Pat Taub
Still Life at Eighty is a reassuring memoir chock full of humor, irreverence, and wisdom. Abigail Thomas greets her old age with vulnerability and spunk, refusing to buy into the familiar worries that often accompany aging. She is refreshingly positive about aging.
Thomas has learned to love her solitude, shed guilty feelings, and be unapologetic about napping, or spending hours sitting by the window in a loveseat with her dogs, watching the birds in her back yard. Rather than worry about an ailing memory, she regards being reminded of what she’s forgotten as an achievement because it means, “I am finally living in the moment.”
“When I say I live in the present moment, it’s not a brag. Time makes no sense anymore, and the present is all I’ve got. It seems a fitting place for an eighty-year-old woman . . . I am beginning to understand that each day is a day unto itself. There’s no guarantee how much of Friday will survive the trip into Saturday. Things get left behind. A lot gets lost overnight. I have decided to accept it.”
A 2015 photo of Thomas with her beloved dogs
Abigail Thomas is in love with being old. She gushed to her radio interviewer, “I love old age. It’s lots more fun and easier than being young because you don’t give a hoot about things that used to be really important. I don’t care that I look old. . . . I’m invisible. I can do whatever I want and wear whatever I want. Being invisible is my magic power.”
Thomas’ comments on being invisible reminded me of Peggy Seeger’s song, “Here comes the invisible woman,” recorded when she was 85. Seeger echoes Thomas’ celebration of the freedom that comes with being invisible, no longer worrying about how others perceive her, which allows her to dress and act as she pleases.
While many elders might feel guilty lolling the day away, Thomas makes friends with these moments: “I can spend the better part of an afternoon waiting patiently for the back of my mind to make a way to the front, where I can discover what I’m thinking about without thinking anything.”
She muses, “At 80 you don’t expect to learn something new, at least not every day. However, I am learning something new every day. Granted, it’s the same thing, but I learn it over and over with the same startled awareness.” She might be referring to studying the spiders that randomly appear on her carpet, or the rapidly climbing wisteria on her porch.
Abigail Thomas at present, enjoying the occasional cigarette
Contemplating death, Thomas told her radio interviewer, “Death is the natural order of things. Our planet isn’t big enough to hold us all. Life would be boring if it went on forever. “Mortal” is a beautiful word. It rhymes with ‘portal,’ which sounds optimistic.”
“I’m not as bothered by the idea of fearing death as I am afraid of dying.” She shared what she learned from teaching writing workshops for cancer patients, “I’ve learned more about living from people that are dying. . . They taught me to talk about death and dying without being embarrassed.”
In keeping with her irreverent and playful humor, Thomas marked her 80th birthday with a tattoo that reads, “FTS,” which stands for “Fuck this shit.” She explains it’s directed at Trump.
Thomas signs off her spirited memoir with these words, “I’m an old woman picking up the pieces of the day, wondering where they might lead, loving the journey.”
