Whispering Wisdom: Meet Melinda Blau, NY Times Best Selling Author Of The New Book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides To A Long Life Of Grit, Grace And Laughter
Whispering Wisdom: Meet Melinda Blau, NY Times Best Selling Author Of The New Book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides To A Long Life Of Grit, Grace And Laughter
July 31, 2024
We know that agebuzz subscribers are enthusiastic book readers! We’re therefore excited to share with you the interview that agebuzz Managing Editor Connie Zuckerman recently conducted with Melinda Blau, a New York Times Best Selling author of 16 books, whose new book, The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides To A Long Life Of Grit, Grace And Laughter will be published on August 6th. The book introduces readers to nine admirable women in their 90s and 100s whose paths to aging illuminate the joys of the journey and its roadblocks. Melinda calls these friends “my old ladies” and now, at 80, she proudly joins their ranks. We hope you enjoy the interview and we encourage you to snap up this book as soon as it’s available!
CZ: Melinda, we’re excited to be able to share this interview with agebuzz readers! You’re a New York Times bestselling author of 16 books, with a long and distinguished career as a journalist and freelance writer, and now, at age 80, you have a brand new book out called “The Wisdom Whisperers.” It’s inspired by the relationships you’ve developed along your journey with older women who’ve made the most of their long lives and have experiential wisdom to share. Thank you for allowing us to interview you about this new book! Can you first tell us about your early days? Where did you grow up? What were the important relationships and sources of wisdom you had as a young person?
MB: I grew up in Staten Island and lived there until I was 18 when my parents moved to Manhattan. Because my sister and brother were 11 and 9 years older, they were both out of the house by the time I was 6. I would later describe myself as the youngest and the only child. I had no awareness of “wisdom” as a child, but in retrospect, it was my aunt Ruth, my father’s youngest sibling. She looked like a movie star and always spoke to me as an adult. A friendship–beyond aunt and niece–developed and became more reciprocal when we were in our respective 30s and 50s. Our relationship was the template for my future bonds with much older women.
CZ: As a writer making her way in the world, did you have mentors or older colleagues who helped guide you in your career?
MB: I have been extremely lucky twice in my career, first in educational publishing, and then in journalism. Steve Brown, managing editor at the Random House School and Library Division, identified my strength as a communicator, noting I was “great at digesting a body of knowledge and regurgitating it in a way anyone could understand.” Steve was also ahead of his time, allowing me to work at home after my first child was born, an unheard-of arrangement in 1969.
In 1977, I left educational publishing – where if something could be said in ten words, you used twenty – for journalism, where ten words must be whittled down to five. At New York magazine, I met T. George Harris, a legendary reporter and magazine mavin who had recently transformed Psychology Today and would go on to found American Health. After nursing me through three ponderous drafts of my first piece, he said, “Blau! You skip through life. Why are you lumbering on paper?”
Both Steve and T. George whisper in my ear whenever I sit down to write!
CZ: You’ve centered your writing on a range of relationships in life: family relationships, parenting relationships, and now the important relationships you’ve had as you’ve grown older. What led you to this topic and what have you learned overall about the place and importance of relationships in life?
MB: My fascination with relationships started at home, watching my parents and two much older siblings, eavesdropping on their conversations, and pondering their interactions. As I’ve gotten older, I have learned that relationships are everything. They reflect who you are and determine how you fare and what opportunities cross your path. I’ve studied and written about intimate relationships as well as the “consequential strangers” you meet through work or school and wherever you pray or play. The close and the casual matter. Hence, I always say, if you’re good at relationships, you’re good at life.
CZ: What inspired you to specifically write The Wisdom Whisperers? Can you give us a brief description of the book and some of the important women you profile?
MB: I unwittingly began cultivating relationships with much older women in 1989, when I enrolled in a fiction-writing class at the New School and walked into a “roomful of old people.” I certainly wasn’t in the market for a 78-year-old friend, but Henrietta’s courage caught my eye. She was legally blind and walked with a cane but that didn’t stop her from bopping around Manhattan. I was severely nearsighted as a child and, later, afraid of “someday” going blind. So despite my reluctance, I pursued the friendship. I wanted what Henrietta had!
After Henrietta came Zelda and Betty and Sylvia. And by the time I met Marge, I was pushing 70 myself. None of these women are celebrities or super-agers. But each one had something I admired. They were living their lives, for better and worse, ahead of me on the path, giving me a preview of what the nineties and hundreds could bring. As I write in the book, “To be sure, aging has a downside. Life itself does. But at least we can decide how to react.”
CZ: You’ve called the women featured in the book “my old ladies.” But clearly, one of the most important points of your book is that too often, the word “old” connotes a fragile, limited life. How have the women you write about changed your perception of what it means to be “old”?
