This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity

Susan Moon discusses and signs her book This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity (Shambhala, $14.95).

In this intimate and funny collection of essays on the sometimes confusing, sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious condition of being a woman over sixty, Susan Moon keeps her sense of humor and she keeps her reader fully engaged. Among the pieces she has included here are an essay on the gratitude she feels for her weakening bones; observations on finding herself both an orphan and a matriarch following the death of her mother; musings on her tendency to regret the past; thoughts on how not to be afraid of loneliness; appreciation for the inner tomboy; and celebratory advice on how to regard "senior moments" as opportunities to be in the here and now.  Moon uses detail vividly in her determination to make peace with the many failures of brain and body (from forgetting her Social Security number to wondering if she'll ever have sex again), and she reminds us that we are not getting old alone.

Susan Moon is a writer and longtime Zen Buddhist who teaches popular writing workshops, mostly in California. She is the former editor of Turning Wheel: The Journal of Socially Engaged Buddhism. She lives in Berkeley, California.