Lifelong New Hampshire 2020

L I F E LO N G 2 02 0

A SPECIAL ISSUE OF

TIPS FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED AT ANY AGE Youth (20-40) to Midlife (40-60) to the “Third Half” of Adulthood (60+)

VICTORIA ARLEN

NEW HAMPSHIRE

ERNEST THOMPSON

VICTORIA’S

H E A LT H & W E L L N E S S A D V I C E

VICTORY and other inspiring stories of renewal, recovery and transformation in the Granite State

Also Inside:

AGE-SPECIFIC RESOURCES

Age-specific guides to healthy bodies and minds

Exeter’s Victoria Arlen

nhmagazine.com $6.99 Lifelong New Hampshire 2020

Jay Schadler’s

Live Free.

J AY S C H A D L E R

Featuring

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Contents 32

40

Victoria’s Victory

To say Victoria Arlen of Exeter has an inspiring story to tell is putting it mildly. See how she relearned how to walk, talk and eat again — and then went on to build an impressive, multifaceted career.

by Jess Saba

from left: photos by emily heidt, kendal j. bush and bruce luetters; inset photo of jay schadler by jared charney

24 Navigating

48

The Not-So-Secret Life of Matty Gregg

Acting Your Age

by Anders Morley

by Ernest Thompson, Estelle Parsons and John Davidson

Plenty of people dream of remaking their lives — Matty Gregg has actually done it. Multiple times, in fact. After running across the country to return home to New Hampshire, he plans what’s next.

Life’s Transitions

Who are you when you’re no longer defined by a job you loved? What happens when your life moves from one stage to the next? Former ABC News broadcaster Jay Schadler offers advice for embracing what’s around the corner.

Between these three artistic people who call the Lakes Region home, they have numerous awards (like Oscars), accomplishments and accolades.

Still, they continue to bring their dreams to life.

Resources

69 Resource Guide Ages 40-60

How do you handle the increasing demands of work and family?

Staying mindful — through nature, community or volunteering can help.

Here are resources and advice to get you started.

by Jay Schadler

First Things

18 Home No More

4 Contributors 10 Editor’s Note

Saying a final goodbye to a childhood house leads to discoveries of what truly makes a home.

Lives Well Lived

20 Anticancer Living

12 A Rhythm for Life

Parkinson’s patients find relief — and fun — through dance classes created just for them.

by Lynne Snierson

14 A Fiddler’s Tale

A special place in Ireland teaches a New Hampshire musician about the soul of music.

by Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki

16 Stories to Tell

Steve Taylor is on mission to record and preserve the history of Plainfield — one story at a time.

by Steve Taylor

Lifelong 2020

by Greg Kretschmar

Lessons in taking a positive role in your own healing process, and the tools to help with both cancer recovery and prevention.

by Meg Cadoux Hirshberg

22 Saved by the Ball

Recycled Percussion frontman Justin Spencer suddenly faced panic attacks and depression. Finding his way through changed his perspective on life. He shares the lessons he learned to help others find their true passion.

by Justin Spencer

by Michelle Veasey and Lisa Drake

57 Healthy Living Ages 20-40

Demographic information, plus expert advice for physical and mental well-being for those in the first stages of adulthood.

by Catherine Florio Pipas and Kelly Halldorson

Tools for young adults curated by Will Stewart, the executive director of Stay Work Play.

by Will Stewart

On The Cover Read Victoria Arlen’s inspiring story on page 32. Photo by Jared Charney

by Catherine Florio Pipas and Kelly Halldorson

AARP is dedicated to empowering people to choose how they live as they age. Who better to recommend the tools and resources you’ll need later in life?

by Pam Dube and Janelle Fassi of AARP

Demographic information, plus expert advice for physical and mental well-being for those in midlife.

by Catherine Florio Pipas and Kelly Halldorson

Demographic information, plus expert advice for physical and mental well-being for those ages 60 and above.

77 Resource Guide Ages 60+

61 Resource Guide Ages 20-40

65 Healthy Living Ages 40-60

73 Healthy Living Ages 60+

80 Humor

The old cliché goes that laughter is the best medicine, so here’s a good dose of it.

by Rebecca Rule

Volume 34, Number 2, ISSN 1560-4949 nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

3

Contributors While we here at New Hampshire Magazine know a thing or two about the state, when it comes to topics covered in this special issue — from healthcare to figuring out what comes after retirement — we needed some help. We reached out to a variety of people, some regular contributors, some new, with a range of life experiences and expertise to help us shape the first edition of Lifelong New Hampshire. All of them call New Hampshire home, and shared their stories and advice through the lens of living and working here.

for Lifelong 2020

Estelle Parsons

Actor, singer and director Estelle Parsons’ lengthy and successful career includes television, film and the stage.

She won an Academy Award for her role in “Bonnie and Clyde,” and was nominated the following year for “Rachel, Rachel.” She has either starred in or directed dozens of plays on and off Broadway, and was nominated for a Tony Award several times. On television, Parsons appeared in “All in the Family,” but is maybe best remembered as the mother of Roseanne on the eponymous show. She also taught acting at Columbia and Yale, and served as the artistic director for the “Actors Studio.” Parsons has kept a home in New Hampshire for all 92 years of her life.

Jay Schadler

Jay Schadler is a two-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, photographer and artist. He was correspondent and anchor for ABC News for 28 years, reporting for all major platforms including “20/20,” “PrimeTime,” “Good Morning America,” “World News” and “Nightline.” In addition, he has contributed special reports to National Geographic TV, Discovery, Bravo and PBS. He also operated his own studio and gallery for six years.

Ernest Thompson

Ernest Thompson has won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Writers Guild Award and Broadway Drama Guild Award for best play. His work has been nominated for a Tony, an Emmy and a British Academy Award. His more than 35 plays have been seen in theaters around the world. The most enduring, “On Golden Pond,” has been translated into 30 languages, Arabic the newest, and played in more than 40 countries on six continents. When asked how long he’s lived in the state, Thompson, whose parents lived in Walpole when he was born, replied, “I’ve never missed spend-

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nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

ing at least a few days in New Hampshire every year of my life so the math is fuzzy, but 70 years maybe as a Granite Stater at heart. Or 29 as a taxpayer.”

Lynne Snierson

Lynne Snierson is a freelance writer who covered the National Football League and Thoroughbred horse racing during her award-winning career as a sportswriter.

The Laconia native, who loves animals and is passionate about their welfare, lives in Salem with her retired champion Shetland Sheepdog Mavis. Snierson has lived in the Granite State since being born here in 1952.

Anders Morley is a freelance writer and translator from New Hampshire who grew up skiing cross-country and downhill throughout the state. He divides his time between eastern Ontario and southwestern New Hampshire.

Although he says he’s always considered New Hampshire his home, his family came here when he was 7 and he just turned 41, so he’s been an “on-and-off” Granite Stater for about 34 years.

Joe Klementovich

After graduating with an engineering degree from UNH, Joe Klementovich moved to the White Mountains to pursue rock and ice climbing. Various climbing trips with a point-and-shoot camera inspired him to grow his photography skills. Now he is an editorial and commercial photographer, covering everything from Mt. Washington to the Everglades. His work has appeared in a number of national publications.

photo of ernest thompson by bruce luetters; photo of jay schadler by jared cherney; all others courtesy

Anders Morley

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Lifelong

CONTRIBUTORS

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg is founder of The Anticancer Lifestyle Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting evidence-based lifestyle transformation for cancer survivors. For 15 years, she was a magazine freelance writer, and she also created the column “Balancing Acts,” which she expanded into her book “For Better or For Work: A Survival Guide For Entrepreneurs and Their Families.”

Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki

Goffstown native and lifelong New Hampshirite Justin Spencer is the frontman for Recycled Percussion. The band has performed all over the country, including at its own headline show in Las Vegas. He also founded LegacyX, with a mission of teaching people how to meet their goals and make their most outlandish aspirations come true.

Jess Saba

Freelance writer and New Hampshire native Jess Saba grew up between the White Mountains and the Seacoast. She uncovers stories of intrigue and delight across New Hampshire. She notes, “There was one year where I tried on life as a Colorado resident but couldn’t wait to switch my license back to New Hampshire.”

Jared Charney

Photographer Jared Charney’s work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Yankee magazine, Northshore Magazine, The Boston Globe and many other publications. For Charney, “photography unlocks doors and pulls down walls.” As someone who enjoys the study of people, he specializes in portraiture.

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Rebecca Rule

Rebecca Rule is a storyteller and the author of the adult titles “Live Free and Eat Pie!” and “Headin’ for the Rhubarb: A New Hampshire Dictionary (well, kinda)” and the award-winning children’s book “The Iciest, Diciest, Scariest Sled Ride Ever!”

She is also the author of three short story collections about New Hampshire. Rule says she has lived in New Hampshire for 65 years or, simply, “As long as I’ve been borned.”

Catherine Florio Pipas

Catherine Florio Pipas, MD, MPH, is a professor of community and family medicine at Dartmouth’s School of Medicine. Over the last 25 years, she has maintained a clinical practice at DHMC, and has served as assistant dean, vice chair, chief clinical officer and director of the Office of Community-Based Education and Research, and the director of Dartmouth’s Regional Primary Care Center.

Pamela Dube and Janelle Fassi

Pamela Dube (right) is the associate state director of communications for AARP New Hampshire. She has built her 25-year career working at large nonprofits in the Granite State. Janelle Fassi is a student at Saint Anselm College and an intern at AARP New Hampshire. She expects to graduate in 2021 with a degree in communication and psychology.

Bruce Luetters

After years as a graphic designer and art director, the advent of the iPhone inspired Bruce Luetters to explore photography beyond his design work. He ultimately redirected his creativity and started 3Sixty Photography.

His talents include a wide range of photography, from portraiture to landscapes.

courtesy photos

Justin Spencer

Jordan TirrellWysocki is an award-winning New Hampshire-based fiddler/singer who has been performing professionally for over two decades. He has toured nationally with bands in various genres, performed across Ireland and released multiple recordings of Celtic music. He is also an Emmy-nominated composer who has written soundtracks for audiobooks and television.

Building a healthier community

one connection at a time Since 1932, Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital has been a beloved community hospital in the Upper Connecticut River Valley. Today as a member of New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, we continue to evolve to meet the needs of our community, patients, and employees. We believe that kindness and caring makes all the difference.

We invite you explore career opportunities in one of New Hampshire’s most appealing regions at AlicePeckDay.org (603) 448-7484 • Lebanon, New Hampshire

Lifelong

CONTRIBUTORS

Gloria Diiani

Gloria Diiani, whose artwork you can see most months in New Hampshire Magazine, is a freelance illustrator who loves bold colors, playful characters and lots and lots of cute things.

Kelly Halldorson

The multitalented John Davidson was the host of “The Hollywood Squares” and “That’s Incredible!” as well as the guest host of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” He also costarred with Sally Field on the series “The Girl With Something Extra.” He’s performed in a number of Broadway musicals, including a revival of “Oklahoma,” for which he won a Theater Guild Award, and as the Wizard in “Wicked.” Among many other accomplishments, he’s appeared in movies and toured the country as a troubadour/singer/songwriter/storyteller.

Davidson has lived in New Hampshire for four years.

Lisa Drake

As the director of sustainability innovation at Stonyfield, the country’s leading organic yogurt maker, Lisa Drake has led the development and implementation of innovative strategies to advance the company on its sustainability journey since 2002. She is co-chair of the board of directors for New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility. Along with her husband, Drake is raising two teenage boys in Manchester while also pursuing her personal interests in yoga, dance and ice hockey. She has lived in New Hampshire since 2002.

Greg Kretschmar

Greg Kretschmar is best known in New Hampshire as the host of the radio show “Greg and The Morning Buzz,” but he’s also an accomplished photographer. A lifelong New Hampshire resident, he started taking photos as a hobby in 2008. Today, he’s built a portfolio of images that capture the beauty of New England and the Granite State.

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nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

Kendal J. Bush

In addition to serving as an alderman in Manchester, Will Stewart is the executive director of Stay Work Play, taking on the role of the organization’s key spokesperson and advocate for the attraction and retention of younger workers in New Hampshire.

Before calling the Monadnock Region home, photographer Kendal J. Bush traveled the world as an editor and videographer for the National Geographic Channel and NBC. She combines years of experience as a photojournalist with her film school education to yield colorful, creative portraits and corporate, wedding and event photography.

Steve Taylor

Michelle Veasey

Will Stewart

Steve Taylor is a scholar, farmer, journalist and longtime public official. With his sons, he operates a dairy, maple syrup and cheese-making enterprise in Meriden Village. He has been a newspaper reporter and editor, and served for 25 years as New Hampshire’s commissioner of agriculture. Taylor was the founding executive director of the New Hampshire Humanities Council and is a lifelong student of the state’s rural culture.

Michelle Veasey is the executive director of New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility, a statewide member-based organization that fosters environmentally and socially responsible business in New Hampshire. She and her husband built their home themselves (with the help of lots of friends) and raised two daughters in Atkinson. They have resided there since 1987. Michelle loves hiking, snowshoeing, boating, skiing and reading.

photo of john davidson by joe klementovich; all others courtesy

John Davidson

Kelly Halldorson is a lifelong New Hampshire resident minus a few wandering years in her early 20s. She is a self-described mental health doula, an advocate and an author. She supports families as they navigate the mental health system, teaches effective communication strategies, and helps mitigate the impact of crisis on the family. In 2010 she co-authored the memoir “Skeletons Don’t Sleep” with her husband Jeff. Her second book, “Navigating the Mental Health Sh*tStorm,” will be released in April.

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Lifelong

EDITOR’S NOTE

Our Declarations of “Zen-dependence” What would Gen. John Stark think of guru Baba Ram Dass?

By RICK BROUSSARD

There’s something peculiar about New Hampshire ­

— something hard to put your finger on.

The French speakers among us (of whom there are plenty here in the Granite State) might call it je ne sais quoi, loosely translated as something that cannot be adequately expressed, but I’m still going to try.

Wish me luck.

When I was just a newcomer to the state, I heard people say that I’d be considered one for at least 30 years. I’ve passed that milestone now but still feel a little fresh when in the same room with a “true” native like Steve Taylor (the self-described “farmer, writer and independent scholar” responsible for his famous “100 Things You Should Do to Know the Real New Hampshire”) or Rebecca Rule (humorist and author of “Live Free and Eat Pie” and a bunch of other books). Both those local characters appear in this special issue of New Hampshire Magazine that you are holding, so I can take some comfort in having 10

nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

backup, should I overreach a bit in my efforts at explaining things.

Typically, when people want to define the uniqueness of our state, they go to the most public evidence of it, the one that appears on our license plates and on the signs that greet all visitors: our state motto, “Live Free or Die.” Of course, not everyone “gets” Gen. John Stark’s pithy bumper sticker’s worth of wisdom and not everyone appreciates the sentiment. For those still scratching their heads whenever they read it, here’s my take. The message is not that life would not be worth living without freedom. It’s just that there are worse things than being dead. This in turn suggests that there is more to our lives than just living; that we are larger beings than is suggested by our contentious featherless-biped existence on this rough mortal coil. In other words, Gen. Stark’s philosophy goes a bit deeper, perhaps, than some people think. That’s probably why it is still repeated 200 years after the event at which it was originally read as a toast to fellow veterans of the Battle of Bennington, Stark’s last hurrah.

Stark stopped living free and died in 1822. Late last year, just as this issue of Lifelong New Hampshire was getting arranged on pages, a very different figure with a lesswell-known New Hampshire profile went on to his own heavenly reward­— a man named Baba Ram Dass.

Ram Dass was pretty famous back in the day, though a quick survey I conducted of the Gen Xers and Millennials in the office seems to place a discussion of him well into the “OK Boomer” category of contemporary relevance, so I’ll provide a little biography.

When Ram Dass first gained fame, he was still known as Dr. Richard Alpert. He

and fellow ’60s troublemaker Timothy Leary were both Harvard professors who became pioneers of the psychedelic revolution that made experimenting with mind-altering substances into a rite of passage for many of my generation. Leary carried on with his Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out mantra while Dr. Alpert studied Eastern mysticism, eventually finding his own guru in India. He returned with a philosophy best summed up in the title of his best-selling 1971 book that merged Hinduism and Zen Buddhist thought into a three-word manifesto: “Be Here Now.” Alpert took on the Hindu name Baba Ram Dass, which means “servant of God,”

Our diversity of landscape made us a sandbox for entrepreneurs, philosophers, artists, writers and political activists. Even for wild-haired gurus. and went on to introduce many in the West (including George Harrison of The Beatles) to such odd-at-the-time practices as yoga and meditation, but he got his start in the guru trade right here in the Granite State.

A New York Times story from 1971 described his return to the US from India thusly: His hair and beard had grown long and frizzled, his eyes milkily Messianic.

“Quick, get in the car before someone sees you,” said his father, a rich lawyer from Boston, when he picked up his 39-year-old son at Logan Airport. Ram Dass had disembarked barefoot, wearing a long white robe and carrying a tamboura for chanting.

In 1969, Ram Dass settled in at his

EDITOR’S NOTE

“Live Free or Die”

The immortal catchphrase of our own Gen. John Stark of Londonderry was excerpted from a toast he proposed in 1809 to commemorate the Battle of Bennington. The remainder of his admonition is “... death is not the greatest of evils.”

father’s New Hampshire estate in Franklin and set up his own ashram, sharing what he had learned with all comers. Many seekers arrived with tents, others simply desiring a spot on the floor to sleep or sit in lotus position and learn at the feet of their guru.

He returned to our state over the years and, after rendered silent by a stroke, continued to write here. His last book, released a year before his death, was “Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying.”

So, one man was a military leader who fought the British in the American Revolution, the other was a holy man who guided the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. What, besides a genius for brevity, did these two have in common?

One answer, of course, is New Hampshire.

