Memorials are for the living
Happy New Year and a quick hello
Hello friends,
How is life? It’s lovely to be back with you in 2025. I’m deeply into writing my family history book at the moment, so sightings of me are rare. But hope you survived the holiday season and all the world events natural or otherwise which have buffeted our hearts and bodies these past few months.
Apart from saying hello, I wanted to sketch out my year ahead. My main engagements continue to be family stories, developing my Difficult Conversations theatre show, doing the odd media feature story and hopefully teaching some Pilates.
I can’t stress how vital it is for researchers and writers to keep moving, however urgent the work is. Whatever exercise you enjoy, do more of it. Schedule it. Don’t overthink it, don’t neglect it. Make yourself get out of the chair at least every hour. Do something that makes you a bit breathless during your breaks. Exercise is the most potent longevity drug (quoting Peter Attia) A broken body will only set you back in the future.
As for the soul, for the readers and storytellers among us, I highly recommend the interview I did this week with Evalogue.Life’s Rhonda Lauritzen. She’s a teacher and biographer from Utah, and our conversation was part four of my six part series Forget-Me-Not: How We Memorialise, a collaboration with
. Rhonda is a warm, engaging communicator so I hope you’ll enjoy the session. You can find the interview here and in fact this is the homepage for the series, so feel free to check out the other discussions too.
Many great observations. My favourite comment which gave me so much food for thought was:
“What is the purpose of a memorial if not to bring the living together?” -Rhonda Lauritzen
May I suggest you bookmark the final two upcoming episodes? February’s conversation is with the Wall Street Journal’s former obituary writer James R. (Bob) Hagerty. He’s the author of Yours Truly, quite the best book I’ve read on the craft of obituary writing. You can register for our event here. Please check your timezones, but it’s happening on Tuesday 18 Feb/Wednesday 18 Feb 2025.
And in March, the lucky last episode is Australian author Ailsa Piper whose memoir For Life has deeply touched readers since its publication in October. Described as a memoir of living and dying - and flying, Ailsa has previously written about pilgrimages, walking, meditation and grief. She has a voice like melted 75% chocolate and I know you will love listening to her. This episode is on Tuesday 19 March/Wednesday 18 March 2025 (again, please check your timezones) Register here.
I always look forward to your comments and hope to see you very soon.
Good to hear your plans for the new year. It sounds busy! Have read Ailsas book Sinning Across Spain and also Dr Attias’ book. I wish I’d heard about Dr Attia twenty years ago but he says it’s never too late to start exercising - thank goodness for that!