Seventy

In one of Virginia Woolf’s last diary entries she wrote: “Observe perpetually. Observe the oncome of age. By that means it becomes serviceable.” And that’s what I find myself doing. I’m both a participant in and an observer of my aging, and I find it a fascinating journey and a rich resource for my writing.

“Seventy” is my latest essay, in which I quit beating around the bush & out myself in big bold numbers. It’s just been published in the print journal Stonecoast Review.

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About Alice Lowe

I am a freelance writer, avid reader and Virginia Woolfophile in San Diego, California. My personal essays have been published in more than 90 literary journals and can be followed on my blog: www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com. I have published essays and reviews about Virginia Woolf, including two monographs in the Bloomsbury Heritage Series published by Cecil Woolf Publishers, London: "Beyond the Icon: Virginia Woolf in Contemporary Fiction," and "Virginia Woolf as Memoirist."
This entry was posted in Essays, Reading and Writing, Virginia Woolf. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Seventy

  1. Pingback: Alice Lowe on Woolf, aging, writing — and getting a tattoo | Blogging Woolf

  2. Kristin says:

    Wonderful essay, Alice!

  3. Some older people worry about the physical issues of ageing, but it’s the societal values that make getting older seem fine or tragic. Especially the advent of becoming ‘invisible’ to the younger generation. Your essay has given me much to think about.

  4. kate seeley says:

    thank you alice. a friend has recently suggested that i would enjoy reading your writing… i do.
    (i am nearly 72 by the way.) your thoughts on invisibility reminded me to listen again to john prine’s
    insightful dear song, ‘hello in there’. takes only a moment to smile, to brighten a day, to lift a spirit.
    he says it so well.
    i have other useful equipment i carry that adds to others ways of not seeing me clearly or at all…
    pity – i still know how to be a friend!

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