Another is that both men left us with some simple instructions that have inspired many over many years. One set looks out boldly, declaring: “Live free or die, death is not the greatest of evils.” The other faces inward calmly, saying no matter where you might find yourself in time or space to remember, “Be here now.” One is a cry for human liberty

Lifelong

“Be Here Now”

The immortal catchphrase of our most famous resident guru appeared as the title of his 1971 book that introduced many Americans to Eastern spirituality. The phrase appeared four times in a mandala preceded by the word “Remember.”

at all cost, the other a call to human mindThe fact that our woods and mountains, fulness and peace in all situations. towns and cities are home to tree-huggers What’s peculiar about New Hampshire is and Free Staters, vegan peaceniks and moose its ability to embrace both these men and hunters, communitarians and hermits means both of their philosophies. Our hardscrabble, that whoever you are and whatever philosophy you choose to stick to your bumper, you independent ancestors’ calls to liberty were belong here too. Even in this era of red/blue music to the ears of young seekers in the last division, our politics drift local and we adhere century, and their creative quests back to to principle over party. the land fueled much of the culture we value Our state is similar to the orbits that today, from the weavers of the League of NH astronomers chart while seeking out inhabCraftsmen to the callers of the contra-dance itable worlds in deep space. They call it “the movement to the off-the-grid, net-zero, solar-powered settlers of the 21st century. Our Goldilocks zone,” where it’s neither too hot remoteness and diversity of landscape made nor too cold for life to exist. It’s the sweet us a sandbox for entrepreneurs, philosophers, spot where interesting things can happen. artists, writers and political activists. Even for While I’m not suggesting that we add wild-haired gurus.

“Be Here Now” to our welcome signs at the The cast of characters who helped us border, I’m pretty sure the phrase would be create this special issue of New Hampshire a better marketing slogan for tourism and it Magazine is similarly diverse (see our list might serve as a reminder to residents, both of contributors starting on page 4). Some lifelong and brand new, that there’s really no have lived here nearly a century, some just better place to be. arrived in the last few years. Some, like me, are still recovering from their “newcomer” status, but most, I think, would love to be known as lifelong New Hampshire residents. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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LIVES WELL LIVED

Instructor Kendra Viviers and Wright Danenbarger

A Rhythm for Life

In the immortal words of Bob Marley, “Forget your troubles and dance”

BY LYNNE SNIERSON

P

atients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which is a progressive and incurable nervous system disorder, can’t escape its debilitating and cruel symptoms.

Nevertheless, they can find relief, and even likely delay the progression of the disease, by taking dance classes. But just any dance class won’t do. They need to tap into the program specifically designed to empower patients to explore movement and music in ways that are refreshing, enjoyable, stimulating and creative in a safe environment.

The program is called Dance for PD, and it was founded by the Mark Morris Dance Group in New York City in 2001 as a nonprofit collaborative with the Brooklyn Parkinson Group. It has achieved international acclaim, and its practice has spread to more than 250 other communities and 25 countries. According to the organization’s website, evidence from 38 peer-reviewed scientific studies underpins the effectiveness and benefits of this teaching method. Even better, the program is now available in New Hampshire.

“One of the great things about this pro-

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nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

gram is that we don’t talk about Parkinson’s at all,” says Kendra Viviers, a licensed physical therapy assistant. “Everybody’s got it, so that becomes the baseline. It’s what differentiates this from some exercise classes or another therapy, where we talk about the symptoms and then we work to offset them. Everything I do with our choreography is absolutely for a reason. But I don’t talk about why I’m doing what I’m doing.

We just dance,” she adds.

Viviers, who heads the Dance for PD program at Catholic Medical Center’s Wellness Center, underwent the rigorous teacher training at the world-renowned Julliard School for the performing arts in New York.

“What I’m trained to do is to take any type of dance and any type of music and modify it all so it’s appropriate for this particular population,” she says. “There is a great deal of preparation and work for each class. The choreography is a lot of work. It takes hours and hours. There is something to be said for repetition, and something to be said for spontaneity. I might do the same

song three weeks in a row, but I’ll progressively add more to it each time. It’s never exactly the same class. Sometimes I might do a song once. It always changes. It’s a lot of work, but well worth it,” says Viviers.

Wright Danenbarger, a retired partner of one of the state’s most prominent law firms, was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Today, he’s a regular at the class, and agrees wholeheartedly with Viviers.

“I attend consistently, and I hate to miss it when I’m traveling. If I’m here in New Hampshire, I make it a point to go to every class,” says Danenbarger.

Those classes are open to anyone with the disease, cost a nominal $5 and are held every Tuesday afternoon.

“Kendra is a very good teacher, and I find the sessions quite therapeutic. I don’t have a lot of the Parkinson’s symptoms yet, but I think this class, along with the other things I do like boxing, helps a lot. I really do. I highly recommend this,” says Danenbarger, who could cut quite a rug in his younger days. “Being a good dancer back then helps a little bit. Some of the steps are a little bit tricky even for me, but every session starts with something easy to do and then it progresses from there with complexity as we go along. There are a lot of what I call fancy hand movements and foot movements.”

Still, no experience is needed. But some patients need a little push.

“The most difficult thing is getting someone here because often people hear dance class and they think, ‘Oh, I’ve never danced.

I shouldn’t do that, particularly because I’ve got Parkinson’s and I really can’t go and do that,’” says Viviers. “Or people think this is a social, partnering dance. I know there are people who have not come to class because they don’t fully understand the essence of what the dance class is. But I will say that once they are there, over 90% of the participants will stay with me. I can count on one hand the people who have said, ‘Oh, this is just not for me.’ In general, once they come to class, they stay. They’re very happy because it’s a good social environment and it’s beneficial — and it’s fun,” says Viviers.

The sessions, which average between four to 14 participants and also welcome spouses, caregivers or friends, cater to patients in all stages of the disease, so Viviers has brought on two assistants, Rebecca Power, a former professional dancer, and

courtesy of catholic medical center

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Mary Philippy, who also has a strong dance background.

The musical arrangements cut across all genres, from show tunes, ballet tap and jazz to Latin, disco, hula or Irish.

Routines are also modified to accommodate those who need to stay seated as others are moving across the floor.

The one constant is that routines are never dumbed down.

“People tell me that since coming here they are more confident, and more competent in whatever their activity level is,” says Viviers. “This class increases their balance [and] their motor skills. It often reminds them of the time in their lives before Parkinson’s when they used to dance, or they used to enjoy music more than they do now. It helps them to recover that part of their life that had been lost,” says Viviers, who adds that associated research has found that dancers have a significantly lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease because of their continued use of short-term memory to remember steps.

If anyone assumes therapeutic dance can’t be artistic, Viviers will set them straight.

“It’s surprisingly beautiful. I may have 10 people in the class and we are all doing the same thing, but everyone is doing it just a little differently based upon their level of mobility. It is stunningly beautiful. It’s not the synchronicity of choreographed ballet, but it is no less beautiful to have this individuality of all doing the same movement at the same time. It is just as pleasing aesthetically as seeing a group that is moving more together,” she says. NH

Simon Pearce

In 2020 there are 1 million Americans struggling with Parkinson’s disease and about 60,000 more will be diagnosed each year, according the Parkinson’s Foundation website. There are two current Dance for PD programs available in New Hampshire. Here’s where to participate: Keene

Moving with Parkinson’s: Held the first and third Wednesdays of the month from 10:30-11:45 a.m. Drop-ins are welcome, and there’s a $5 suggested donation with no charge for caregivers.

Where: Cheshire Medical Center Southwestern Community Services’ Conference Room, 63 Community Way, Keene For more information, contact Kathy Michel by phone at (802) 869-3695 or email kathleenmichel3@gmail.com.

Manchester

Parkinson’s Dance Class: Held Tuesdays from 1-2:15 p.m. The cost is $5 per class, with no charge for caregivers, spouses and friends.

Where: Catholic Medical Center, 195 McGregor St., Room LL23, Manchester To register please call (603) 626-2626. For more information, contact Kendra Viviers by phone, (603) 641-6700 or email at kendra.viviers@cmc-nh.org.

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A Fiddler’s Tale A music lesson provided by a special place

BY JORDAN TIRRELL-WYSOCKI

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and rested the fiddle on my shoulder, I realized with some surprise that I had no idea what to play.

One of the things I’ve always loved about Celtic music is the wide range of emotions that can be expressed with it. On one end of the spectrum there are lively, lilting jigs and energetic reels that are practically bursting with joy and celebration. But I cringe at the thought of playing such a tune

A stone circle in Ireland divides land and sky.

in that setting. It would have felt horribly inappropriate or even disrespectful, like laughing at a funeral.

My thoughts naturally turned toward the more solemn, mournful side of Celtic music, pieces steeped in centuries of suffering and misfortune. But I couldn’t bring myself to play even a single note. I

Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki is an award-winning fiddler/singer based here in New Hampshire.

Named a “Master Artist” by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, he performs full time around New England with the Jordan TW Trio and other groups. More information about him, his music and his performance schedule can be found at jordantwmusic.com.

photos courtesy of jordan tirrell-wysocki

O

ne of the most important aspects of any musician’s job is deciding what to play and when, reading a room or a situation and knowing what music is appropriate. As a performer since childhood, I always thought I was pretty good at this, until the day I found myself alone amidst ancient standing stones on a windswept hilltop in Ireland.

This stone circle was far from the usual tourist routes, and I had walked and hitchhiked for several days to reach it. An old man finally dropped me at the foot of the hill, gesturing vaguely toward the standing stones at the top. After he drove off, there was nobody else around. Dusk was setting in, and it looked like it might rain at any minute. I was tired, cold, hungry and, honestly, a little freaked out.

Though I was raised on magic-filled stories by writers like Lewis and Tolkien, I thought I had long ago outgrown any belief in real-world magic. But standing alone on that hilltop surrounded by the stones, I found it hard to remember that. The real world itself felt pretty far away.

My fiddle was slung across my back, and after taking in the energy of the place in silence for some time, I slid off the case and opened it. But as I straightened

I thought I had long ago outgrown any belief in realworld magic. But standing alone on that hilltop, I found it hard to remember that. knew without trying that they would all fall flat, and might even feel more inappropriate than livelier songs, because they would be attempting to match the somber power of this place, and would thus insult it all the more when they came up short.

The energy of the hilltop was so intense that even the heaviest and most thoughtful, powerful pieces in my repertoire were going to seem at best thin, weak or contrived when played here, and at worst they would be unforgivably irreverent. I simply did not have what it would take to make music in this special place.

That was when the wind picked up. It gusted in off the sea, up the hill, between the ancient standing stones and over my fiddle, where it rested on my shoulder. It howled with a low fluty sound as it crossed the holes in the top, causing the whole instrument to resonate. It whistled through all the tiny gaps in the bridge as if trying to get through a crack in a window. It vibrated all four strings simultaneously so that they started to hum, not only with their intended pitches but also with high ringing harmonics I had never heard before.

These sounds together created very soft, incredibly complex music. It was, without exaggeration, one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard.

And it was perfect. This place required a song that was deeper and more profound than anything I could provide, so the place itself was providing it. In the end, all I had to do was listen. NH nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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photo by joe klementovich

Lifelong

Stories to Tell You never know until you ask

BY STEVE TAYLOR

W

hen I started out as a cub reporter at The Portsmouth Herald back in the early 1960s, my old-school managing editor gave me a lesson that stuck with me for life. Ray Brighton had assigned me to do a profile of some local character, but it didn’t seem like there was much of a story there to me. My boss sensed my coolness to the project and sat me down for a quick lecture. “Look kid,” he said, “every person walking down the street has a story to tell, and it’s your job to get it out of them.”

So, I’ve been hunting down stories ever since and writing them up for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, whatever. A couple of years ago, I set out on a somewhat different path: Still chasing down people and their stories, only this time I’m having them tell their tales in their own words for the permanent record. Instead of a notepad and a keyboard, all I use is a small hand-

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held high-tech recording device. It’s under the aegis of the Plainfield Historical Society’s oral history project, and I’m closing in on 60 interviews that will be archived in both electronic and digitally transcribed form.

Of course, it’s kind of easy when the interview subjects are mostly neighbors and friends who I’ve lived among for as much as three-quarters of a century. And it’s also easy when, after they get comfortable with what I’m up to, they cut loose with the stories of their lives. In the course of an hour, sometimes two or even three, they tell me of their families, their life’s work, the joys and regrets as they look back over the decades. Invariably these sessions yield surprises for me, things I never knew about them, things like unheralded scholarly achievement, success in business or defeat of a serious illness. And there’s sad stuff, too, such as loss of a dear relative or plain old bad breaks.

At the Plainfield Library, Steve Taylor looks over some photos of his oral history subjects taken by photographer Chad Finer.

I start off with a couple of innocuous questions — about their family and childhood and then how they came to be part of the Plainfield population — and from there we roam over a wide landscape. For most, it has been a life of hard work, raising families, and taking satisfaction in being part of a network of neighbors. I’ve lived in Plainfield for more than 75 of my 80 years, and was sure I knew most of the town’s accumulated history in that span, but to sit with men and women who came home from the Korean or Vietnam wars, a guy who built a multimillion dollar business out of nothing, a woman who saved her son from drowning in an iced-over pond, or a couple who had taught in local schools for half a century, is to add a vast new dimension to my knowledge and understanding of the town.

There was a gripping account from the town’s oldest son, still going strong at 97.

He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, took shrapnel from a German artillery round that killed his tentmate, was evacuated to England, patched up and sent back into combat. He’s still carrying shrapnel in his

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body. Another man told of growing up in the Great Depression and how the family lived on venison his mother canned from deer he and his brothers shot. Three sisters, now in their 60s, shared vivid memories of teenage years spent doing endless chores like milking cows and picking rocks from the fields on the family’s dairy farm.

Some subjects brought something soon to vanish from New Hampshire culture: distinctive hill country accents and vocabulary. A guy who started working in a sawmill after eighth grade, then logging with horses, then driving the town road grader for many years, he spoke in a voice that harkened back to the early 20th century, unaffected by the homogenization of speech occasioned by television and population mobility. He, and some others well along in years, still use figures of speech that are fast going extinct in this state, and I’m glad they’ll be preserved in a tiny way in Plainfield’s electronic archive.

Actually, this Plainfield oral history project isn’t something new. Back in 1974, a tiny group conducted the town’s first such effort. There were 45 people interviewed

then on magnetic tape, and the recordings were later transcribed onto paper. The last of these people died five years ago, but they left behind stories that are wonderful to hear today, and which I’m darn glad got done back then. There was a man who could recall as a boy going to Plainfield town meeting in the 1890s, an occasion when sawdust covered the floor, shots of whiskey were sold at the back of the hall, and it wasn’t uncommon for debate to devolve into a fistfight or two.

This project 46 years ago tapped memories of the turn of the 20th century, the coming of the automobile and World War I. But we blew it in the 1990s when we didn’t capture those with memories of the Great Depression and the beginnings of the town’s transition away from an agricultural base to an economy keyed on commuting to employment in nearby communities. This time we got our act together, thank heavens.

Embarking on this endeavor we had a debate about who we ought to pursue for interviews. At first, it seemed like just natives and oldtimers should be considered, but, aha, a huge majority of Plainfield

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He, and some others well along in years, still use figures of speech that are fast going extinct in this state. people today came here from somewhere else. And couldn’t somebody who moved into town in the 1960s or 1970s and is now 80 or more be considered an oldtimer?

Well, yes, and widening out the net paid off handsomely in diversity and texture of the enterprise. It has surely afforded me a vast new dimension to my knowledge and understanding of my town, and, aside from that little recorder, it hasn’t cost anybody a cent. NH

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Home No More The places we leave behind stay with us

By Greg Kretschmar

T

wo weeks ago my parents, after living in the house pictured above for over 50 years, walked out the door for the last time.

There were no long last looks. No tears. No sad goodbyes. They just locked the door and left for their new home.

Today, I drove past the place, and that’s when it hit me.

I rolled up slowly, along a street I rode my bike and played a million whiffle ball games on. I thought of that as I came closer to the house. The Chasses were there. The Dupuises, the Baillargeons, the Coutures, the Tremblays, the Charpentiers — I saw them all. I felt like I was passing through ghosts of those memories at 5 mph as the house drew near.

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As I got to the corner where the house sits, it just looked ... different. The grass was uncut and the flowers didn’t seem to be in bloom. It felt lifeless.

The home I grew up in wasn’t “home” anymore.

Someone else lives there now. They don’t have the pack-rat-like woodshop in the cellar like my dad did. The old stool wasn’t next to the counter bar in the kitchen, where you’d always sit during the thousands of conversations that took place there. I wondered if the new person would sleep in what used to be my room, or did they choose my sister’s? Could they fit six kids around a small kitchen table that was probably 5 feet long and 4 feet wide like we did? Would

The old Kretschmar manse in Somersworth

their Christmas tree go in the corner window where ours stood?

The questions I thought of turned into slides from my childhood as I slowed along Varney Street in Somersworth. I saw the fence I crashed into and broke with my brother-in-law’s car when I was learning to drive. The pool I spent so many hot days and nights in with my buddies. The kitchen cabinets where the cereal or the peanut butter was. I could see the kitchen counter

Photographer and radio host Greg Kretschmar

photo by greg kretschmar

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we sat on during family gatherings, and the dining room table we’d gather at in later years. But now they only existed now in the minds of my family, and maybe in some tattered old photos.

I won’t lie, I did feel a bit of sadness at the thought, but it was nowhere near like what I expected. I thought it would be harder, saying goodbye to the place where we celebrated 50-plus Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays and such. But it wasn’t. It was ... time.

A year and a half ago, I nervously asked my parents if they ever thought of downsizing. I expected to be shut down quickly, but I wasn’t. They had. The steep stairs were challenging for anyone of my parents’ age, and the reality of the risk that represents has to be acknowledged. And so the conversation began: “Where would you like to go?”

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the decisions were made, a place was found, agreements were made, and the next thing you know, we’re hauling the dining room table out the door and onto a moving truck.

And through all of this, I kept expecting the emotion to hit me. To feel the sense of

As I got to the corner where the house sits, it just looked different. The grass was uncut and the flowers didn’t seem to be in bloom. It felt lifeless. losing my childhood. Surprisingly, it never really came. And even more surprisingly — my mom and dad didn’t feel it either. Quite the contrary, actually. They were excited. It was the reward for 50 years of hard work — moving into a brand-new home.

It’s funny how you never stop learning things about your parents. You think you know them better than anyone, and then they surprise you. At a time in life when most resist change, Connie and Arnie embraced it. And in the classic child-parent role reversal, I was and am really proud of them for it. They deserve it.