MB: That’s what they are: my much older friends. Friends and colleagues pushed back when I used the phrase: “You can’t call them old ladies – that’s insulting.” Such reactions only made me dig in my heels. We need to give a more positive meaning to the adjective old, which describes years in existence, nothing else. My old ladies are engaged and energetic. They wake up each morning with a sense of gratitude and purpose. They are determined to be independent and, at the same time, know the importance of asking for and accepting help. They have had misfortunes and sorrow but also the confidence to take stock, adapt, and move on.
How have these relationships changed me? I’ve had a front-row seat to the vagaries of aging. While I have my own unique destiny, not theirs, I carry my old ladies with me. I learned everyday strategies and life-enhancing practices from these women. And I came to understand what I call “Nexts” – sudden crises or gradual transitions that cause you to reassess and possibly make different choices. I have my moments, but for the most part, I am not afraid of what might be around the corner. If my old ladies can survive, so can I. And today, I proudly – and subversively – refer to myself as an old lady!
CZ: What are the important relationships you cherish now that you yourself are 80?
MB: I cherish relationships up and down the age ladder. Five of the nine women I write about are still living, and I continue to keep an eye out for others like them, although now I have to settle for a smaller age difference! My friend Patricia is 85, still ahead of me on the path. At the other end of the age continuum are young people who give me energy, introduce me to new experiences, and marvel at how I live. One of my best moments was at my friend Frederick’s 35th birthday party when he told me I was his old lady, explaining, “You give me hope about aging.”
CZ: What would you say is the most important lesson you have learned from writing “The Wisdom Whisperers”?
MB: Live until you die. Stay present, be aware of life swirling around you, and continue to dive in. Convince yourself you’re okay. Be like Diana, the mother of a friend who I’ve written about in several articles on aging. After a lifetime on the golf course, she was sidelined by injury at 98 and confined to a wheelchair. One of her still-mobile contemporaries asked, “How can you stand it? You’ve been active your whole life,” to which Diana replied, “You make your own happiness.”
CZ: For readers who find themselves alone or have difficulty developing meaningful relationships in their later years, what advice do you have?
MB: Don’t isolate yourself. Change up your routine to include opportunities to meet new people. For example, if you live in a neighborhood or a city, take walks and start conversations with strangers. Even a momentary exchange can be rewarding. Seek out safe places to find new people – a Y or gym, a house of worship, a school that offers social groups. Tune into yourself as you relate to another person and respect your own feelings. Particularly, if you have a history of “bad” relationships, you might be ignoring an internal voice that says, be careful. Look for reciprocity in relationships. The other person should be as interested in getting to know you as you are to know him/her. Start slowly. Relationships develop over time and are of the two of you, a unique “container” into which you each pour your personality and your pasts.
CZ: Will you be doing book signings or speaking engagements in coordination with the publication? How would a reader come to find out about where to see you in person?
MB: I hope I will. I have interviews in the works. The first was an Instagram Live with @Barbara Biziou on Wednesday, July 24, at 12:30 PM EDT. You can watch it here.
I’ll be reading excerpts from the book on the upcoming August 14 Crow’s Feet podcast, celebrating the community’s fifth-year anniversary. I was first interviewed by Crow’s Feet in January of 2023 before I began writing the book. Tune in to hear some of my much-older friends’ voices: Crow’s Feet Podcast: My Old Ladies: How Women in Their 90s & 100s Inspire Me on Apple Podcasts.
Readers can find me at MelindaBlau.com where I’ll post upcoming appearances. For media inquiries: Judy Twersky, PR, [email protected] (917) 597-5384
CZ: What do you think is next for you now that you’ve completed this book?
MB: I feel blessed to be doing what I love, surrounded by family, friends, and oodles of acquaintances in New York, Miami, and Paris. It’s the perfect vantage point for a writer who calls herself a “social observer.” When asked whether this is my “last” book, I laugh. As long as my mind holds out, I’ll write until the day I die.
CZ: Any final thoughts you’d like to share with agebuzz readers?
MB: Over the ten years or so that I thought about this book and finally wrote it, one or two younger friends like Frederick called me their old lady. Still, I mostly concentrated on the benefit of having much older friends. Finishing the book a few weeks after my 80th birthday, I now appreciate the gift of being a younger person’s “old lady.” It’s amazing and wonderful to be respected and admired as a “good” old person! I say to my contemporaries: be the best old lady (or man) you can be – and I intend to keep striving for that goal.
Award-winning journalist Melinda Blau has been researching, writing, and speaking about relationships and social trends for more than fifty years. Her 16th book, The Wisdom Whisperers, is her most personal and important to date. It introduces readers to nine admirable women in their 90s and 100s whose paths to aging illuminate the joys of the journey and its roadblocks. Melinda calls these friends “my old ladies” and now, at 80, proudly joins their ranks