Stubborness or vitality?

When you reach a certain ‘vintage’, people expect you to slow down. Your body may expect you to slow down. What if you do not want to slow down? What if you want to start something new?

In Italian, there is the phrase ‘tirare i remi in barca’, i.e. pull the oars (back) on the boat. It is often used when people talk about retirement. Think of somebody who stops rowing and lets the boat drift. I’d rather use the American metaphor ‘my third act’ to describe my life at the moment. It is an appropriate way to describe where I am now, irrespective of how old I am.

Life pushed me to re-invent myself twice. The first time was a reaction to events, the second time was a decision prompted by an acquisition. I decided I did not want to work in that environment any more. I always wanted to write fiction and had tried many times to write short stories with mixed results. They did not pass the ‘Will I still like it tomorrow?’ test. Then lockdown happened, and I stumbled into the London Writers Salon, a community of writers that meet online ‘alone but together’. That gave me the habit of writing fiction every day. It was the beginning of my third act: becoming a writer.

I started a new career at the tender age of 66. Three years later; I self-published three books. It is not my retirement hobby; it is my third act. I expect to earn money once I learn how to promote my books better (at the moment, it sustains itself). I have developed a ‘method’ to write a story. My ‘craft’ still needs polishing. I hope I will still take the time to refine it. Lack of progress, or lack of growth, is the first step towards ‘tirare i remi in barca’. I have no intention of spending my days drifting towards the time to go to bed and start another day in isolation (either physically or psychologically).

There is an entrepreneurial element to being a self-published author. I run a small publishing company with only one author, yours truly. Writing and publishing are a continuous learning curve. Two years ago I would not have dared talk about my ‘method’ or my ‘craft’, now I do. I have learnt a lot about the publishing industry, and have acquired a vocabulary. I now use terms like blurb, inciting incident, turning point, and editorial plan. Some of it is creative, some of it is managerial. Each book is a mini-business plan, a product I have to price, assess promotion costs, and estimate the number of copies I have to sell to reach the break-even point.

I have an interesting set of precedents in my family. Health stopped my mother and my grandmother from being active almost at the same age. My mother was six months short of turning 88 when a stroke made her stop being a dressmaker, my grandmother was 88 and a few months when the lymphatic issues in her leg that plagued her for most of her life made it almost impossible for her to keep practising law. I have already outlived my father and my grandfather, so if I have taken after my female ancestors, I have about 18 years to go. Camilleri, the author of the ‘Commissario Montalbano’ series, published the first book in his seventies and wrote past his nineties. His books were translated into several languages and turned into a successful TV series, one of the few that Italian TV stations exported all over the world.

My third act is not the only thing that I do not want to stop. I still have places to go, people to see. Moving around is complicated now, my back complains a lot. Still, I have no intention of stopping. Fifty years ago, I would walk or use public transport with luggage. Now it is either convenient (like taking the train to go from my home in London to Heathrow Airport) or I call a taxi. The same when I arrive. If I cannot afford comfort, I stay home. Fifty years ago, I would have adjusted my travelling style to my budget.

Whatever my body tells me, I still have new things I want to learn and new experiences I want to try. The difference between stubbornness and vitality purely rests on my determination to do things despite my body making it more complicated. My mind is not fried yet, therefore there is a part of me that still thinks I am in control and I can do new things, or keep doing what I like.

I will go hiking again. I just have to wait for my next injection, so I can ease myself back into it when the back does not hurt. In the meantime, when I travel through airports that require long walks, I book assistance and allow somebody to drive me in one of those electric vehicles that my children used to wish they could use when they were walking to the departure gate, quite a long walk in some airports.

There is a line in a 1930s US song in one of the early Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films that goes “Some folks call it music, my folks call it noise”. Paraphrasing that line, some people call what I described vitality, my people (family and close friends) call it stubbornness. Whatever you want to call it, the oars of my metaphorical boat are still in the water.

My book “Elena’s Memory” had an excellent review on Reedsy Discovery. 

“Dashed through this in virtually one sitting, constantly engaged by twists and turns that dictate this mystery's path... “

https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/elena-s-memory-silvano-stagni#review

All my books are available on Amazon