All of this stuff was running through my mind as I sat in my car looking at the little white house (which used to be brown,

actually) that I grew up in. It’s funny how in times of change in your life — the things you always knew, but never spoke of — come completely into focus.

The little white house on Varney Street, that was our home — my home — for my entire life, wasn’t home anymore. And truly, it never really was in the first place. It wasn’t the structure that made it home, it was my family that made it so.

Home is wherever they are. And it always had been.

I took my foot off the brake, and smiled and laughed as I drove off, because — as usual — my parents knew that something before I did. Funny how parents are like that, huh? NH

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Anticancer Living

Start by imagining yourself as a garden

BY MEG CADOUX HIRSHBERG

A

t some point in their lives, 40% of Americans will hear the words “You have cancer.” In 2001, I became one of them, and so entered the one sorority that no woman wants to join. I was living a full and busy life in Concord with my husband and three kids, then aged 8, 10 and 12. I trudged through my “killing cure” treatment of surgery, chemo and radiation, and moved on. Unfortunately, the cancer did not, and in 2008 I was treated for a recurrence.

My discovery that the disease was, in fact, metastatic shook me in a way that the original diagnosis did not. I was successfully treated once again, but this time I became interested in learning what I could do to help myself. I asked my kind oncologist to provide some guidance, and got the advice that most of us get when such questions are

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posed: Go back to your life as normal, try to keep your stress level down, and I’ll see you in six months for your scan.

I refused to accept that I was powerless to affect the course of my disease. At that time, I met and befriended Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, who himself had been diagnosed with cancer 15 years earlier.

David was a physician and neuroscientist who found himself asking similar questions about how to take a positive role in his own healing. He set about researching the scientific literature concerning the many ways that lifestyle habits — the choices we make every day — impact cancer and cancer recurrence. The result was a remarkable book that became a best-seller: “Anticancer: A New Way of Life.” David’s book features information about the role of diet, fitness, mindset and environment in the development of cancer.

David and his book affected me profoundly, and led me to make many changes in my daily habits — changes that statistically not only reduced my odds of cancer

recurrence, but that made me feel better too — physically and psychologically. Feeling a sense of duty to share this important information with other cancer survivors, I approached Nancy Kane, the director of the Payson Center for Cancer Care in Concord (where I had received some of my treatment) with the idea of creating a course based on the sound principles and advice in David’s book.

Nancy and her hospital colleagues read the book and were impressed with its basis in scientific evidence gleaned from some of the world’s most prestigious peer-reviewed journals. Nevertheless, I was amazed and impressed when Nancy said yes.

Nancy and I, along with several subject matter experts from the hospital and in our community, spent a year designing a 12-week in-person course inspired by the material in David’s book.

Since 2011, the Anticancer Lifestyle Program has served hundreds of cancer patients. Concord Hospital is justifiably proud of this course, which is unique in the country, in that it provides a comprehensive, evidence-based look at major lifestyle factors that can impact the development of cancer, along with other chronic illnesses. In addition, for seven years now, the hospital has offered an annual Anticancer lecture, free to the community, featuring

courtesy photos

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A few quick “lifestyle tweaks” from the folks at Anticancer Lifestyle 1. Read labels on food packaging and on personal and homecare products. Know what you are eating, drinking and using on your body and in your home. The ACLP diet and environment modules teach people about easy-to-use resources that will help them choose the healthiest products.

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg

world-renowned experts in the areas covered by the course.

A few years ago, I created a nonprofit, the Anticancer Lifestyle Foundation, to further promote the course. Nancy retired from the Payson Center and now works as my colleague in this effort. We hired Geneia LLC, a company with New Hampshire ties, to help us create an online version of the program.

In October 2019, we launched the online “e-ACLP” course, making the critical information we’ve been teaching in-person easily available to all who wish to reduce their odds of cancer and cancer recurrence, and those who are interested in overall prevention of chronic illness.

The course features videos, text, animation, quizzes and other features to engage the learner and help them along the path toward creating a healthier lifestyle. Each module has its own “toolkit” housed on the website that lists articles, videos, books, apps, tip sheets and more.

Information matters, but so do words.

It’s hard to escape all the war metaphors surrounding cancer. Cancer survivors are in a “fight” or a “battle.” We are all engaged in a “war on cancer.” This metaphor doesn’t quite work when it’s your own body harboring the disease; what exactly am I at war with — myself? Instead, our program promotes another way to look at cancer. From our perspective, it’s the oncologist’s job to wage war on cancer, using every reasonable armament at their disposal. For the cancer

patient, the task is different.

As an avid gardener, I started visualizing my role in my cancer treatment as a gardener of my body, a manager of my own diverse ecosystem. After all, as with garden soil, our bodies are awash with bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms. In fact, more than half our cells are not even our own DNA. We have the power to enrich our inner soil — with healthy food, some exercise, stress management and clean home and body care products. We can pull the weeds of a bad diet and inactivity. We can lower our pest infestation by lowering overall inflammation and enhancing our immune systems — growing, in other words, our body’s ability to fight disease, and maximizing our own potential to make a difference in outcome. This is surprisingly easy to do. It’s a process, to be sure, and like most others who’ve picked up these tools, I am still learning and constantly making changes in the ways I cultivate my own health.

The e-ACLP makes the information you need to be a great “gardener” easily available, approachable and accessible. Our goal is to reach as many cancer survivors — and those interested in prevention — as we possibly can. None of us has to be a passive victim in the face of this difficult disease. As one of our course graduates wrote: “When you get cancer, everything is done to you. This is something I get to do for myself.” For more information, visit anticancerlifestyle.org. NH

2. Get up! It’s now often said that sitting is the new smoking. The fitness module explains easy ways to work activity into daily life.

3. Calm down. Stress is a killer, and our lives are filled with it. The mindset module teaches simple practices that can bring calm and focus into even the most hectic day.

If you live near Concord, consider signing up for the 12-week Anticancer Lifestyle Program, offered twice yearly. Call (603) 230-6031 to learn more.

If you’re interested in taking the online course, see the website at anticancerlifestyle.org. The ACLP course modules are making change, diet, fitness, mindset and environment. You can take any modules you like and do them at your own pace.

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Saved by the Ball

For him, the cure was just down the alley

BY JUSTIN SPENCER

M

y average score in candlepin bowling was 108. I was the youngest regular at Boutwell’s Bowling Center in Concord, and I was probably the only adult who wasn’t drinking beer and slipping out back for a smoke between sets. With my tattoos, rock ’n’ roll haircut and technicolor clothes, I guess I stood out in the crowd of families dressed in Dockers, pressed jeans and NASCAR shirts, but these were my people. This was where I belonged. This bowling alley had saved my life.

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A year before, in 1996, I had been at the Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta. I’d spent a hot day watching field hockey and walking around the sun-baked streets of the capital of the South. Lying in my hotel bed, a bit worn out, I had a sudden feeling of anxiety. Nothing too weird at first, but it didn’t start to go away, like most moods. Instead it revved up like a stock car engine and turned into a feeling of total white hot fear. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I knew what I thought. I thought I was going

to die. The thought was terrifying.

I crawled into the shower, thinking it would cool me off, but it was 20 minutes before I was myself again. All I could think was, “What the f*ck?” Two weeks later the experience was pretty much forgotten. I’d chalked it up to a heat stroke. Put it behind me.

Then it happened again. And again.

And as the weeks went by, these spells, that I now know to be panic attacks, became so common that just the thought that I might get one was enough to trigger a new one. I’m an extrovert, an outgoing kid, but I was afraid to leave the house, scared it would happen in public or cause danger to myself or someone else. I slumped into serious depression. I was unable to leave my apartment except to see doctors who began prescribing me a menu of drugs, antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, God knows what. My fear of dying was still there, but worse was the very real fear of losing everything else, my relationships, my family, my girlfriend and my job.

The drugs weren’t doing the trick. I knew I had to try something on my own, break out of this prison of fear. My apartment was just a block from a bowling alley, so I walked down and checked it out. This was not “big ball” bowling like in “The Big Lebowski.” This was pure New England candlepin. I bowled a string and did a quick head check. No panic. So far, so good.

The place was dim, calm and predictable. People were so focused in their little groups, with just occasional bursts of excitement over a strike or when someone cleaned up a tough spare. Even the sounds of the balls hitting the tall wooden pins was muffled and soothing.

I didn’t just become a regular, I joined a league. I bowled for hours on end, improving my score, but every day I was also making tiny steps out of my depression and fear. That bowling alley was a miniature world that was within my control.

It gave me a place where I could work through my anxieties, move beyond them, find my way back to normal.

Normal for me is not normal for everyone. In school, I’d been coded as hyperactive at 8 and put on Ritalin. I’ve got it under more control now, but I’m ADD to this day.

I won’t take the drugs. It’s not for everyone, I know. Medicine has done a lot of good, I’m sure, but I prefer to find my own ways

photo by kendal j. bush

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“An architect’s most useful tools are an eraser at the drafting board and a wrecking bar at the site.”

— Frank Lloyd Wright, as referenced in Justin Spencer’s “One Life, One Legacy”

of controlling my moods, finding my focus.

And doing so has taught me that we have more power than we know. I needed to change, but the biggest obstacles to change are not the physical ones, they are mental.

In the darkest period of my life when I really wanted to hide, instead I reached out and tried something new. The panic I experienced robbed me of my purpose in life, my direction, left me with no idea why I was even here. Bowling showed me there was something new, another way to approach my challenges. You can find solace and inspiration in the strangest places. The world is full of opportunities like that if you are brave enough to seek them out. Find something to spark a new interest in your mind, and with it you’ll find a new beginning.

Power Tip 1: Use Your Head In our culture, the body gets all the credit.

Think about the most famous people in America — most of them are muscular sports stars, hot-looking actors from Hollywood or sexy singers from Nashville.

Ask people on the street to name the most intelligent people in the world and you’ll usually get the names of either politicians (who are really kind of like professional wrestlers) or writers (who are really like entertainers). Ask them to name three scientists and you’ll usually get Einstein, Einstein and Einstein.

And the power of the mind isn’t just about intelligence. Being super-smart is a little bit like being musclebound. It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it.

The true strength of the mind is all about focus, clear thinking, rationality and sanity.

There are plenty of awards for people who are the best spellers or who can answer the most trivia questions on “Jeopardy,” but it’s hard to hold a contest for who is the most sane or level-headed person in the world.

You may have hear people say, “There’s nothing less common than common sense.”

I’m afraid that’s true, but it’s not because people don’t have it, they just don’t use it.

Make no mistake, the body is crucial, but everything the body does, every project you build, every plan you make, it all starts somewhere else. That place is hard to put your finger on — it’s in some invisible control room where you make the decisions and deal with the consequences of your decisions and figure out ways to make better decisions. It’s not always calm in that room.

It’s like air traffic control. The stakes are high and sometimes there’s just too much going on. Things don’t always make sense the way we’d like them to.

Power Tip 2: Reboot Your Legacy Go somewhere you can be alone, completely alone. Bring nothing but a pad of paper and a pencil (and yeah, make sure you have an eraser). Forget about everything that nags your mind for a while. Set aside your friends and families, forget about what everyone else expects of you, even your job.

Especially your job.

Now try to remember the things you always wanted to accomplish, no matter how crazy or unlikely. Write down everything you can think of that would make you proud to be a part of, happy to be working toward, excited to get up in the morning and pursue every day. If you start to think it’s ridiculous, that’s no reason to stop.

That probably means you’re getting close.

Don’t judge, just dream or imagine what your perfect world would be like, what you would be doing in it. What are the things you wouldn’t mind sacrificing for, the things you could defend with your life?

At some point in this exercise, see if you get a glimpse of that clue, start to feel those butterflies that you know from that last time you were in love. That’s like a Geiger counter clicking away, helping you find your legacy. Don’t give up, because it’s there somewhere. NH Justin Spencer, leader of the internationally famous “junk-rock” band Recycled Percussion, put his personal philosophy of life down in words in “One Life, One Legacy.” The book is available on Amazon and at his new “Chaos and Kindness” retail store in Laconia.

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Jay Schadler with his wife, Jorden Cook, at their home in New Hampshire Photo by Jared Charney

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Navigating Life’s Transitions

A Traveler’s Tale

by Jay Schadler There’s an old New Hampshire story about a farmer just about to enter a covered bridge with his horse and load of hay. But at the very last moment — after looking closely at the scene — ­ he turns around and leaves.

“Why did you stop?” someone asks.

“Well, I figured I could get into the bridge alright but I’d never make it out that small hole at the other end.” nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020 25

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Beginning in 2018 I was sidelined by a Those are the opening lines from Walt Whitman’s wondrous poem, “Song of the number of serious medical issues. UltimateOpen Road.” ly nothing grave — still I stand — but I was For more than three decades, it was my in and out of emergency rooms and hospisong too as I traveled the world reporting tals for over a year. I had to close my gallery. and telling stories for ABC News, National The little income I was making dried up.

Geographic TV and others. I tracked tigers So, in the space of a couple of years, I in India and hunted for the source of an had gone from being a globe-trotting corEbola outbreak in the rainforests of Africa. respondent to a sort of nowhere man. I felt I returned to the Titanic with explorer Bob physically diminished and mentally lost. My Ballard and hitchhiked 20,000 miles across creativity and energy dried up. My camera the backroads of America. never left its bag and I rarely left the house.

Along the way my wife, Jorden, and I Depression — which I have battled for decided to settle back in New Hampshire much of my life — took firm control of the where she had spent her childhood sum- game. Now instead of singing Whitman’s Without at least a bit of it, bridges can seem mers. Both of her parents had deep roots “Song,” I felt like I was living the opening damn near impassable. here, and our wedding was held at the fam- lines of Dante’s “Inferno” — “In the middle This special edition of New Hampshire ily home in Lee. So in 2003 we moved into of our life’s journey, I found myself in a dark Magazine is all about bridges — life bridga little house on an old dirt road surround- wood. The right road lost.” es — the kind we must travel across if we Of course, stumbling from the “right are to make our way from one stage of our road” is practically built into the human life to another, from who we have been to genome.

And while the details of my story who might yet be. And unless we want to are naturally unique to me, the journey — mimic that old farmer with his hay wagon from where we’ve been to where we’re go— there’s no turning away from the future. ing, from yesterday to tomorrow — is uniSo let’s try to get some perspective, shall we? versal.

It’s one everyone makes; women and For starters, some people cross these young and old. men, bridges — these transitions — with a sort It might be triggered by a close of a caof sure-footed ease that leaves me in equal reer or the start of a new one. The beginparts dumbfounded and jealous. That’s bening of a romance.

Or the end of a marcause I happen to be a dues-paying member of the other group, those of us who have Jay Schadler doing an ABC News brief ear- riage. The birth of a child. Or the loss of a loved one. Truly any number of countfound that steering our way through a sig- ly in his career. He soon realized he liked doing stories on the road more than from less events — that signal a significant life nificant life transition can be spiked with behind an anchor desk, noting, “I was nevchange — a major transition. And just a cocktail of low self-esteem, high anxiety er very good at keeping my hair combed.” maybe a transformation. and a dollop of dread. ed by nature — the perfect antidote to my On this adventure some of us inevitably Fortunately both approaches — the otherwise crazy work schedule. It was a full get stranded.

Some get lost. And some will nimble navigator and the fretful voyager — and happy life. Like Whitman’s “Song,” the make it home.

But make no mistake, the hold important lessons that can help illuworld seemed wide and open. journey is coming.

And along the way there minate the road ahead. So stay with me, we But changes were coming. can be an unsettling amount of uncertainhave some traveling to do.

In 2015 I finally left broadcasting but ty about the final destination. Now, for this “Afoot and light-hearted I take soon began to feel adrift in my post-career trip, I offer myself not as a guide or a teacher to the open road, life. (Turns out tracking tigers wasn’t nearly (certainly no prophet) but as a fellow travelas treacherous as losing my apparent purHealthy, free, the world before me, er who, in the memorable lyrics of Cat Stepose in life.) Still, it was a welcome relief to vens, is still “on the road to find out.”

The long brown path before me be off the road, at home with my wife and leading wherever I choose. sleeping in my own bed again. Plus, I was Who Am I? and What Now? now able to turn my attention to my lifelong As a reporter I enjoyed most every part Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, passion for art. During my last few years as of the job; the shooting, the writing, the I myself am good-fortune, a reporter, I had opened Jay Schadler Stu- free-spirited time spent in exotic (or even Henceforth I whimper no more, dio and Gallery in downtown Portsmouth, mundane) places with great camera crews. postpone no more, need nothing, showing and selling my work; photography But perhaps I loved interviewing most of mostly with elements of pastels, paint and all. After all, I could ask intimate, revealing Done with indoor complaints, computer graphics. I had long assumed this questions of anyone, from the shy child to libraries, querulous criticisms, would be a major piece of my post-TV re- the serial killer, without ever having to turn Strong and content I travel the tirement plan. It didn’t quite work out that the camera — real or metaphorical — on open road.” myself. I was adept at asking questions of way. Life, as it so often does, intervened.

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perspective.

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On this adventure some of us get stranded. Some get lost. Some will make it home. But the journey is coming, and along the way there can be an unsettling amount of uncertainty about the final destination.

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everybody but myself. Which is a problem, especially when it comes to navigating life’s transitions, because two diabolically simple but unnerving questions seem to lie at the heart of every major life transition: “Who am I?” and “What now?”

If you’re at all like me — when you finally begin asking yourself those questions in earnest, I advise you to have your medications up to date and an appointment booked with a therapist.

You might also want to apologize to your sleeping partner, because 3 a.m. is when you’re going to start waking up, your mind reeling with these questions but no good answers.

“Who am I?” and “What now?” What gives those questions such depth — even danger — is that they arise at the same mo- that’s nearly always a bad idea.

I’m reminded of Anne Lamott’s cautionment and precisely because we’re saying ary advice about comparing your insides goodbye to the identity we’ve so carefulwith someone else’s outsides. Persist in doing ly crafted for ourselves over the years: the roles we’ve played, the stories we’ve told, the that and you inevitably either come up short masks we’ve worn. It can be quite a show. — i.e., “I’m a failure” or you inflate yourself And if you’re not careful, you can start like a balloon. And there’s nothing quite so ripe for a pin prick from life as a puffed-up thinking that’s who you really are.

