To pass some time travelling, I recently devoured the little book “Ripening Time: Inside Stories for Aging with Grace” by Sherry Ruth Anderson. It was refreshing to consider aging as a time of ripening instead of just the dreaded rusting out.

To ripen is to be fully grown and developed. The author’s favourite dictionary definition was: (a) brought about by aging to full flavour or the best state, mellow; and (b) smelly, stinking, as in ripe cheese. Growing old does provides the opportunity for us to mature into our full flavour as individuals. And the reality is that becoming less young can also be smelly, stinking and not always a grand adventure.

To ripen – not just grow up but to keep on maturing through our entire lives – takes great courage and great vulnerability. We can end up unripe, bitter, not able to reap the fruits of this life because overwhelming circumstances make us lose hope, or because we get tangled in our culture’s stories and lies about aging.

What inspired me about this passage was the conscious choice each one of us gets to make about how we will approach our own aging process. It is well documented what inevitably awaits us physically, the rusting out process … diminishments of eyesight, hearing, mobility, cognitive function, to name a few.

But what if, while this rusting out was happening, we could still choose to grow or mature on other levels? How would that flavour our experience of the aging process? And what difference would that make to society in general if we shared our human maturation as true elders?

After reading this book I made the decision to start approaching my own aging process from the naturally organic perspective of … a season of ripening … to continually grow and share, to ask questions and tackle the unknown, and for as long as I am able to … stay plump and juicy with life!

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt