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Friday, May 24, 2013

Guest Post from Boomer Lit Author Shelley Lieber (Elyse Grant)


Having a Boomer Moment  

It’s my pleasure to introduce a new concept to you today: The Boomer Moment.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “Senior Moment,” which is usually associated with a symptom of aging such as forgetfulness or memory loss. The Boomer Moment is the exact opposite. It is a moment of perfect elucidation, when everything becomes crystal clear and you glean an insight or see the “big picture” in a way afforded to you only by way of years of life experience.

I had such a moment spark last month when in a two-week period I experienced the joy of my granddaughter’s first birthday directly followed by the loss of two friends.

In her one year here so far, my granddaughter Lacie has given me a royally good lesson in how to enjoy life. From the moment I held her for the first time and felt the freshness of new life, I’ve been struck by her complete wonderment as she delights in almost every experience. If you want to learn how to “be in the moment,” watch a baby. EVERYTHING is new, cool, interesting, possible. No words, no judgment, everything just is, and it’s all good.

Watching (and delighting in) my granddaughter these twelve months, I began to realize how much of that wonderment attitude I had lost. Like most adults, I have layers of experiences to screen and filter my views of the world and how I interpret life's events.

But I yearned to be able to recapture the bliss we’re born to experience, the beauty of the “is-ness” of the moment. I didn’t have a clue on how to do it. I could briefly enjoy bursts of that feeling by just watching her, or relishing the beauty of the Western North Carolina mountains where I live, or by savoring a delicious meal. But I could not routinely sustain the feeling.

A few days after Lacie’s first birthday party (a veritable feast of Lacie lessons in how to have fun), we received word that a dear friend has passed, and less than 24 hours after that, another friend. Although saddened, we celebrated their lives. They had both enjoyed successful careers and had been blessed with good marriages, children, and grandchildren.

Yet, for me, their deaths brought to the surface an awareness of my own mortality for the first time. Being more conscious of death’s certainty didn’t leave me afraid to die, but more determined to live what remaining time I have in full-out Lacie mode.

But how? In a Boomer Moment, I realized that writing is the only thing that keeps me in the joy of the moment for as long as I’m involved in the process. I love it all—the days of unbridled inspiration when my fingers can’t keep up with my thoughts as well as the days of staring at the blank page, when I write and delete everything. I love the publishing process from end to end: writing, editing, design, marketing, EVERYTHING. Two of my favorite writer quotes come to mind.
“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel like I should be doing something else.” (Gloria Steinem) 
“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.” (Isaac Asimov). 
Finally, I know how to sustain the Lacie life, a life of joy, and I am so grateful to realize that I’m at an age when I can fully devote my time and attention to fulfilling my purpose, to filling my soul with joy. In fact, it seems foolish to do anything else.

If you've had a Boomer Moment, please share it in the comments below.


About the Author
Shelley Lieber is an author with a split personality. As The Wordy Woman, publishing consultant, she wrote 4Ps to Publishing Success and Publishing Made Easy & Profitable. Shelley is the originator and owner of this blog, Boomer Lit Friday, and the Facebook group, VIP Authors.

Her wilder side writes erotic fiction under the pen name Elyse Grant. The Prince Charming Hoax is her debut novel. A third personality common to both Shelley and Elyse is Vegan Novelist, who blogs about vegan food and lifestyle when not writing books.

Shelley is what native North Carolinians call a “halfback.” Originally from New York, she moved to Florida, then to North Carolina. Shelley now lives in Asheville, NC, with her husband, who is remarkably patient and skillful at adjusting to her personality switches.


Connect with Shelley

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19 comments:

  1. I love the concept of the Boomer Moment, those big picture moments when we can separate the wheat from the chaff and realize what is truly important. I have to agree that writing is one of those special activities that beckons me away from the mundane into a special place. Lovely post.

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    1. Thanks, Beth. I feel so fortunate to have a calling that can fulfill and sustain me.

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  2. I love the concept. I need to type a little faster.