Without an authentic answer to that ego. I know because mine’s been blown apart question, “Who am I?”— your ego does on more occasions than I care to remember, what it loves to do; namely, defines, mea- including one little ego detonation from my sures and compares itself with others. And early days in broadcasting that bears repeat-

ing if only to make you smile. Coincidentally, it also happens to illustrate what a Tibetan teacher once said was a useful way to rid yourself of that clinging ego. He said, “Reveal your hidden faults.” Well, arrogance was one of my mine and here’s how I revealed it to half-million people one day.

My first job in television news was as a reporter in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I’d only been on the job for a few weeks when the station’s news director came to me and said he wanted to try me out as the week-

Schadler during some downtime on a story about bringing emergency medical supplies — on camelback— to the Samburu tribes in northern Kenya nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Lessons for the Road

My ego and I were taken out to the proverbial woodshed and unceremoniously deflated. As for what this has to do with navigating life’s transitions, I say only this: less ego, more humor.

Schadler says he prepared carefully for interviews, but once he was on the set he would put his notes away and work on having an intimate conversation with the subject.

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As I’ve continued paddling my way through these (occasionally humorous but sometimes turbulent) currents that mark the landscape of all big life changes, I’ve been lucky enough to come across a few guides and spirits whose wisdom has helped. And since, as I said, we are fellow travelers, let me share some of the other stories and ideas that have resonated with me.

Reset Your Compass First, reset your compass — the heading should be forward, not backward. As much as you might like to, you can’t return to yesterday or yesteryear. Einstein won’t allow it. (And you shouldn’t either.) By that, obviously, I don’t mean to stop enjoying your memories — just try to resist resurrecting the past and that old identity of yours at every turn. That’s a recipe for stagnation.

I like the Buddhist teaching that says the transitions in life are not the cause of our suffering. It’s the insistence on trying to bring stuff with us — that’s the problem.

Or, listen to the advice of Joseph Campbell: “We must let go of the life we had planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

I often think of that line whenever I re-

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end anchor. For a young reporter, pretty heady stuff — and that’s exactly where it went — to my head. I can remember thinking, “I can do this, no problem.” But oh, there would be problems.

So on one of my first weekends I produced the stories that would headline the newscast. One was hard news — Iraq was invading Iran. And one feature story about the local zoo acquiring some new penguins.

So as the newscast began — and you have to picture this in your mind’s eye — I grandly teased the night’s main stories with video clips running behind my shoulder.

Sadly for me — I had somehow reversed the order of the video, so when I said that Iraqi troops were marching across the border, the penguins appeared happily waddling in unison into their new pool at the John Paul Park Zoo. And then, of course, a few seconds later when I then teased the penguin story — you guessed it — out came the Iraqi troops charging into battle.

Needless to say, my ego and I were taken out to the proverbial woodshed and unceremoniously deflated. As for what this has to do with navigating life’s transitions, I would only say this: less ego, more humor.

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Schadler at his former art studio and gallery in Portsmouth. After leaving broadcasting, he concentrated on his art, which is photography with elements of pastels and paint.

call a story I did while hitchhiking through a desolate stretch of the southwest desert.

Temperatures were well over 100 degrees when along comes an old van, driven by an even older fella who picks me up. He says he lives out here — which, given the climate (insufferable) and the landscape (barren), I can hardly believe him. So I ask if I can see his home. He says sure.

A few miles later, he pulls off the road onto a two-track deeper into the desert.

And lo and behold, out here in the middle of nowhere, sits a big, blue, broken-down school bus with a tarp for an awning and a gas-powered air conditioner somehow cooling the thing. The whole place is surrounded by a bizarre collection of trash and treasures. Suddenly out pops his wife — smiling and laughing and greeting me like an old lost friend.

It turns out years earlier the couple had been driving their bus through the desert when it got stuck in the sand. They couldn’t go forward and couldn’t go back. So they said, “Well, OK. This is our home now.”

Clearly this is not a life you or I would probably ever choose — but they seemed fearless and happy.

“Let go of the life you had planned so you can accept the one that’s waiting for you.”

If you’d prefer a more sublime example from nature, consider the Monarch caterpillar. Now that’s a creature who could rightly claim a formidable self-image — I mean, 16 legs and that whimsically striped body.

But in late summer, after hauling herself into the tall grass and twisting into a J-shape, she dissolves the whole shebang into a shimmering chrysalis, a hanging basket of liquid chemicals. Other than her DNA, she leaves everything behind, which, of course, in a few days, brings her a brandnew identity — one with beautiful wings and the freedom to fly.

In essence, she’s young again.

You want a little of that magic? Try remembering and invoking the child that’s still inside you. The one who might have gone looking for a chrysalis in a meadow. The place where curiosity trumps fear, enchantment outmaneuvers inertia, and where yesterday carries no more weight than ... well, a butterfly wing.

I once did it a story about a series of archaeological digs among the Mayan ruins of Belize. A vast civilization, dead and buried under nature’s roots and limbs. Lost, as it were.

But as I stood there surveying the scene, I suddenly saw it all through different eyes.

What, at first glance, looked like a chaotic, suffocating tangle was in fact vigorous and vital growth. A lush web of energy. Yes, it made the poor archaeologists’ work a tad more difficult, but there was no denying that an overpowering new life force had emerged from the ruins.

So for our purposes, if you happen to be struggling with a life transition — thinking of it as a bit of ruin — try reimagining yourself as a jungle of possibilities. Because that’s what you are. Resisting change is resisting life. Coping with change in the outside world is an inside job — inside your head.

Your True Self

I have a guru in my life. She happens to be my wife. In addition to putting up with my overall strangeness as a human being, she has great gift for cutting to the heart of matters. Especially on matters of the heart.

Not long ago while on one of our daily walks together, she suddenly turned to me and said, “Why not start listening to a new voice in your head? Let’s be honest, the old one isn’t doing you any favors.” (She’s brilliant, but blunt.)

What did she mean? And what is this new voice? Actually it’s always been around — because it’s your true voice — your true self speaking with a kind of quiet wisdom you might not have known you even possess. If you like, think of it as a sort of divine intervention courtesy of yourself.

“What’s it sound like?” I asked. “It’s unChange Is Natural Now anyone who’s ever lived through the mistakable,” she said.

Unlike the old voice — who’s so often full palette of New Hampshire’s seasons already knows a thing or two about nav- harsh and punishing — your true voice is igating transitions in life. And, of course, always full of compassion and kindness for change is the hallmark of absolutely every- yourself. Where the old voice cranks out thing in the universe, from your face in the negativity, this one reminds you to be hopemirror to the stars in the sky. But if change ful and confident. And where the old one is so fundamental, from the cosmetic to the screams doubts and fears, this one calmly cosmic, why is it sometimes so bloody hard whispers “all is well.” It’s not a Pollyanna voice — more like a wise counselor. to come to grips with it?

So I started listening for it. And I couldn’t I believe part of the problem is that when we think about change — perhaps especially hear it. as we get older — we tend to focus on what At least not at first. Mind you, the old has been lost rather than what we might find. voices will not go gently into that good But there is a choice here. And it’s ours to night. My God, mine still chatter away like a make. What’s needed is a shift in perspective. Trump twitter feed. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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I didn’t realize then, and I do now, that getting lost is sometimes the only way to get home.

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But I’ve kept at it, reminding — essentially rewiring — my brain to listen for that deep and indestructible part of my being.

And I’m happy to report that occasionally now and then the din does fade. And I hear myself. My true self saying “all is well.”

In the event your own true voice has contracted a nasty case of laryngitis, you might alternatively try letting it write a simple affirmation for yourself. Here’s one I’ve started using: I am an original.

I am not afraid.

I will be gentle with myself and listen for my soul.

Work Is the Way Let me back into this next idea. When I was a young boy, my grandfather made a homemade telescope and together on summer evenings we’d gaze at the craters on the moon, Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s great red spot.

Because of those magical nights I eventually became an amateur astronomer, which as it turns out, can be a very valuable passion when it comes to navigating life’s transitions. I mean, here we are standing on a minor planet, circling an average star, spinning its way through galaxy with a 100 billion other stars. All in a universe sprinkled with another 100 billion galaxies.

If all of that doesn’t take some of the sting out of negotiating our next little transitions in life, I think there’s a simple reason: Instead of using the (metaphorical) telescope to see the long view, we keep pulling out the microscope to dissect the minutiae of our own lives.

It seems especially during these times of transition our internal geography can get scaled down to miniature size, making it terribly easy to get locked inside ourselves.

But there is a handy key to get out. And work is the way.

Obviously I’m defining “work” here very broadly. It can be a job, a pastime or just a daily sense of amazement with the mystery and miracle of nature. Maybe that’s the best kind of work because it lifts the perspective from our tiny egos toward something incomprehensibly immense and grand.

But if you need some practical motivation, you might try thinking about Annie Dillard’s great observation: “How you spend your days is, of course, how you spend your life.” Ponder that for a moment and it can wake you up.

I’ve also always liked the story about the

great cellist Pablo Casals, who worked prac- alluding to when he wrote: tically every day of his long, long life — 96 “the dark thought, the shame, the malice / years. When he was asked, late in his life, meet them at the door laughing and invite why he continued to work and practice four them in” or five hours a day, he reportedly said, “BeUnderstand that good and bad, success and cause I think I’m making progress.”

Now that’s an attitude that will keep you failure, winning and losing are just tempoalive and engaged whether you’re playing the rary labels we slap on events when they’re happening but on closer inspection, and ofcello or volunteering at the local food bank. ten over time, dissolve into each other.

While you’re at it, don’t get hung up on Deepak Chopra has a little exercise about notions of success or failure. You will do this.

He says list five events (transitions?) both. Often at the same time. And absothat you’ d label as good in your life and five lutely don’t get trapped by any pesky idea you’ d describe as bad. Now look more closeof “perfection.” If what you are doing shifts ly at them. Yes, that big promotion was a great thing — but of course it took you away from your family, distanced you from your spouse and eventually led to a divorce.

As for divorce — yes, a tragedy — except that over time you saw that it freed you from the wrong relationship and opened the way to new love.

Life’s transitions are full of these contradictions. Try your best to embrace them all.

Be grateful for them all. And if that’s too difficult, start with being thankful for that apricot jam on your toast this morning and work your way up.

Good and bad, success and failure, winning and losing are just temporary labels we slap on events when they’re happening but on closer inspection dissolve into each other.

your attention away from your naval, then well enough is good enough. Mistakes, missteps and flaws are roads into the soul.

Which brings me to this:

Amor Fati “Amor fati” is a Latin phrase that translates as “love of fate” or “to love one’s fate.” It’s at the heart of the ancient philosophy of stoicism.

And it’s what the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius meant when he said, “All that is in accord with you, World, is in accord with me.”

The idea here is to not just accept — but to revel — in the whole crazy quilt of your life. Put your arrogant, most embarrassing and insanely regrettable moments right in there alongside the wonderful, joyful and sublime ones. I think it’s what the 13th-century Persian mystic Rumi may have been

A Confession Having arrived at this point, I have a confession to make. I started by saying those vexing questions “Who am I?” and “What now?” were at the center of navigating my life’s journey. I’m not so sure anymore. They strike me now as just another attempt by my ego to claim the spotlight. At this point, a different kind of light has begun to interest me. One that shines from beyond I, me and mine.

And when I said that during this journey “some get stranded, some get lost, some make it home,” I didn’t realize then, and I do now, that getting lost is sometimes the only way to get home.

The lessons I’ve touched on here won’t always work. And the guides and spirits will often be silent. But as the poet Wendell Berry said: “It may be when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed.” NH

Jay Schadler is available as speaker for groups, organizations and companies.

Reach him at jayschadlerart@gmail.com or (603) 531-9998. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020 31

Victoria Arlen Photo by Jared Charney

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VICTORIA’S VICTORY Victoria Arlen begins her next chapter at 25

By Jess Saba, Photo by Jared Charney

e’re in the kitchen of Victoria Arlen’s toria’s Victory Costumes for a Cause, in She’s an athletic-wear designer and the face family home in Exeter. Her mom is shuttling Portsmouth. I was a bit of a wallflower while of Jockey who has images displayed across around the house preparing for work. We’ve Arlen, dressed as Buzz Lightyear, moved Jumbotrons in Times Square. She is also ofscheduled a full hour to talk before Arlen’s around the room dancing, laughing and ten recognized on the street from her days next appointment at 11 a.m. for her personal hugging her guests. At one point, she posed competing on “Dancing with the Stars.” training session. She wants to be on time so in front of a poster of herself modeling JockArlen lives a fit lifestyle and often trains she can get a full workout in for the day. two or three times a day — she does everyBefore our interview, I glanced through thing from boxing and SoulCycle to Pure the comments on Arlen’s Instagram photos.

Barre and pilates, and even goes on hiking Her fans describe her as “inspiring,” “hopesessions with her personal trainers in Los filled” and “simply beautiful.”

Angeles and New Hampshire. “I really like Arlen describes herself as a “donut-loving, challenging my body and moving. I do a litjumping-jelly-bean kind of human.” tle bit of everything,” says Arlen.

Today, she is wearing a short, flowing She keeps an active lifestyle partially to dress with her hair hanging loosely in long, stay healthy, partially as a stress manageribboned waves. She stopped by the coffee ment strategy during her busy weeks, and maker and used the counter for balance as partially because she was paralyzed for she pulled on stylish black velvet boots with years, and nobody knows why she miracuimpressively high spiked heels.

In 2010, Victoria Arlen was emerging from a lously recovered.

A few years ago, the idea of Arlen walking four-year vegetative state, and she began to dream about what lay ahead.

“This last quarter of my life was a bit of a doozy” in high heels was unlikely, and even impossible. She was paralyzed from the waist down. ey athletic wear and made a face as if to say, When Arlen was 11 years old, her health rapidly degenerated until she slid from being With a vibrant smile and easy laugh, she “This is crazy.”

Arlen is a public figure with growing pop- a healthy child to becoming locked in her dances over to the kitchen table and takes a seat. It’s the start of November. Earlier in ularity. She’s a host at ESPN and the newest body in a vegetative state unable to move her the week, I had stopped by her event, Vic- host of “American Ninja Warrior Junior.” muscles or speak. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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In the depths of the recovery years, her doing. I had to be realistic — so I truly didn’t family diligently worked to find answers. prepare to live.”

They whispered encouragement to her while Arlen just turned 25. “This feels like the she slept and promised her that she would start of a new quarter,” she says. “In this remake it through. cent phase, I feel like my focus has been on After four years in a vegetative state, she really living.” blinked. Then, she made a noise. She reBut this isn’t an overnight success story. learned how to speak. She relearned how to Arlen has chiseled her growth mindset. She do everything with constant coaching from is relentless about her habits, her training, speech, occupational and physical therapists. her mantras and her rituals.

Today, her life seems supercharged. It’s as With dedicated effort, she left her bed and learned how to navigate a wheelchair. She re- if she starts sprinting on a moving sidewalk learned how to swim. She began training and each morning at sunrise, while the rest of us joined the US Paralympic swim team. She start speed walking around noon with the Arlen’s mother, Jacqueline Arlen, has been by her daughter’s side through her journey, competed in the 2012 Paralympics, where hopes of keeping alongside her.

Her motivation was developed from les- and was inspired to open the first Project she won a gold and three silver medals.

Walk on the East Coast in 2015.

“I feel like I’ve lived two extremes. I had sons that only intense pain and challenge can one extreme where literally everything was teach. She seems driven by a deep desire to this list in my mind and just decided that if taken away. I couldn’t speak or move. For balance the scales after spending such a large no one could hear me, then no one could tell me that these ideas were crazy. I decided to four years, I was pretty much writing my portion of her young life immobilized. obituary and preparing every single day with When she was locked in her body, she believe anything is possible.”

When Arlen’s condition started improvthe thought that, ‘OK, today’s probably going would daydream. “I would ask myself, to be my last day,” says Arlen. “I had to pre- ‘What’s the craziest thing I can dream?’ Like, ing in 2013, she began working out with pare to die. I was really sad that I didn’t have if I were to come out of this tomorrow, what Angela Garcia — a well-loved local fitness the chance to do the things I had dreamed of would I want to do?” she says. “So, I made instructor and owner of AG Fitness in Stratham. Arlen had just won a gold medal for swimming at the 2012 London Paralympics with no use of her legs.

“Victoria originally came to me in her wheelchair,” says Garcia. “We focused on dry land conditioning. While we were training, she would talk about her future goals outside of swimming. She would say things like, ‘One day I’m going to wear stilettos to the grocery store.’ I remember saying, ‘I believe you. I believe you.’ We weren’t anywhere close to that goal when we started, but I believed her.”

In 2013, Arlen was still far from strolling the produce aisle in heels, as she was still paralyzed from her waist down. She was an Olympic swimmer, but she was unable to walk. “It was far-fetched at that point. But I still believed her,” Garcia says.

Today, Arlen’s successes can be traced back to moments of uncertainty when she sat down with nothing but a notebook and her imagination to write out her wildest dreams. She says, “I was in a transitional period in 2014. I was feeling down-and-out and asked myself, ‘What am I doing? Where am I going with life?’”

Arlen imagined the possibilities for her next phase of life by jotting down her most ambitious ideas: Write a book. Launch a foundation. Be a host on ESPN. “I wrote out a list of plans in the fall, and that spring I

was hired at ESPN.” “What I appreciate the most about Victoria is her champion mindset,” says Garcia. “She always talks about the importance of having a good mindset. She frequently says, ‘If you visualize it, you can materialize it,’ and she has the capacity to do that. She has such grit and such perseverance about her.”

Arlen credits her dedicated inner circle for helping her to regain strength and the ability to dream again. “I’m very fortunate that I have a really tight circle of family, friends and faith. And that trifecta keeps me sane and grounded, and focused on what really matters,” she says.

It was her support system that helped her recover. “It’s taken a whole lot of processing to get here. For a long time we were all sad and drained. And then we just started celebrating and realized that it’s time to move forward,” Arlen recounts. “If someone has a dream, believe it. Believe in them. It’s so easy to tell people why it won’t work out. Don’t do that to anyone you love. Choose to be their wings to help them fly. Be their support system no matter how crazy the idea is. Fuel someone’s dream with faith, hope, love and by believing in them.”

“If someone has a dream, believe it.

Believe in them. It’s so easy to tell people why it won’t work out. Don’t do that to anyone you love.

Choose to be their wings to help them fly.”

—Victoria Arlen

Remembering to Live Follow Arlen on social media and you’ll see real-time posts of her frolicking around in fun dresses and spiky heels on set at Universal Studios in Hollywood. You’ll see her sitting in a canvas director’s chair in the ESPN prep room making cross-eyed squishy faces at the camera while being glamorized by makeup artists, stylists and curling irons.

You’ll see her during an intense personal training session wearing her Jockey x Victoria pastel-colored, donut-patterned pants.

You’ll watch her speak to her fans through her phone camera with such easy laughter that you’ll wonder if she’s reading off cards created by a comedy writer.

She’s a motivational speaker who walks into corporate events and encourages people to think bigger. She also runs Victoria’s Victory Foundation and published an autobiography “Locked In: The Will to Survive and the Resolve to Live” in 2018. And she’s just getting started.

times. I always joke that I’m a frequent flyer to rock bottom. I’ve really punched my card a few times there.”

Over the past 14 years, Arlen has developed four mindsets to help her navigate the most challenging days. It’s a mental road map that begins when an event throws life into a tailspin: Face It, Embrace It, Defy It, Conquer It. No one is ready for the challenges that come with limitations. But over the past 10 years, Arlen and her family have gathered together a community of caregivers, physical therapists and mobility assistance programs to make it possible for others to live in hope of healing and recovery.

Since its creation, the Victoria’s Victory Foundation has distributed more than $260,000 to people in need of mobility assistance. People with mobility challenges struggle to go to the bathroom, to their bedroom, to the coffee shop down the street, to physiFace It, Embrace It, Defy It, Conquer It cal therapy, to college and to work indepen“I’ve been so blessed, and now I get to be a dent of support from a caregiver. Stairs are a blessing to others,” says Arlen. “And that re- hurdle for people with mobility limitations. ally drives me because I know what it’s like Anywhere you might think of going naturalto hit rock bottom. I’ve been there multiple ly is a challenge with a cost attached. Wheel-

chairs, retrofitted cars, extra handrails and nurses are prohibitively expensive. For many, it is easier to stay at home.

Victoria’s Victory Foundation wants to make moving about life easier for those with lost limbs, spinal cord injuries or degenerative diseases. “It took a village to help me defy death. It took a village to help me walk.

Ultimately, it took a village to help me get back into life,” says Arlen.

This mindset directs the work she does with people who find their way to her foundation for support.

Grants help support what they need, like custom-made wheelchairs, in-home services, adaptable services, vehicle adaptations, accessible housing solutions, funds to learn to walk with a trainer and other support for their conditions. The money helps provide services, training and equipment to people so they can live full lives with as much independence as possible.

This isn’t the only way the Arlen family is helping others. Arlen’s parents opened up the Project Walk Boston Ability Center in Stratham while Victoria was learning to walk nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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—Victoria Arlen so she could train every single day. They continued to run the paralysis recovery center for others after she graduated from the program.

Now, people arrive at Project Walk Boston facing some of the biggest battles of their lives — from birth defects, accidents, illnesses and amputations to loss of connection between the brain and the body. All are embraced and encouraged to work toward their

own personal victories.

“Everyday at Project Walk we tell people that it takes a village,” says Arlen. “You don’t just get there on your own. Unfortunately, so many of us are afraid to reach out. Sometimes we think we’re standing alone, but you really always have people around you. It’s taken the people around me that have been like ‘alright, we got you’ to get me to where I am today.”

Local fitness instructor and owner of AG Fitness in Stratham, Angela Garcia, has been training and encouraging Victoria Arlen since 2013.

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In “Locked In,” Arlen shares her story of recovery after falling into a vegetative state at 11, and how she broke free and never gave up hope that one day she would change the world for the better.

phot by emily heidt

“This feels like the start of a new quarter. In this recent phase, I feel like my focus has been on really living.”

In 2013, when Arlen was working with a physical therapist to relearn how to walk, she felt a flicker in a muscle in her leg. She fanned the flame of hope this one moment offered.

She fought to regain her movement. She stood from her wheelchair. She learned to navigate the world on her own with her hot pink crutches and tie-dye leg braces. She learned to walk. She gained strength in her legs. She was invited to compete on “Dancing with the Stars,” where she foxtrotted her way across the stage. Her muscles strengthened.

To fully understand the transformation Arlen has accomplished, think about this: She had to relearn how to talk and became a TV host and motivational speaker. She had to relearn how to walk and performed on “Dancing with The Stars.” She had to relearn how to swim and became an Olympian. She wanted a donut on a T-shirt, so she designed her own national collection of pastry-themed outfits and became the face of Jockey.

To be liberated from solitary confinement within her body seems to have gifted Arlen with an unmatchable ability to reinvent her life as she moves forward every day.

“When I was really sick, my brothers would come into my hospital room and they would climb into bed and say, ‘You’re going to do great things. One day, you’re going to do these things you want to do.’” says Arlen.

One Step at a Time

By Emily Heidt

When you step through the doors of Project Walk Boston, you’re met with a dedicated team of trainers who treat you like part of the family. The Stratham center offers world-renowned programs tailored to your specific needs, and a gym full of state-ofthe-art equipment to help you achieve the next stage of recovery. But Project Walk is more than just a gym — it’s a safe space where you can experience the miracle of movement and the healing power of hope. It was the same chance of hope that led current Project Walk Boston owner and CEO, Jacqueline Arlen, and her daughter, Victoria, to Project Walk San Diego in 2013.

“During our three-month stay, we could see that Victoria was making progress in her activity-based recovery training, and I started asking why there wasn’t a similar facility on the East Coast,” says Jacqueline.

“The CEO had a meeting and asked if someone would be interested in opening another location, and I felt an immediate wave of divine energy. That was it.”

Four days later, Jacqueline called her husband Larry and said she wanted to open the first Project Walk on the opposite coast. “He didn’t shut me down, but he was a little shocked at the request,” recalls Jacqueline. “I said that this was God’s calling on my life. I had to do it.

After visiting Project Walk in San Diego himself, he called me in New Hampshire and said, ‘Yep, we are doing this.’”

Jacqueline sat at her kitchen counter for a year learning more about spinal cord injuries and movement disorders, researching different restorative therapies such as ReWalk, finding potential locations and searching for trainers with servant’s hearts. She notes that she drew inspiration from her daughter’s journey and found solace in the thought that as much as she poured into the journey of others, God would continue to pour His grace and guidance into her.

Jacqueline finished the paperwork for Project Walk Boston, to be based in Stratham, in May 2014, and by January 2015, Jacqueline and her three trainers opened the doors to their first clients in the middle of a 30-inch snowstorm. Victoria continued to train in the facility that her mother ran, and in November 2015, she experienced one of the many miracles that happen at Project Walk — a flicker of movement in her leg. The rest is history.

The facility is celebrating its five-year anniversary this year, and is now home to seven trainers and a G-EO Evolution Gait Trainer, the only one of its kind in the Northeast. It’s a bodyweight supported gait trainer that enables motor compromised individuals to complete a high volume of step repetitions. On average, clients are able to complete anywhere from 1,000-3,000 steps, stairs or a combination of both, in a one-hour G-EO session. The machine has allowed the facility to have more of an impact on pediatric clients during their pediatric program, and it even lead them to change part of the facility to a more child-friendly training space.

Clients ranging from a year to 90 years old continue to come from all over the region, and even as far as India, Singapore and Slovakia, to receive treatment for spinal cord injuries, transverse myelitis, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injuries, ALS and MS. Victoria still serves as a shining example of what happens when you believe in yourself, both in

and outside of Project Walk. When she comes back to New Hampshire to visit, Victoria is quick to advise fellow clients not to “go through it, but grow through it,” while Jacqueline comes alongside her and reminds clients that you have to “feel it to heal it.”

“If you need to cry, cry. If you are angry, be angry. If you are frustrated and need a break, take a break to breathe and come back to it,” says Jacqueline. “We like to remind clients that it’s OK to have feelings.”

Jacqueline knows from personal experience that this practice applies to caregivers as well.

“It’s just as important for caregivers to nurture themselves as it is for those they are caring for,” says Jacqueline. “I used to cry in the shower and yell and scream in the car. Reach out and understand that you also have to give yourself the chance to feel to heal. Find that place where you can let it out too.”

On days where the weight of their family’s situation felt too heavy, she credits gratitude for keeping her grounded. “On my hardest of mornings, I would feel like the shade would pull down and I didn’t know how I would get through the day, but if I started with gratitude that Victoria was alive, just like our clients are alive, it is amazing how much my day would change,” says Jacqueline. “We tell our caregivers and clients to focus on what they have and not what they’ve lost.

Gratitude is the best medicine.”

With a leap of faith, a lot of love, and the support from the therapy you need given by the family you didn’t know you needed, the impossible is made possible and your goals are made a reality at Project Walk.

Project Walk 20 Portsmouth Ave., Stratham (603) 583-5119 pwboston.com nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Her struggles were within her and her successes are now built from her deep desire to prove to herself that she can do anything. She’s absolutely willing to fiercely run toward a challenge. She navigates speed bumps with mantras, secret dance parties and a willingness to talk about her experiences with her inner circle so they can help her move forward faster.

“I feel like you can either choose to cry or choose to try. It’s good to try, but then you have to stand up and put one foot in front of the other or surround yourself with people who are going to pick you up and help you move through,” says Arlen.

Now, in each aspect of her work, she cheers people on as they meet and overcome obstacles. She spends time with her grantees, as well as with the contestants on “American Ninja Warrior Junior.” She celebrates their accomplishments and tells them this is just the beginning of their journey.

Back home in New Hampshire Since being gifted with a second chance, Arlen has taken full advantage of the possibilities that life and living have to offer. She lives

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saukee, where she can float along on an inner tube that looks like a frosted donut. “There’s a magic to New Hampshire. These days I live on an airplane. I live in various places, but there’s always such magic when I come back here. There’s magic to be found when you go up north. We all need that reminder to just look up. The beautiful thing about New Hampshire is you look up and there’s always something beautiful to see,” says Arlen.

The Granite State brings Arlen back to herself. No makeup, no lights, no celebrity — just a person drifting around a lake with family and friends. It’s a place for her to catch up on sleep, wear her hair in a messy top-bun and go fishing with her brothers.

Above: Arlen keeps herself grounded by “We live in a world where we want these taking time off to float around in her donut tube on Lake Winnipesaukee. big, grandiose gestures. I’m very fortunate that I’ve had this extraordinary life, but it’s Below: As a part of her job at ESPN, Arlen interviews Olympic swimmer Michael come at an extraordinary cost. It’s still moPhelps. ments like being able to float on my sprinon the West Coast and travels constantly, but kled donut on Lake Winnipesaukee that get she often returns home to New Hampshire me,” says Arlen. “I try to make the most of to rest between projects. the second chance I’ve been given. ObviousShe’s drawn back to New Hampshire to ly, this is a miracle. I’m trying to make the recharge. Her sacred spot is Lake Winnipe- most of the second chance.” NH

“I’m very fortunate that I’ve had this extraordinary life, but it’s come at an extraordinary cost.

It’s still moments like being able to float on my sprinkled donut on Lake Winnipesaukee that get me.”

—Victoria Arlen

Photo by Jared Charney

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The

Not-So-Secret Life of Matty Gregg

I

n 1994, when Matty Doris was 16 years old, his family moved out of the house he had spent his boyhood in. The house was in Nashua, a mile or two south of downtown, and Matty loved it. His dad, who died when Matty was nine, had built the house. Before going, Matty sought out a neighbor and asked him if he’d keep an eye on the old place. He said wanted to be told if it ever came on the market. He said someday he was going to live there again.

By then Matty was a student at Phillips Exeter. He was a computer geek in an age when most kids were too shortsighted to realize that it would someday pay to have been a computer geek. The family’s first Apple computer had entered the house shortly after his dad died, and Matty fell in love with computing; it was a way of keeping sorrow at bay. He dreamt of one day working for the company behind the machine that had given him a sense of direction.

By Anders Morley Opening photo by Kendal J. Bush At Exeter, Matty’s adviser was the computer science chair. His passion for coding flourished. The dot-com boom was just starting then, and Matty had his adolescent fingertip squarely on its pulse. He understood that lean domain names would be worth something someday. When he discovered that NH.com could be had for $300, he called his mom — who ran the precursor to this magazine — to suggest that she buy it. As it turned out, a friend of hers had the same idea and bought it for her. “At the time starwars.com was also available,” Matty remembers, with a look that says, “So it goes.”

Matty ended up at Exeter, one of the finest schools in the country, thanks to encouragement from the new father figure in his life, his stepfather, who also encouraged him and his brother to make the most of their summers off by spending seven weeks at camp. “It took me a while to forgive him for some of the pushes he gave me,” Matty says, “but looking back on it, I realize it was

the right thing to do. It was a good time.”

His stepfather was David Gregg, nephew of former governor of New Hampshire Hugh Gregg and first cousin to then-senator Judd Gregg. The Gregg family is the closest thing New Hampshire has to a dynasty. After finishing school, Matty asked his stepfather if he would adopt him. So Matty Doris became Matty Gregg.

The newly christened Matty Gregg went on to study political science at Holy Cross, where he continued to pursue computer science as a hobby. “If I was going to do computer science back then, it was C,” he says, referring to the programming language. “It was procedural.

Object-oriented programming was something brand new, so I kind of looked at it and said, ‘Well, I can get a computer-science degree and maybe that will matter to employers, but in reality they’re not going to teach me the things I need to know, so I’m going to try something else.’ And, because of the family, political science just made sense.” nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Above: The midpoint of Route 66 in Adrian, Texas, was worth a photo op, but the midpoint of Matty’s run was still a full state over in Louisiana.

Below: Matty jogs on Rodeo Beach in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area of Marin County at the beginning of his run.

views, and some of the subjects ultimately had reservations about making their stories public. Fifteen years later, Matty still hopes that the passage of time will let him revive the project someday.

While in New York, he somehow landed a design job with an architectural firm.

“I guess I interviewed well,” he says, when I ask how a political-science graduate with a computer hobby managed to swing a job that gave him a hand in overhauling Saks Fifth Avenue and creating the Top of the Rock observation deck at Rockefeller Center. From there he was offered a retail position in an Apple Store — which looked like a gateway to a dream. The problem was that the job was on Staten Island and required a two-and-a-half-hour commute. Matty seized the opportunity. Apple hired him as what it called a “creative,” and a creative is what Apple got. “It was the time when the video iPod had just come out,” he recalls. “I remember it as a nice, creative time. Traveling on the ferry I was able to come up with presentations and code systems that might actually be useful for Apple as a whole, as a retail organization.”

Matty was eventually promoted to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store when it opened. “It’s the only 24-hour store in the fleet,” he says, “so one of the challenges was that they didn’t really have a system in place for a 24-hour store that was as effective as it could be. So I was basically creating systems as supplements to the ones that we had to find ways to improve things.”

courtesy photos

After graduating, Matty moved back to New Hampshire and took a job at New Hampshire Magazine, which had grown since the days when his mom began producing it in the basement of the Nashua house. The magazine had been acquired by the company that owned The Nashua Telegraph, and Matty was hired on as IT director for both publications, exhibiting for the first time a singular ability to parlay a hobby into a profession.

Meanwhile, he and Rick Broussard, current editor of New Hampshire Magazine, founded the New Hampshire Theatre Awards, which continue to this day.

Musical theatre had long appealed to Matty. In high school he was involved in drama, but what most excited him was enriching the theatrical experience through the use of multimedia and video technology. He dreamt of a production of his own someday.

In 2004, after considerable thought, he moved to New York City. He said he was going to write a musical about the tragedies of 9/11, and he began collecting stories by meeting with survivors and their loved ones.

He composed a score and got most of the lyrics down. But in the end he was unable to produce the musical. He had signed nondisclosure agreements before conducting inter-

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courtesy photo

Above: This group shot taken at the end of Matty’s run at the NH Statehouse includes fans and family and two world champions of the World’s Toughest Mudder 24-hour race: Stefanie Bishop and Kris Mendoza.

photo by kendal j. bush

Right: Matty poses with the complete family he “acquired” on his run: (from left) Ethan (holding Ash), wife-to-be Alicia, Emma (holding Cinder), Kaya the dog and Noah.

When somebody at corporate headquarters noticed his work, they offered him a job in California. In 2007, Matty was off to Silicon Valley for the fulfillment of another dream.

For the next 12 years at Apple, he worked variously as a video producer, a coder, senior manager for retail technology, and finally senior manager for Apple Pay global expansion.

Matty has loved running ever since he was a kid, when his biological father showed him “The Terry Fox Story,” a 1983 film about the young Canadian athlete who lost a leg to osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer that often begins at the knee. On a prosthetic right leg, Fox set out running across Canada, chalking up a marathon a day, to raise money for cancer research. After 3,339 miles the cancer reached his lungs and he could no longer breathe. He was forced to leave the road, and several months later he died at 22. Terry Fox Runs still take place every year around the world and have become the world’s largest one-day annual fundraiser for cancer research.

In California Matty became passionate about obstacle-course running and ultramarathons. Fox had shown him that he could use his personal hobby as a way of raising money to help others. As he put hundreds of punishing off-road miles behind him, sometimes running for 24 hours at a time, he was able to simultaneously direct hundreds of thousands of dollars to the aid of organizations such as the Wounded Warrior Project, Beyond the 11th and St. Baldrick’s Foundation.

But in 2016 the beating he was giving his body caught up with him. He began to experience pain he had never imagined possible and lost feeling and motor function in his left arm. He found himself reduced to tears

by nerve pain as he lay in bed for weeks. He suffered chronic headaches. Doctors admitted him to the hospital for emergency surgery to remove a disc from his neck and fuse together the surrounding bones. Lying in a neck brace watching a ceiling fan go round and round while he recovered set the wheels in his mind to turning.

