashwood women? They were models of womanhood in the early 19^th century.

It’s amazing how much has changed for modern women!

In the book, first published in 1811, the marriageable young Marion is a girl of 16; her nearly old-maid sister is 19.  Colonel Brandon, whom Marion originally describes as having “outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite power of enjoyment” is all of 35. Marion also remarks that “a woman of seven and twenty can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.”  Their widowed mother, Mrs. Dashwood, is obviously too old to enjoy anything but the successes of her children.  She’s 40.

What a difference two centuries can make.

When actress Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and then starred in the movie as Elinor, she was 36, nearly twice the character’s stated age.  Shortly afterwards, she married the handsome actor who played the feckless Willoughby and gave birth to their first child in 1999, when she was 40.

In England when the book was written, average live expectancy varied from the 30s-50s, depending on your class and where you lived.  Now in the U.S. it’s nearly 80.  Far from being “over the hill,” many 35-year-olds have just gotten married and had kids and won’t be considered middle age for another 10 to 15 years.  Not only have our life expectancies changed, but so have our ideas about what is appropriate for each age. The screen is replete these days with beautiful actresses hovering around 60-Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon-who star in romances.

Graduate education reflects this trend.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics, as reported in “Older, and Wiser, Students” in the New York Times October 22, 2008, graduate students older than 50 grew by 38 percent between 2001 and 2005, up to about 173,000.  Older folks are enrolling at twice the rate of their younger peers.

MALS students like Julie Goodwin and others are perfect examples of this trend.  Goodin, a dog trainer and retired veterinary assistant, earned her undergraduate degree at 68! Lillian and Wood Nordenholz, both in their 70s, decided to pursue a degree together. Martha Alexander, 71  and former MALS student, now heads the State Appropriations Committee. Frances Caroline Webber, 67, a retired businesswoman who worked in Mexico, plans to earn her Ph.D. in Latin American History and then teach after finishing the MALS program.. This trend is not limited to men.  Though Norman Plaks, Ph.D., had to stop out of the program, he remains the teaching assistant for MALS610: Biorhythms at 82.

What’s age got to do with it?  These days, apparently not much.  I wonder:  What would Jane Austen say?

I am currently taking advantage of one of the many benefits of being a graduate of the MALS program; I’m auditing a wonderful class, Writing Your Life, which is taught by Dr. Chris Poulos, Associate Professor in the Communications Department. This class is a crystal clear reminder to me of why I loved the MALS program so much and was so sad to have it come to end when I graduated in 2005. The choices of courses in MALS are endless, mind-stretching, enticing, creative, and above all, challenging.

The Writing Your Life class is my first writing class in several years and like any writing course could be viewed as intimidating, even for the most seasoned writer. For one, writing about and delving into one’s past life is not always easy or fun. This class breaks down those barriers and fears. The manner in which Chris teaches is fun, creative, and engaging. This class is stretching my thinking about memoir writing and getting me to think about the act of writing in a way that I haven’t done in a long time. Chris has brought a renewed love of writing back to me. I was on a business trip recently and took my journal with me (a part of our class work) because, thanks to this class, writing has become integral to my life again. Chris teaches in a style that has promoted a sense of community, making sharing personal experiences easy and not fearful. Chris teaches from the heart and is able to get his students to write from the heart. It is truly fulfilling, enjoyable, and possibly life changing for most of us.

Writing Your Life is an example of the excellent experiences you will receive if you dip your toe into the creative waters of MALS. What are you waiting for?

by Coventry Kessler

When I was asked to write a GLS blog on the topic, “What is the good life?” I honestly did not know what to say.  I’m an epigram person.  A quick snappy saying always does it for me.  So, a number I have clung to over the years sprang to mind.

“Any day above ground is a good day.”  That’s one I learned to prize after going through breast cancer (fortunately now 15 years ago).

“A book, a bed, a rainy day, and a 3-lb bag of M&Ms.” That was my motto at 235 lbs.  Every once in a while, it’s still tempting.

“Exactly how much fun can I have before I go to hell?”  That one probably doesn’t need much explanation.

But over the years, the saying that has most closely captured my own feeling is by Sigmund Freud:

“Every man needs productive love and productive work.”

Of course, sexist old 19^th century Sigmund was a product of his time and left out the ladies (putz!). We all long for work and love that means something and goes somewhere, no matter what sex, orientation, ethnicity, size, shape, or color we are, blue N’avi included.  Thank goodness the doors are much more open than they used to be.

But defining the good life is also intensely personal.  I much doubt that Troy Polamalu would find plowing through “Learned Optimism,” “The Ghost Map,” and “Twilight” his idea of a good time, and while plowing into the tackling sled sounds like fun, it’s not something I’m planning to do any time soon.  The circumstances of our own life—the possibilities open to us—also shape our feelings about the good life.

This year I turned 63—still “young enough” and healthy, but old enough to have endured the losses that come with any reasonably long life:  parents, grandparents, in-laws, darling friends.  People I would fall down and give thanks to speak with once more.  And so for me, the good life is to cherish those you love and hope like hell they cherish you.  Without those we love, what are we?  As the Torah says, besides that, everything else is commentary.

by MALS Graduate Jean McDowall

I’ve been spending a great deal of time in my studio these days, painting hollyhocks in summer gardens in defiance of the wintery views from my north window. I’ve also been thinking about MALS and synchronicity and how these two are somehow responsible for the fact that I am here in this studio at all.

Synchronicity has been on my radar screen ever since I first heard about it in the MALS Creative Process class taught by Dr. Jo Leeds. I remember at the time thinking, Wow! That is so cool! (Clearly I do remember the 60s!)

Ever since, I’ve kept a list of synchronous  events. Like when we discussed a somewhat obscure book, which suddenly was mentioned on NPR and PBS and in the New Yorker the very next week.  I wrote it down. Over the years, the list has grown and grown.

In class, a comment Dr. Leeds made—and a project she suggested—started me thinking of how much I’d like to paint. It was such a bizarre idea! But slowly over the next few years, I found myself drawn in some almost unexplainable way into the realm of art. Often, MALS was a part of this.

For example, I traveled to Italy and stayed at Tenuta di Spannocchia in Tuscany, as part of the Sustainable Food and Culture class led by Charlie Headington. When I wasn’t soaking up Etruscan culture and sampling the wine, olives, and prosciutto, I found myself thinking of how I’d love to capture the light of those beautiful hills, or to sketch the Cinta Senese pigs the way Deb Bettini did so well.  Somehow the path Jo Leeds had pointed out kept unwinding in new directions.

I wasn’t doing much with painting, though. For starters, I did not know how to draw or how to find a teacher—or even if I was supposed to do something so out of my comfort zone. But MALS has a way of doing this, doesn’t it, exposing you to radical new ideas and different ways of seeing the world?  Anyway, fast forward to the fall 2008.  There I was, wandering through an art exhibit in Winston-Salem, thinking about painting, when I had one of those incredible synchronicity moments. On an easel in front of me was an oil portrait of—Graziella Capanni?

What? Graziella was one of the talented cooks at Spannocchia in Tuscany who routinely brought those glorious meals of leek soup and wild boar and polenta and tiramisu to our table.

And here she was, smiling down at me in North Carolina, two years and thousands of miles later.  It was—astonishing. I ended up buying the painting (how could I not?) and, in the way synchronicity happens, met the artist who introduced me to another artist who was (drum roll here) giving art lessons to beginners.  So, of course, I signed up. Two years later, here I am, painting hollyhocks and reflecting on Spannocchia and MALS and how everything connects. Life—and MALS—are so full of surprises. And synchronicity.