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  3. I keep having variations of the same Boomer moment. The first time it came was through writing my book Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother. It's a book about grappling with a need for permission to be who you are. The second time I had the moment was slightly different, but because it's not a spoiler, I'll share the insight: In a sense, I witnessed something I thought I'd wanted when I was much younger and I didn't get it. In a moment of radiant clarity, I realized that even if I'd gotten it, I'd be done with it now. I'm at a stage of alternately inertia, doneness, and transition to I-know-not-what. And I realized that this would be happening no matter what because it's not connected to any story or achievements or lack of achievements. It's just where I am physically, psychologically and spiritually. And it feels like a relief to know that.

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    1. I think these Boomer Moments actually "youthenize" us!

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  4. Thank you for giving us "The Boomer Moment," the perfect name for those great moments of clarity and perspective that we all hope to have. We can find passion and wonderment at any age!

    Marian

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  5. We need to cherish and share our special boomer moments. Thanks for introducing the concept and a great blog.

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    1. Thank you, Michael, for your kind feedback...and for helping make this a great blog with your contributions ;-)

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  6. Thank you Shelley, for giving me a new word to describe my "moments". ;) I love it! A boomer myself, I wrote about menopause and I believe that as women, it gives us a clarity and a focus that we did not have in our younger years! Here's to boomers!

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    1. Yes! I like to call it "wisdom." ;-) Thanks so much for your comments.

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  7. My boomer moment came this week. My Dad passed away on Tuesday. Of course, being the writer in the family, I was charged with writing his obituary. So what did I do? I wrote two: one for the public, and one just for me. The one just for me was full of wickedly funny humor and tidbits I would never even share with the rest of my family. That's the one he really would have wanted. Instead of bawling, I laughed my head off. My version is going in the safe.

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    1. I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Special thanks go to you for sharing your Boomer Moment, which would be my preference, too!

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  8. Shelley, thank you so much for sharing your feelings so candidly. I don't know if you've had a chance to read my Mutinous Boomer book yet or not, but that's essentially what it's about. I had lost the "twinkle in my eye" or as you put it, that sense of joyfulness that comes so naturally when we're younger. My book is about the process I went through to reconnect with that "twinkle." I love your term: The Boomer Moment. Perfect. In fact, I've found that we have to have them every single day to stay in that wonderful place of appreciating every moment. And when tough things happen, we have to remind ourselves how precious life is. Thanks again, for sharing, Shelley. A beautiful post - my favorite of yours, so far!

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    1. Marsha, I'm so glad you enjoyed the post! I think the spirit of the Boomer Moment and what you describe in your book is the essence of what characterizes our generation and sets it apart from all others.

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  9. Wonderful post, Shelly! I think I have boomer moments all the time and they are a great influence on my writing. Enjoyed reading this.

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    1. Thank you, Sharon. I'm so pleased at the response of other boomers and boomer lit authors to the concept of the enlightening "boomer moment."

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  10. Thanks for sharing your boomer moment and it's been fun reading through the comments here...I love this so-very-American approach to aging, making it into NOTHING like a descent into old age but as a fantastic opportunity to stat a NEW chapter in life!

    There are times the "twinkle in my eyes" as Marsha would define it, or "sustaining the Lacie life" as you put it, would be something I would love to be able to achieve. But it can be very hard, especially as a typical boomer sandwiched between my Mom (turning 100 this year) and my grown-up children, I find sometimes little space to breathe - not to mention how hard it is to watch a person you love (my Mom) descend into truly old age, a place from where you don't come back.

    I know that is a tragic dimension rejected vigorously by our Boomer Lit Goodreads Group members and I applaud that. It is a sign of good health, of vibrant can-do optimism - as I said above, so very American. Wonderful!

    From a literary point of view, I'm not sure we should reject pessimism or a sense of the Passing of Time with so much passion. That is the stuff of tragedy and often of great literature: to be able to grasp the fragility of life, the good, yes, but the bad too.The strong and the weak. The whole of life. It's not necessarily all a walk in the sunshine, there's a shaded side to the street as well...

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    1. Thanks so much for your insightful observations, Claude. Indeed, it is the contrast of dark and light, good and bad, and weak and strong that gives rise to good literature. And so, we need not think that being in the moment and living life full out means that the contrast is not felt. Rather, it means having the consciousness to celebrate all of life—the ups and downs—because that is what gives us an appreciation of life as well as material for literature. From that perspective, it's possible to see the light even on on the darkest days.

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