Some people are basically the same person at 18 and 80. They don’t dream and they don’t

evolve. They neither seek nor find. They ride a gentle breeze back and forth across life’s harbor, sailing on an even keel. They are what they are.

Anyone who wants to become something more must dream. But just dreaming is not enough.

James Thurber’s classic story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” is eloquent on the risks of dreaming. The subdued antihero, dragged nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Above: At the end of his run, Matty poses with his proud parents, Patricia and David Gregg, at the New Hampshire Statehouse.

Below: Matty runs past the Nashua house where he was raised and where this magazine first took root as Network Publications.

for Matty. Now it was an accomplishment.

He was satisfied with the contributions he had made during his 12 years there. He felt like had played an important part in a revolution that had reshaped the world. At

the entrance to Apple headquarters, a shred of Steve Jobs’ philosophy is lettered on the wall. After his surgery Matty posted the words to his blog: “If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

Looking at the fan on the ceiling, Matty thought hard about what was next.

He still had many dreams — ambitious dreams — but one of them had a deadline attached to it. Matty had known for a while that he would stop running by 40. It was too hard on his body. His recent injury seemed to prove the point. And so it was time he got serious about fulfilling a longstanding dream of emulating his childhood hero Terry Fox on his own turf: Matty would run across the United States. But the run, if he planned it right, could coincide with the fulfillment of other dreams. Matty is not the kind of guy to run across a continent just for the heck of it.

He needed a reason to run. He needed a plan for what came after the run. And he needed a precise destination. Unsurprisingly, he had dreams to fulfill each of these needs. Now he just needed to fold those dreams together into plans and turn the plans into reality.

A run east from California fit perfectly with Matty’s ambition of someday seeking political office back home in New Hampshire.

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stable at 30, divorced at 32, and starting all over again at 37, at a different place in my life.

Roller. Coaster. Ride.”

There is one sure thing about roller coasters though: They always go in circles. They end where they began.

Working at Apple had once been a goal

photo by kendal j. bush

around town by his wife on her tiresome errands, sporadically lapses into the most outlandish fantasies. One minute he is commander of a Navy hydroplane powering through an ocean storm, the next he’s a sought-after surgeon performing a rare and dangerous medical procedure. He is invariably summoned back to reality by his wife’s nagging. In the final scene of the story, Mrs. Mitty orders her husband to wait for her in the street while she visits one last shop.

Walter Mitty stands against the wall, lights a cigarette, and suddenly imagines himself facing a firing squad. “To hell with the handkerchief,” he tells the executioner, and looks into the eyes of fate.

If you want to fulfill your dreams, you have to chase them. Otherwise you may wake up one day to realize you’re living in a nightmare.

But following dreams takes you down another road. Chances are that road will have lots of bumps and curves in it. Matty, long a chaser of dreams, found himself somewhere along that road in 2016, when he posted these thoughts to his blog: “I am a 37-year-old man who is still ‘connecting dots’ of what makes me a happy human. I had a successful career at 23, gave it up to move to New York City to write a musical at 24, almost bankrupt at 25, married and beginning my journey at Apple at 26,

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courtesy photos

The ambition was always there. He had studied political science in college and then, well, he’s a Gregg. Now the news said Americans were as polarized as they had ever been, and it was painful for a public-spirited man like Matty to see. Greggs belonged to an old New England tradition of political moderation, but no one seemed interested in moderation anymore. Matty would use his run to get upclose with Americans all across the land to try to find out why they were so at odds.

Since fundraising had become an important facet of Matty’s identity, his run could also become the ultimate fundraiser. He made up his mind that any money raised would go to the Firefighter Cancer Support Network. His respect for firefighters and the dangers they face was born of the same admiration that had led him from New Hampshire to New York to write a musical about 9/11 back in 2004.

But there was still a last piece of the puzzle — an almost-forgotten one way off at the edge of the table, one that would make a particularly satisfying click when it popped into place. And when it did, it happened on its own — serendipitously — outside Matty’s grand plan, like some cosmic vindication of all his meticulous forethought.

It took 24 years, but in 2018 word finally arrived that the house Matty’s father built in Nashua was back on the market. The run was already planned to finish in New Hampshire by then. Matty jumped and made an offer.

The offer was accepted on his 40th birthday.

Matty set out from Cupertino on November 6, 2018, the day of the midterm elections, which seemed to highlight the

When I met Matty at his old house — now his new house — in November, he still emitted some of that aura that people accumulate when they’ve been out on the trail doing exceptional things for a long time. Or maybe he glowed because he was finally home. political meaning underlying the journey.

It was a meaning he reinforced by insisting that he was running in the spirit of Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who traveled through the United States in 1831 to study American life in light of its professed political ideals. When he got home, Tocqueville wrote “Democracy in America,” which remains one of the most insightful studies ever made of American civic and political culture.

Matty’s goal wasn’t quite the same, but he

wanted to understand why people in the US were so at odds. He wanted to look for common ground so that he would know where to put his feet if he ever succeeded in becoming a leader of American people.

After a farewell lap around Apple Park, Matty turned south and ran and ran and ran.

He went down the California coast and east across the desert. He zigzagged through the South, going down into Texas, then up into Tennessee, and then back down into Georgia. By the time he reached Concord last August, he had been running for 275 days and had covered 5,400 miles.

When I met Matty at his old house — now his new house — in November, he still emitted some of that aura that people accumulate when they’ve been out on the trail doing exceptional things for a long time. Or maybe he glowed because he was finally home. He’d moved in just three weeks earlier.

He introduced me to his partner, Alicia Herndon, whom he had known through friends for several years before his run but grew close to while facing wintry conditions in Arizona and New Mexico. Matty says he felt cold and lonely then, and talking to Alicia on the phone every day made it easier for him go back out and run. They fell in love and are now a couple in Nashua, offering me cookies, one of which was shaped like the United States and decorated with a line of icing marking Matty’s path. Then the three of us sat in the living room to talk.

Matty is writing a book now. “It’s based on the run, but it’s not about the run,” he says, just as Tocqueville’s book based on his journey was not about his journey. He wants to

Matty (above, second from left and far left in the photo at right) created a production of the comedy-horror rock musical “Evil Dead: The Musical.” nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Matty used his run to raise awareness and money (more than $150,000) for Firefighter Cancer Support Network, a group with operations in over 35 states (and growing) that trains fire departments on the carcinogenic hazards they encounter and invests in research for the fight against cancer.

Donations can still be made at classy.org/fundraiser/1633587.

Above: Matty at the Nashua Fire Dept.

Below: Matty stops by the White House on the last leg of his run.

down, deregulate everything, destroy any sort of government — it’s very difficult to come up with an overall solution for any problem, because the solution to that is ‘humanity will save itself ’ — when in fact we know that hasn’t happened yet, and it certainly doesn’t look like we’re heading toward that anytime soon.”

That said, his experience at Apple showed him something positive on the red side. He remembers a colleague who had a side gig trying to develop a laser capable of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. He thinks, citing climate change again, that the blue side is mistaken in its belief that emissions control is going to save us. “We’ve gone way past that,” Matty says. “What’s going to save us is ingenuity — some way of actually removing carbon from the atmosphere. So it’s this double-edged sword. It was my time at Apple, in the private sector, which contributed to innovation. We basically were like, there is a major problem here that we need to solve through something we’ve never done before.

The flipside is that an overarching solution probably requires some sort of higher body

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call it “Democracy in America 2.” The book accepts the persistent validity of most of Tocqueville’s analysis and builds on it to say something about America today. “It can be read from both sides,” Matty explains. “There’s a red binder and a blue binder. You’ll be able to start from either side, but in the middle there’s a purple area. The purple area feeds the ideas into the middle. It basically says where the common ground is. That common ground is part of what built this country, and it’s what we build our freedoms upon.”

I ask him whether he’s more sympathetic to one side, expecting he’ll dodge my question, but he doesn’t. “The blue side is easier to talk about because I believe that it’s based more in fact than emotion. Solutions are more possible in the blue area. If you look at something through a blue lens, you’re more likely to have an outcome that’s beneficial for people in general, because — to use the issue of climate change as an example — climate change is real. You cannot deny that it is a problem right now. So you look through a blue lens to find a solution. If I look through a red lens and the answer is take everything

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to say, ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to do it.’”

Once we’re done talking about his book and his run, I ask Matty what else he’s been up to.

He tells me he just returned from Las Vegas, where he’d been with his touring musical theatre company. He has created his own production of the comedy-horror rock musical “Evil Dead: The Musical.” The distinctive feature of his production is a massive video backdrop and floor — a 3-D model he generated — that enables him to move the set around the actors and give spectators an experience they won’t find anywhere else. “It’s just a fun night for people,” he says. “People spend more money to sit in the first few rows, where we splatter them with fake blood.” Tickets are selling well, and after Las Vegas the show was moving on to San Jose and Chicago.

Matty’s charisma and charm were unfaltering as he told me all this. There seemed

Ash the cat (named for the hero of “Evil Dead”) was a stray who started following Matty on his run as he trekked through Nunez, Georgia. He added him to the crew,

to be no question to which he did not have a thoughtful and enthusiastic answer.

“Is he always like this?” I asked Alicia, who laughed and shook her head.

“Yes! He’s like the White Queen in ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ — ‘Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ That is Matty Gregg’s life!”

The only difference is that Matty Gregg lives on this side of the looking glass, in Nashua, New Hampshire, where things happen the right way around — and where the impossible things he dreams before breakfast have become possible by lunchtime and by dinnertime are accomplished facts.

When Matty finally shows me to the front door, I notice it has a new coat of purple paint on the outside. I look back him knowingly and snicker. “Yeah,” Matty says, with a quiet smile, and thanks me for coming. NH

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Acting Your

Age Our Lakes Region is home to some stars of the entertainment industry that still shine brightly in their “retirement” years Opening photo by Bruce Luetters Left: Ernest Thompson on the Squam Lake dock made famous in his Oscar-winning film, “On Golden Pond.”

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Creativity Is Incurable And that’s a good thing

By Ernest thompson

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hat’s the hurry, honey, anyway? is a lyric from a song I wrote titled “Harley Chick,” composed and performed by the amazing Justin Jaymes, but it’s a fair question. I get it when you’re 8 and can’t wait to be double digits, and then count the months until you’re a teenager, and then yearn to drive and then to vote and then to drink legally, but I’ve never bought into the helter-skelter too many people live their lives in, one eye on the speedometer, one on the rearview mirror, gotta go, gotta go or you’ll be late to your retirement party.

In my business you don’t get to retire; turns out there’s no cure for creativity. Which may account for the fact that I’m typically the oldest kid on the sand volleyball court — I

Ernest Thompson on Squam Lake Photo by Bruce Luetters

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own my own on my farm in the Lakes Region — or on the slopes, on my snowboard, no less, or still dreaming.

Yes, luck plays a part in living a good life, and genes too. Smart choices, I’d contend, also play a role. Thirty-two years of being a practicing vegan, no small challenge in our meat-and-potatoes state, is starting to seem like a pretty practical idea, 32 years of derision notwithstanding.

Here’s a lyric I like and didn’t make up: “Choose happiness.” There are ogres everywhere and trolls under every bridge you try to summon the courage to cross. We live in a world of idiots — have you noticed? — critics and naysayers, haters and hitmen eager to shoot your enthusiasm down. They can slow

your forward progress, no question about it, if you choose to let them. I don’t and never have, not for long. I learned in my youth how to do the two-step sidestep if someone’s in my way. Life is too fantastic and there’s too much to accomplish to linger long on the dead-end roads to nowhere.

So what does a boy of 70 do with a credo like that? Live every day, play as often as possible. Write every day, for sure. There’s no shortage of stories to tell and, whenever I can, I tap the inexhaustible mother lode of talent New Hampshire’s rich with. I’ve shot three movies in-state and am working on two more, the long-overdue sequel to youknow-what, and “Parallel America,” my hilarious and deeply moving response to the madness our nation finds itself caught up in, a project, like most of what I do, open to anyone who wants to come be part of it.

In 2019, I directed a New York workshop of my play “Ax Of Love,” and a sold-out run of “On Golden Pond” at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. I delivered an Amos Fortune talk in Jaffrey and filled Concord’s Red River Theatres with a screening of my film “1969.”

I hosted a fundraiser concert at Pitman’s Freight Room in Laconia, and a songwriting workshop with my longtime collaborator Joe Deleault to finish a year that also included

“LIVE FREE OR DIE” (excerpt) Lyrics by Ernest Thompson Music by Art Harriman

In the hills of New Hampshire On a crystal autumn day If you’re looking for adventure It’s sure to come your way Meet me north of Henniker You know the spot I mean You can see halfway to Canada And every mountain in between New Hampshire is calling As she always calls to me In my thoughts I’m on the Androscoggin Or I’m walking by the sea I’m hiking to the top of Mt. Monadnock I’m biking to Ossipee Down the back roads of New Hampshire It’s where I long to be writing a new screenplay, a pilot and a passel of songs. And then had a nice nap.

I’m honored to share these pages with one of my oldest (and I don’t mean merely in time served) friends, the venerable Estelle Parsons. She classed up a play of mine in the early ’80s, “A Sense of Humor,” costarring with another Lake Winnipesaukee wunderkind, Jack Lemmon. As is frequently true in the entertainment labyrinth, our paths keep crossing, doing a New York reading of my play “White People Christmas” a few seasons ago and sharing a common passion — trying to draw attention to the plight of prisoners released back into the wild with limited confidence that our fear-based culture will make room for them. Estelle approaches the subject with the extraordinary play she’s developed, “Re-Entry,” and my wife Kerrin and I have initiated an in-house program called Rescind Recidivism, and produced the aforementioned fundraiser featuring 21 singers and musicians performing 30 songs I wrote with or without them. Busy, you may conclude, is a theme here and it’s something I stay; I stay busy.

Every time I run into Estelle, I’m reminded what an excellent policy that is.

One of the superstars at our shindig was fellow contributor to this magazine’s choir of angels, the irrepressible force of nature John Davidson, my newest old friend. He too sang a song of mine, “Live Free Or Die.” Try to guess what it’s about. Right, what this article’s

about. Live fully or don’t bother. Live your life as if it’s the only one you’re gonna get.

John and Estelle and I have the unique and perhaps questionable privilege of working in a business where being young is arguably an asset but staying young is essential. Also inevitable; no one’s ever required to grow up in the Never Never Land of film and theatre.

As I consistently say at my Write On Golden Pond workshops and firmly believe, every human on earth is a storyteller, we all have something to contribute to the betterment of society, we’re all artists, in our singular ways.

Visit any playground of any elementary school in the world and you’ll hear little children playing Let’s Pretend. Sometimes, sadly, that glorious lack of inhibition gets stifled but I know for a fact that it’s still in all of us.

And you know it too, don’t you? I declined to have mine squashed. If yours isn’t readily available, we should talk about that.

It’s true that at an early age I got struck by a lightning bolt named Oscar, but I really think I’d still be getting up with every sunrise and writing regardless. First of all, I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t or couldn’t. But, just as crucially, it’s a pleasure, it’s an honor, it’s a riot capturing the cadences and peccadilloes of our fabulously eccentric friends and neighbors in the great state of New Hampshire.

A lot of my stories are set here and they arrive in every form imaginable, emphasis on imagine, play, movie, novel, song. See above, “Harley Chick.” Could there be a more perfect anthem for the Granite State? Yes, “Live Free Or Die,” sung by John Davidson.

You can hear them both if you come looking; not only that, you can own them too.

Their message, I mean, because it’s basically the same one and a concept that seems to run through my work. Embrace the opportunity you’ve been blessed with, whether it’s on a bike or on a lake or in your heart. You never know what’s waiting for you around the corner until you get there, if you do, if you don’t get distracted by another writer’s sage advice and take some road less traveled.

That’s what keeps me going and will, I hope, until it doesn’t: the curiosity born of a life in the most beautiful place on Earth, the state I choose to continue calling home, that I celebrate and marvel at and appreciate everywhere I go. And miss something wicked when my work or my curiosity takes me elsewhere. New Hampshire is a terrific place to come home to and to live free in, fully and with purpose. That’s what I do. It keeps me young. NH

“Live Free Or Die” Addendum You can’t live in New Hampshire without hearing music everywhere you go. I’ve gotten to collaborate with some of the Granite State’s greatest talents, from the sadly gone but never forgotten Mighty Sam McClain to Manchester maestro Joe Deleault, the Lakes Region’s Ray Porcell and Justin Jaymes, and another angel departed too soon, Joe Droukas, the Crunchy Western Boys and Liz Simmons, new arrival John Davidson and the ageless stalwart Art Harriman, with whom I wrote “Live Free Or Die.” Our valentine to our homeland, we call it. John’s in the process or recording it; you’ll hear it playing soon, everywhere you go.

On Songwriting What makes a song sing Is so hard to explain If a lyric takes wing In some part of your brain That’s for sure such a pure start And you’ve got to listen a lot But it’s not quite sizzling hot Until it touches your heart That’s from this year’s song to my bride.

I write one every anniversary — I highly recommend it, as it can keep a man in good standing, even if he sings like a lonely moose on a mountaintop. Anyone can rhyme, if he or she takes the time; the rewards can be concordant, incessant and sublime. You hear that? Visit my website (ernestthompson. us) and find out when our next songwriting workshop is coming up, how to enroll and how to make your own song sing. It may get you invited down from the mountain and at least into the barn. Females of the species too, natch. They’re usually way ahead of us in accessing the emotional harmony the whole world needs to dance to.

Ernest Thompson won an Academy Award for the screenplay adaptation of his play “On Golden Pond.” The film, which was shot at Squam Lake, starred Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda.

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Actress, singer, director and writer Estelle Parsons

The Nature of New Hampshire It never disappoints and often inspires

By Estelle Parsons

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hen I was a schoolgirl, I read in the Boston Herald that hate was the other side of love. I couldn’t fathom it. I had known love with my Swedish grandmother.

She died when I was 5 in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where we lived in the summer on beautiful Lake Winnipesaukee, “the smile of the great Spirit.”

Our “camp” on the lake reminded her of Norland, a part of Sweden near the Arctic Circle, which was her home.

