I’ve been reading this is getting old: Zen thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity by Susan Moon. Let me start by saying that I found it a great read for people like me who have passed sixty years of age. I’d also recommend it to people whose mothers and grandmothers have reached that age—or older of course.

I experienced jolts of familiarity throughout the book, especially in Moon’s chapter entitled “The Tomboy Returns.” I grew up on my grandfather’s farm where my sister and I climbed trees, waded mud puddles, rescued naked baby mice, and played horse and rider. (I was the horse.)

Then we grew breasts and got periods. Unlike Ms. Moon, we operated ‘business as usual” and our families treated us the same, although we had to wear dresses to school. At school, I did pay for my rough curiosity, though, when I myself wanted to be seen as feminine—and the tree climbing had nothing to do with it. Back then, girls weren’t supposed to be smart, to raise their hands and answer questions in class. No dates for me.

At work the rule was that we had to wear skirts and nylon stockings. When challenged once, coming back in from the field, I remarked that I would wear them in the field when the challenger allowed me to watch him clamber through native prairie grasses or change a tire in a dress and stockings.

But back to Ms. Moon’s book and the tomboy. Her point was to recommend we return to some of our tomboy ways as we retire and have more time. She suggested that we can resurrect the spirit of those children although our bodies may not do all our younger ones could.

Most of her book counseled acceptance of our limitations while taking care of ourselves in order to reduce our limitations and lengthen the time we don’t have them.

Again, I recommend this book, not only to those of us who are aging, but also to the people who love us. Often those loved ones’ assumptions about aging hurt the worst.