Her death, the closure of our relationship, made it clear to me that our relationship was different from any other I had in my life. It was love, but there was no hate. Impossible to fathom: love and hate, until I looked back on my relationship with New Hampshire.

I know I have been in Wolfeboro all my life because we have a home movie where I am crawling on the front porch at six months of age.

The lapping of the water, the wind in the trees, the sounds of nature remain the same,

but the water, once crystal clear now displays the result of excessive motor boating and other overuse. Two of our big trees have fallen over in my lifetime.

Starting April 19, the weekends meant going to Wolfeboro. The summers meant staying in Wolfeboro, the fall weekends until October 12 meant going to New Hampshire. I would rather have been with my friends, but that could not compete with my Mother’s “It’s heaven on earth, why would you not want to be there?”

At the age of 16, I broke away, started working in summer theaters, as an apprentice, then an actress (my other love-hate relationship), and then I stayed away for a long time.

Nature cannot compete with human relationships or ambition. Why should it? Its message to us is different. It is always there.

It never disappoints and often inspires us. Is it cruelty or is it reality, or are they both the same? Is that why most people don’t like to face the truth — because it is so often cruel in

Estelle Parsons (second from left) won an Oscar in 1968 for her portrayal of Blanche Barrow in “Bonnie and Clyde.” She was nominated the next year for her role in “Rachel, Rachel.”

its reality, so in your face; everything is born, sprouts. Life comes and it goes — the egg falls out of the nest on the back porch, robin’s egg blue, and smashes, the limbs of the tree crack loudly and fall off in a storm. The little sailboat capsizes in a squall — we must always be prepared for what comes next.

The pressure of humanity as you encounter it through life is always pushing you out of who you are, who you really are. People are always trying to make you what they want you to be. Where is your true path, the one you know to follow because you have been with nature and you have learned who you are. But along comes the pressure of people, human society, perhaps civilized, but less and less so, pushing you to conform to it and not stand by yourself (like the tall pines) and weather whatever is coming along.

When I had succeeded for myself in life and the world “knew” me, I joined the Appalachian Mountain Club, learned to backpack, and took myself off to Alaska, having learned from New Hampshire and the nature I knew that it would be my salvation — that it was possible to remain the person I knew as myself. How did I know that person who was myself? I knew that person because I grew up in the nature of New Hampshire — the trees, forests, mountains, lakes, streams, the cold (very cold), the hot (very hot).

Once upon a time I had been curious, thoughtful, silent, courageous (righted that sailboat), a steadfast communicant with the natural world. I could remain that through my whole life, because of the world I had experienced in my lifelong love-hate relationship with New Hampshire. NH

Parsons brought her “prison play,” titled “Re-entry: Actors Playing Jazz,” to Concord’s Bank of NH Stage last year. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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photo by joe klementovich

After a career on TV, film and stage, John Davidson is reinventing himself as a roving troubadour.

The Timeless Troubadour Life’s lasting lesson is to keep moving

BY JOHN DAVIDSON

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hen I was turning 50, in 1990, I thought my mobile life was coming to a close, that I was going to start drooling soon, so I moved aboard our boat, a 96foot single-screw diesel trawler, to prepare for an extended cruise with my family from Ventura, California, through the Panama Canal, and on to, well, wherever. The great escape. Being the whore that I am, I contacted Raytheon Electronics in Nashua, New Hampshire. I explained that I was the John Davidson from TV, you know, “Hollywood Squares,” “That’s Incredible,” and I asked them to contribute about $12,000 in navigational equipment for my dream adventure.

They somehow bought the idea. Who knew!

These New Hampshire folks are easily impressed. Or was it that they were willing to support a guy who has a dream? Anyway, I flew to Boston and drove to Nashua to pick out my toys. Beautiful drive into New Hampshire. The pine trees. Nice people. Not just Raytheon, but everyone I met got excited about my trip. I remember that.

In ’96, at 56, I became obsessed with creating a one-man theatrical show for myself. I narrowed my research down to Teddy Roosevelt (bully!) and Henry David Thoreau (simplify, simplify!). I found that both of these driven escapists came to New Hampshire many times for hiking adventures and self-discovery. Seems to be what people do here.

In 2013, at 72, after finishing a tour as the wizard in the Broadway musical “Wicked,” I

At 72, John Davidson attempted to bike across the US. He made it to Portsmouth.

In 2013, at 72, after finishing a tour as the wizard in the Broadway musical “Wicked,” I got this crazy idea that I would ride my bicycle from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. got this crazy idea that I would ride my bicycle from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, while busking with my guitar to pay for room and board. I know, right? What was I thinking?

I set out from our home in The Berkshires and rode across New Hampshire (Route 9, Keene, Concord), camping, singing in storefronts, to get to Portland, Maine, to start my ride across the country.

After seven days of rain, I got as far as Portsmouth and called my wife to come pick me up. Disillusioned.

Busking is degrading. Look at me.

Wasn’t I the guy who used to be on TV? Worn out. After biking up hills for six hours, who wants to sing?

Come on. I was 72. But New Hampshire and its inhabitants were beautiful. Everyone I met seemed excited about my adventure. Really. People here get excited about people’s dreams. I remember that.

So then, in my mid-70s, I was overwhelmed, again, with the idea

that time is running out, the runway is getting shorter. Personal freedom, the reinventing of myself to follow my passion, all that.

And my new passion was to become a singing troubadour. I mean, be a singer/songwriter/storyteller in small venues across New England. I wanted to live closer to Boston where we have family. We loved The Berkshires, but my wife and I also wanted to live somewhere where we could afford a larger home for family get-togethers.

Now, being a typical masshole, of course I started searching the internet for homes in New Hampshire. We soon found the house of our dreams in the Lakes Region.

I mean, what’s not to like? Tom Bergeron (“Dancing With the Stars”) lives in New Hampshire. Tom Rush (folk singer, entertainer) lives here (or did, he might be in Vermont now). Ernest Thompson (“On Golden Pond”) as well.

No property or sales tax. Pine trees everywhere.

Snow: I’d rather be cold than hot and sticky in Florida. Heat makes me lazy. Cold makes me want to jump up and down. I love jumping up and down. Beautiful homes at amazing prices.

And even more, my feeling is that in New Hampshire there is a sense of freedom, individualism, self-reliance and, yes, healthy skepticism. Being a progressive, I of course came here in search of other progressive liberals, but I’ve also encountered open-minded conservatives who have been an inspiration.

All this is to say I love it here. Thanks, New Hampshire. NH

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Pickity Place

M aso n , N H • ( 6 03 ) 8 7 8-115 1 • p i c ki t y p l a c e . c o m

Since 1 786 our quaint little red cottage has graced the hills of southern New Hampshire, seemingly untouched by time. In 1948, it was

chosen by Elizabeth Orton Jones as the model for her illustrations in Little Red Riding Hood.

Lighten your spirit as you step out of your world and into ours. Our menu changes each month and we serve at three private seatings each day: 11:30, 12:45 and 2:00.

Reservations by phone.

Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Healthy Living

illustration by gloria dilanni

In the first half of adulthood ages 20 to 40

Generational NH Demographics Prepared for Lifelong by the The Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire

Estimated population: 316,000 Estimated share of population (percent of total): 24.3% Median household income: $72,000 Employed: 84.4% Of the employed, percent that are self-employed: 4.3% Has at least a bachelor’s degree: 35.8% Enrolled in school: 15.6% Moved in the past year: 27.8% Owns a home with no mortgage: 9.3% Owns a home with a mortgage: 48.2% Rents: 42.5% Has children in the household: 37.3% nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Young Adults 20-40

Building Good Habits and Maximizing Safety It’s never too early to begin

By Catherine Florio Pipas

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s a young adult, the notion of self-care is often deemed pointless given a perceived invincibility. To the young and healthy, the concept of worrying about health, blood pressure or achy joints should be left to the fate of their parents and grandparents. Why fix what is not broken? Especially when there are so many other demands and exciting things to do in life.

Today’s 20-year-olds are taught to live in the present. Why worry about the future? Life happens now! Being in the moment does have great health benefits, so long as daily routines incorporate healthy habits. What we do at 20 impacts to what extent we thrive at 40, 60, 80 and beyond. Routines become habit, and habits dictate our health.

The top causes of death in this age range are not heart disease or cancer, as in the general population, but attributed to unintentional injury (such as motor vehicle accidents), suicide and homicide. Protecting our health at this stage in life warrants attention to basic physical health, safety and management of emotional and mental health.

To help assess what you may need to improve, after reading each category — physical health, safety and mental health — ask yourself these three questions: 1. What behavior(s) above am I doing well?

2. What behavior(s) need improvement?

3. What behavior(s) might I consider changing to improve my physical health?

PHYSICAL WELL-BEING Physical well-being is our commitment to nourishing our body and assurance that our tank is full. The following basics practices are critical for those 20-40. Nearly all strategies remain relevant to us even beyond 40 as we strive for long-term health benefits. Complete a self-assessment by asking yourself the following: “Do I …”

• Receive routine recommended healthcare screenings and vaccines?

• Maintain a relationship with a healthcare provider for regular preventive care and acute care as needed?

• Practice safe sex every time?

• Exercise for 30 minutes on most days and strengthen all muscle groups twice a week?

• Eat healthy and regular meals, including 5-9 fruits and vegetables daily?

• Limit saturated fats and added sugar?

• Maintain ideal body weight (normal BMI)?

• Manage my time to assure 7-8 hours of sleep daily?

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• Avoid exposure to all demonstrated toxins including tobacco products and drugs?

• Wash my hands (regularly and before eating)?

• Brush my teeth twice daily and schedule dental cleanings twice a year?

• Drink fewer than 1 alcoholic drink(s) per day for women, 2 for men?

• Drink 2-3 liters of water per day?

Catherine Florio Pipas, MD, MPH, is a professor of community and family medicine at Dartmouth’s School of Medicine.

Over the last 25 years, she has maintained a clinical practice at DHMC, and has served as assistant dean, vice chair, chief clinical officer and director of the Office of Community-Based Education and Research, and the director of Dartmouth’s Regional Primary Care Center.

She is also the author of “A Doctor’s Dozen: Twelve Strategies for Personal Health and a Culture of Wellness.” For each of life’s stages, ages 20-40, 40-60 and 60+, she draws on knowledge gained over a distinguished career to offer advice on physical health and emotional well-being.

Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

SAFETY

Safety is also a critical component of physical well-being, check in on your risk by asking the following: “Do I …”

EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING Emotional well-being is the commitment to understanding, embracing and managing our own and others emotional needs.

Assess your emotional and mental health and reflect on your answers to the following: “Do I ...”

• Observe my emotions and understand my feelings?

• Allow myself permission to embrace all feelings including fears and discomfort?

• Recognize stress levels and know my limits?

• Have realistic expectations about my capacity to manage day-to-day stress?

• Have effective outlets to manage stress?

• Schedule time for self-reflection and journaling of my experiences?

• View challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles?

• Grant myself permission to take time off?

• Balance my use of electronics and social media and “unplug” for extended periods of time daily?

• Demonstrate tolerance of myself and others imperfections and differences?

• Always wear a seat belt?

• Permit time for enjoying personal passion(s), such as cooking, piano, reading, photography?

• Always wear a helmet when cycling?

• Affirm my personal accomplishments?

• Store and handle firearms safely if present?

• Take responsibility for my actions/ behavior?

• Always take care not to drink and drive?

• Reach out for help to friends, family or professionals when feeling down?

• Always take care to not text and drive (a 21st-century health challenge)?

• Partner to participate in safe and supportive relationships?

• Apply sunscreen when exposed to sunlight?

As a nation, we are successfully reducing the use of tobacco-based cigarettes, but this previous public health enemy No. 1 is rapidly being replaced by stress. Your 20s and 30s are a time to establish personal and professional identity which can be very stressful.

While acute stress increases performance, chronic or continuous stress, without the ability to replenish, is draining and can result in feelings of inadequacy, lack of control, fear and anxiety, hopelessness, burnout and even depression. The top risk for suicide is depression. Disrupting chronic stress cycles require our shifting attention to developing coping skills. While we can’t avoid stress, we can manage many of the day-to-day stressors with healthy skills.

A trusted counselor can be an invaluable resource. Talking through stresses that accompany different phases of life is as important as hiring an accountant to successfully navigate tax season. If overwhelmed, unable to cope, or finding self-care is not a viable option, seek professional help. If feeling alone or not wanting to live, reach out to health professionals and call the Suicide HOTLINE (1-800273-TALK).

Progression through life can be challenging. Valuable lifelong skills include saying “yes” to help, saying “no” to perfection, and fully acknowledging that our health is critical to our effectiveness in all aspects of life. Our health matters!

Congratulations if you are less than 40 and have mastered these skills! Read on page 65 if you are over 40 or curious to look ahead and identify ways to maximize your spiritual, environmental, financial, intellectual and social well-being. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Mental Health Minutes for 20-40 courtesy photo

By Kelly Halldorson

Kelly Halldorson is a self-described mental health doula, an advocate and an author. She supports families as they navigate the mental health system, teaches effective communication strategies, and helps mitigate the impact of crisis on the family. In 2010 she co-authored the memoir “Skeletons Don’t Sleep” with her husband Jeff.

Her second book, “Navigating the Mental Health Sh*tStorm,” will be released in April.

T

he most significant thing any individual or family member can do in the early stages of a mental health crisis is to get educated.

During the first two decades of adult life, this proves especially true.

Age of onset does vary by gender, although not significantly, when it comes to serious mental illness like a schizophrenia spectrum disorder or a mood disorder. The early 20s for males and the late 20s to early 30s for women is the most likely timeframe for a first episode. How exactly that first episode presents can vary significantly depending on the type of illness: psychotic, depressive or manic.

There are some fairly common symptoms that are universal in their presentation. One of the most troubling is called agnosognosia. It is characterized by a lack of insight. These individuals don’t understand or believe

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they have an illness or that there is anything whatsoever wrong with their functioning. This goes beyond classic denial and can lead parents or other relatives to think their loved one is simply being stubborn or difficult. Appropriate treatment during and immediately following a first episode psychosis has been shown to improve overall prognosis. As you can imagine, this symptom also proves problematic for treatment. Why get treatment if there is nothing wrong, right?

Family members are left in the difficult position of understanding how critical treatment is to the success of their loved one while having little ability to ensure treatment is adhered to. While many consumers in this age group continue living with parents or other family members, healthcare providers are bound by HIPAA and unable to communicate with these familial caregivers without specific authorization by the ill relative. This leaves many loved ones in the dark with regard to how best to support their ill relative’s recovery.

Family education programs like NAMI’s Family-to-Family or Family Support Groups play a critical role by filling in this gap. Those recovering from a mental health crisis or episode need time to recover — not unlike recovery from a broken leg or surgery. Without guidance, family members might feel the need to push their relatives to go back to school, get out of the house or take on a new job before they are truly ready.

If family members are lucky enough to be apprised of their relative’s diagnosis and treatment plan, then self-directed research can be a lifesaver. Learn as much as you can about the specific diagnosis, medications, possible complications, etc. When you are invited into the treatment conversation, you will have enough base knowledge to understand what is being discussed and know what questions to ask. Do your best to treat mental health staff with kindness and respect. It is absolutely OK to challenge your loved one’s caregivers, however, if you want to be the most effective advocate for them then challenge with humility.

Lifelong

RESOURCE GUIDE

Live Your Best Life Tools for adults 20-40 from Will Stewart, executive director of Stay Work Play, a nonprofit dedicated to encouraging and supporting young professionals in New Hampshire For young people, New Hampshire can be a state of best-kept secrets. Indeed, there is no shortage of interesting people to meet, fun places to go and cool things to do. But it can sometimes take a little while to discover these things.

To shorten the learning curve, Stay Work Play is here to help you get connected to New Hampshire faster by sharing just a few of the many resources catering to the needs and wants of young people in the Granite State.

WHERE TO GET THE SKINNY

New Hampshire might be a small state, but there’s a lot going on for young people.

To help you get an idea of the width and breadth of all of the opportunities for young people here, Stay Work Play’s website and social media channels are must-visits.

Stay Work Play New Hampshire is a nonprofit whose mission is the attraction and retention of more young people in the Granite State. Its online properties offer

a wealth of resources for young people making their home in New Hampshire, from available jobs and internships to where to connect with other young people and what to do for fun here.

Where to meet other young people YOUNG PROFESSIONALS NETWORKS

At the top of the list for many young people is knowing where to meet other young

people. The best place to start is to connect with your local young professionals network (YPN). These groups — 14 in all — exist in all corners of the state, from the Seacoast to the Monadnock Region and from Nashua to the White Mountains.

The state’s YPNs host regular networking events for attendees to meet and mingle with other young people, as well as a variety of other fun events throughout the year, from group hikes to cooking classes to even a Festivus party hosted each December by iUGO, the young professionals network in Greater Nashua.

SOCIAL SPORTS LEAGUES

My Social Sports organizes adult recreational social sports leagues in Concord, Greater Manchester, Merrimack/Nashua and the Greater Seacoast regions. Sports offered range from dodgeball and indoor soccer

photo by john hession

There’s a wealth of craft beer in the state, with a number of excellent tasting rooms — like Schilling Beer Company in Littleton — offering both great drinks and places to gather with friends.

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RESOURCE GUIDE

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Lifelong

to corn hole and lawn games. In addition to having fun, the leagues run by My Social Sports have been the catalyst for lifelong friendships, business partnerships and romantic relationships.

Meetups

If you’re looking for something a little more niche, meetup.com lists a variety of specialized groups — from kayaking to playing the ukulele — where one can meet others with similar interests in New Hampshire.

Where to hear live music

New Hampshire has no shortage of cool spots to experience live music. Two of the newest spots are the Bank of New Hampshire Stage in Concord and the Rex Theatre in Manchester. Both venues feature up-and-coming acts at an affordable price point. Also of note is 3S Artspace, a Portsmouth-based performance space and art gallery focused on emerging art and entertainment.

Where to experience diverse cultures

It’s true: New Hampshire is one of the whitest states in the country. But it’s becoming more diverse each year. That diversity is on display each summer during a number of ethnic festivals that feature food, culture and more from around the world. Some of our favorites are the Latino Festival held in Manchester, the Somersworth Indonesian Festival and the multicultural festivals held in Nashua and Concord.

Where to grab a beer

The craft beer scene in New Hampshire is second to none, evidenced by tasting rooms across the state that are packed full of young people every weekend. Schilling Beer Company in Littleton is often mentioned as one of the best in the state. Other popular breweries include Lithermans Limited Brewery in Concord and Kelsen Brewing Company in Derry.

Where to connect with the LGBTQ+ community

With Pride events held each summer from Portsmouth to the White Mountains, and a network of social groups, health centers, support organizations and other gayfocused groups, New Hampshire has a growing LGBTO+ scene. Ground zero for all things LGBTQ+ in New Hampshire is Teatotaller, a café, tea house, bistro and venue located in Somersworth, with a second location coming in 2020 to Concord.

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3S Artspace in Portsmouth has a gallery, performing arts venue and restaurant.

Resources Stay Work Play

stayworkplay.org facebook.com/stayworkplay instagram.com/stayworkplay twitter.com/stayworkplay

Young Professionals Networks

Find your local network at stayworkplay. org/stay/young-professional-networks.

My Social Sports

mysocialsports.com

meetup.com

meetup.com/cities/us/nh

Bank of New Hampshire Stage banknhstage.com

Rex Theatre

facebook.com/rextheatrenh palacetheatre.org

3S Artspace 3sarts.org

New Hampshire craft breweries nhbeer.org

NH LGBTQ+ resources

UNH unh.edu/safezones/local-newhampshire-lgbtqa-resources

Teatotaller

teatotallerteahouse.com

Let us help you create “the perfect day.”

PHOTOS AND STYLING BY CAROLINA MARLES

Now on newsstands and at bridenh.com The new Fall/Winter issue of New Hampshire Magazine’s BRIDE is now on newsstands. In this issue you’ll find photos from real New Hampshire weddings, an ice-and-winter theme wedding, Southwestern style inspiration, a comprehensive venue listing and much more. Plus, look for the Spring/Summer issue in April.

et the premier regional guide to help you plan the wedding you’ve always dreamed about — the very latest in bridal style, trends, cuisine, venues and accessories.

All for the New Hampshire BRIDE.

Coming in May Best Places New Hampshire

The second of our special editions will map out the best places in the state for everything from finding a good-paying job and quality school for your kids to nightlife and where to buy a home.

Look for it online at nhmagazine.com and on newsstands in May. Interested in advertising?

Contact Kimberly Lencki at (603) 413-5154 or klencki@mcleancommunications.com.

Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Healthy Living

illustration by gloria dilanni

In the second half of adulthood, ages 40 to 60

Generational NH Demographics Prepared for Lifelong by the The Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire

Estimated population: 382,000 Estimated share of population (percent of total): 29.4% Median household income: $83,000 Employed: 82.7% Of the employed, percent that are self-employed: 11.8% Has at least a bachelor’s degree: 37.7% Enrolled in school: 2.5% Moved in the past year: 8.1% Owns a home with no mortgage: 17.8% Owns a home with a mortgage: 62.3% Rents: 19.9% Has children in the household: 51.8% nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Middle Age 40-60

Moderation & Purpose Fortifying resilience for self and others

By Catherine Florio Pipas

M

iddle age can present challenges.

Our 40s and 50s are a time where most of us are pushing hard to be highly productive. In addition to devoting ourselves to professional success, we are often multitasking, raising children, caring for parents, advising peers and hopefully still prioritizing self. Addressing the needs of multiple generations can add to an already full plate. In addition, this period of time is often where the first signs of aging are experienced.

The top cause of death for those 40-60 years old is cancer, with heart disease as No. 2 and unintentional injury No. 3. Past efforts to promote emotional health, physical health and safety, like wearing sunscreen,

pay off as they prevent the most common of all cancers: skin cancer. Adherence to additional recommendations on occupational, spiritual and environmental health further minimize risk.

These “hardworking” decades provide some a great sense of achievement; for others it can be a continued time of stress.

At its best, this time period is a personal and professional ride of success, resulting in strong relationships and personal confidence and growth. At its worse, the ride is bumpy, leaving a trail of frustration, dissatisfaction and isolation.

A major 21st-century risk to success is getting lost in the desire for more. More money, more titles, more accomplishment,

Occupational Well-being Occupational well-being is a commitment to balancing the time and energy spent in our professional life with that devoted to our personal life. This includes having a healthy approach to finance. In addition to continuing to prioritize health practices from the 20s and 30s, consider your occupational well-being and explore the following: “Do I …”

more stuff, more, more, more. Balance in these decades is critical. The pace of society today can often seem like a tsunami, leaving many in its wake feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. FOMO (fear of missing out) is pervasive, as we often hesitate to say “no” to anything. An invite is not a mandate and setting limits is a stabilizing force. Consider JOMO (joy of missing out), an alternative described by one of my students as pleasure attained with declining invitations. We only get 24/7; saying “no” to even one option means more time for replenishing and recharging.

To help assess what you may need to improve, after reading each category — occupational, spiritual and environmental well-being — ask yourself these three questions: 1. What behavior(s) above am I doing well?

2. What behavior(s) need improvement?

3. What behavior(s) might I consider changing to improve my physical health?

• Seek advice on saving for future retirement?

• Track my spending to stay within a budget?

• Prioritize “need” vs. “want” when making purchases?

• Invest in health and other insurance?

• Recognize I can do anything but not everything?

• Have a career consistent with my personal interests, values and strengths?

• Make choices that foster professional and personal growth?

• Set boundaries on my work time?

• Utilize my allotted vacation time annually?

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• Permit mini-vacations daily by taking breaks?

• Unplug from work when on personal or family time?

• Say “no” when appropriate?

• Advocate for myself?

Moderation sustains us. Keeping life balanced early on will pay off in our senior years. Allowing time to slow down and do less often results in achieving more.

Remember, “you can do anything but not everything.”

The role of caregiver during this “hardworking” stage adds demands as well as rewards. For those working full time, raising a family and committed to self-care, supporting elderly parents can be exhausting; it can also add richness to one’s life.

Family life health is another area universally valued. Reflecting on what brings meaning to our lives permits us to say “no” to nonpriorities and leaves more time to say “yes” to those we love.

Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Spiritual Well-being

Spiritual well-being is a commitment to personal values, mission and vision and to prioritizing that which provides purpose in our lives. Spend time reflecting on the following: “Do I …”

Environmental Well-being Environmental well-being: commitment to cultivating a healthy internal and external world, one where healthy individuals contribute to healthy communities. Consider your role in creating a culture of wellness and your relationship to the natural world and explore the following: “Do I …”

• Create a healthy environment at home and at work by focusing on the positive?

• Role model healthy habits?

• Support others along their journey to well-being?

• Avoid shaming myself or others?

• Appreciate nature and my place within the natural world?

• Go outside daily?

• Maintain a safe, clutter-free and clean living and working space?

• Work to ensure the stability and longevity of our natural resources?

• Spend time alone in meditation, prayer or reflection to know my authentic self?

• Reflect on my moral compass, and maintain personal integrity even when others don’t?

• Reflect on what is important to me (my values)?

• Know what gives me meaning (my mission)?

• Consider what future I am committed to (my vision)?

• Stay conscious of my carbon footprint and reduce unnecessary waste?

• Walk/bike when possible?

• Actively turn off lights not being used?

• Recycle and repurpose items I no longer need?

• Make decisions consistent with my values, mission and vision?

• Believe in something greater than myself?

• Have a spiritual connection or community?

• Volunteer time to community service?

• Remain open to learning from those with different cultures and backgrounds?

• Practice gratitude and appreciation for myself and others? Health?

Additionally, 40-60 is the age when most of us experience the first signs of aging: knee pain, back pain, stiffness, declining vision and elevated weight, blood sugar, blood pressure or cholesterol levels. Aches and pains serve as reminders of our mortality, and abnormal tests as motivators to change our behaviors. If we previously never watched what we ate or our level of activity, we might be surprised to see growth on the scale or the need for larger-size clothing. Our 50th birthday is often associated with healthcare screening, including a first colonoscopy or mammogram. This age is a chance for all to reassess and optimize the environment in which they live, work and play. For some, this is a time to begin healthy habits; for others a time to undo unhealthy habits, for those on-track, an opportunity to enjoy and serve as a role model. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Mental Health Minutes for 40-60

By Kelly Halldorson

When it comes to serious mental illness during the mid-life years, burden of care will sometimes shift to a spouse, a sibling and/or the state. This isn’t always the case, of course.

By this point in their lives most individuals have been sick for a long time: two, three or even four decades. They may have come to terms with their illness or may still suffer from a lack of insight, but they have come to understand the mental health system and recognize their lives are made easier if they participate in treatment.

This does not mean it is all smooth sailing, challenges do remain but this can be a gift toward their active recovery. The key is to focus on supporting their journey, recognizing it as separate from your own, and not attempting to pressure or threaten them.

Partners can help their loved ones through patience and understanding. It is

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also vitally important to recognize one’s own limits and be clear about them. While mental illness can be at the root of bad behavior, it’s not an excuse to treat others poorly. Both you and your partner will benefit from you having a life outside of your relationship. A self-care practice is critical for any relative group but of particular importance when it is a spousal or sibling relationship.

Partners and sibling caregivers of middle-aged adults with mental illness suffer from a different type of stigma. There is, often, pressure to leave or walk away from the relationships. Why would you stay engaged, right? It can be incredibly complicated, whether they are living together or they are not. And those who do not have experience struggle to understand.

If you want to continue to be the best advocate you can for your loved one in this age group, remember above all to take care

of yourself. You are, and have been, in this for the long haul. Figure out and define your own limits. How much you can support and in which ways. You don’t have to do it all, and truth is, you can’t even if you wanted to so don’t waste energy trying. Find a good support group either in person or online.

Keep yourself fueled: water, food, exercise and sleep. The fuel will help carry you through the harder parts.

When it comes to your loved one, focus on connection and gratitude. Remind yourself you love this person. Look for something about them for which you are grateful, every day. When they do so say something that makes you smile, savor it.

Come back to it in your mind when you are struggling. Keep the connection healthy. It is easy to slip into co-dependence. Allow your feelings to be your guide here. If you are feeling constantly resentful or angry, that could be an indicator you need reflect on your limit-setting and up your own self-care.

While it might feel counterintuitive to focus on yourself in this way, it really is the key to being able to best support your loved one.

Lifelong

RESOURCE GUIDE

Striking the Right Balance Practicing mindfulness — through nature, volunteering or community involvement — can help you handle work and life

By Michelle Veasey and Lisa Drake

T

hinking about what it means to be living well in New Hampshire as part of the current sandwich generation (40- to 60-year-olds) brings out seemingly diverse perspectives. Balancing increasing demands from blossoming careers can conflict with a desire to be there for our children who are growing up before our eyes. And as those children gain independence, our aging parents may need us more than ever — not to mention the boomerang children returning home after college.

The sandwich generation faces a whole new set of life balance issues. Schedules are often not slowing down, and for many retirement seems to still be a distant dream.

But the beauty of our age is the perspective life experiences have provided. Looking back, we often wish we had savored more moments with special people or taken a chance when an opportunity came along. So now, those experiences more vividly remind

us to pause and think about living more fully. How can we take care of ourselves while also responding to others’ needs?

How do we balance that with an increasing desire to contribute to our communities and have an impact on the world?

Mindfulness is gaining popularity among all age groups. It is simply defined as moment-to-moment awareness. The state of being aware of the present moment and accepting your feelings and thoughts has become a powerful tool for individuals to live more purposefully. In our multitasking world, we can continually strive for productivity at the cost of purpose and meaning. Mindfulness helps us to focus on the task at hand with a clearer outlook and deeper understanding. Try a few simple practices.

Many businesses are bringing mindfulness practices to leaders to encourage them to look at challenges and oppor-

Michelle Veasey

Executive Director of New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility (NHBSR) Veasey is the executive director of New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility, a statewide member-based organization that fosters environmentally and socially responsible business in New Hampshire.

As NHBSR’s ED, Veasey leads the organization in developing programming to inspire sustainability innovation, and building supportive business-to-business, academic and community relationships that create positive impact for the state. She is a member of the Atkinson Energy Commission and Building Needs Committee and a past member of the Atkinson Conservation Commission and Volunteer NH board. She and her husband built their home themselves (with the help of lots of friends) and raised two daughters in Atkinson. They have resided there since 1987. Veasey loves hiking, snowshoeing, boating, skiing and reading.

Lisa Drake

A hiker trekking along the Franconia Mountain Ridge Traverse

Director of Sustainability Innovation at Stonyfield and NHBSR Board Co-chair Drake has a passion for healthy food, healthy people and a healthy planet. As the director of sustainability innovation at Stonyfield, the country’s leading organic yogurt maker, she has led the development and implementation of innovative strategies to advance the company on its sustainability journey since 2002. She is co-chair of the board of directors for New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility and on the steering committee for the Ceres’ coalition Businesses for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) and the advisory committee of the New Hampshire Food Bank. Along with her husband, Drake is raising two teenage boys in Manchester while also pursuing her personal interests in yoga, dance and ice hockey. She has lived in New Hampshire since 2002. nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Lifelong tunities more fully and deeply. Business consultancy firms like Sojourn Partners in Bedford and Global Round Table Leadership in Keene integrate mindfulness practice into their standard offerings.

Other organizations like C Far: Beyond the Box use mindfulness practices to reduce stress in the workplace. When you drop your mental “to-do” list and focus on the present, you can open more bandwidth for new solutions and approaches.

Nature can also provide the perfect setting for mindfulness and self-care.

Abundant trails in New Hampshire allow us to fully enjoy our natural environment and take care of our mind and bodies. Experiencing nature calms our thoughts and, with some attention, helps us to refocus on what’s really important. Organizations like the Society for Protection of NH Forests, Five Rivers Conservation Trust, Squam Lake Nature Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy provide access to the wonderful healing powers of nature on their trails. Or check out state resources, your town clerk’s office or your conservation commission for local trail maps.

Taking care of ourselves also requires that we are thoughtful about what we put into our bodies and where it came from.

Local farmers markets are a great place to start, even in the winter. They help us get excited about local produce and support our neighbors. Free publications like Fiddlehead Magazine feature local food choices and are available in local markets or libraries.

There are also lots of markets that focus on or feature local product options, including Hannaford Supermarkets, the Co-op Food Stores and the Farm at Eastman’s Corner.

For a small state, New Hampshire also has lots of great organic and local food options to nourish yourself, including Pete & Gerry’s Organics, Stonyfield, MegaFood and

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RESOURCE GUIDE

Homefree. These companies demonstrate their care for our communities not only in the products they manufacture, but also in the impact they have in their workplaces and the places they operate. As four of the 10 Certified B Corps in the state, they focus on balancing profit and purpose.

Our relationships are critical support systems, providing balance and perspective when stress is building in one aspect of our lives. It may seem counterintuitive, but even in the midst of a hectic schedule, volunteer work helps to create stability and meaning.

Volunteering in our communities (think about your town’s committees, perhaps energy, conservation, planning, elderly affairs, etc.) or local nonprofits helps us build a stronger connection to people in our communities, while also widening our perspective on what living in New Hampshire can be like for others.

Many businesses throughout the state offer paid volunteer time to their employees for many reasons. Sometimes it is as simple as a day offsite doing roadside clean-up or painting a home or community building together. These opportunities provide great team-building, especially when it brings together employees who might not otherwise work together. Other companies offer the hours to be used at the charity of the employee’s choice and many leading companies provide both. Timberland pays employees for 40 hours of community service each year and includes two special days with planned events around the world.

Hypertherm pays employees for 32 hours a year and achieves an 85% participation rate. They hold an annual volunteer fair where nonprofits are invited to share information about volunteer opportunities to all three shifts at the company.

Why do these companies opt to pay employees to work elsewhere? In addition to the philanthropic reasons, they recognize the invaluable return on investment through positive impact in their communities, pride among their employees, enhanced teamwork and enticing potential new employees.

Sounds like winning reasons for all of us to get out there. Organizations like the NH Charitable Foundation, NH Food Bank and Volunteer NH, can connect you to volunteer opportunities wherever you are in the state.

Try a few of the above; you just might find you are living even better in New Hampshire than you were before.

Resource Links BUSINESS MINDFULNESS RESOURCES

uclahealth.org/marc/mindful-meditations sojournpartners.com/coaching-and-leadership-programs/leadership-development-programs/leadership-development/ workplace-mindfulness-training globalroundtableleadership.com cfarbeyondthebox.com

TRAILS

forestsociety.org/reservation-guide 5rct.org/our-work/five-rivers-propertiesmap-view nhnature.org/visit/hiking.php nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/ places-we-protect/?s=new-hampshire visit-newhampshire.com/state/walking-and-hiking

LOCAL AND ORGANIC FOOD

nhmagazine.com/nhmarkets fiddleheadnh.com

hannaford.com/about-us/local coopfoodstore.coop eastmanscorner.com peteandgerrys.com stonyfield.com megafood.com B Corps in NH: bcorporation.net/directory

VOLUNTEERING

timberland.com/responsibility/stories/howwe-serve.html hypertherm.com/en-US/our-company/corporate-social-responsibility/community/?region=NART nhcf.org/what-were-up-to/new-hampshireneeds-you nhfoodbank.org volunteernh.org

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Lifelong

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Healthy Living In the “third half” of adulthood ages 60 and beyond

Generational NH Demographics Prepared for Lifelong by the The Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire

Estimated population: 322,000 Estimated share of population (percent of total): 24.8% Median household income: $57,200 Employed: 35.1% Of the employed, percent that are self-employed: 16.5% Has at least a bachelor’s degree: 33.9% Enrolled in school: 0.7% Moved in the past year: 6.2% Owns a home with no mortgage: 45.3% Owns a home with a mortgage: 38.5% Rents: 16.3% Has children in the household: 16.0% nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Seniors 60 and Beyond

Use It or Lose It It’s never too late to start

By Catherine Florio Pipas

T

his rapidly approaching phase of life has motivated me to learn from my elders.

Observing patients and colleagues, family and friends, I search for secrets from those who thrive.

With the stress of performing in a career and raising a family behind, those facing retirement often welcome new venues.

Horizons are endless for those who approach their 70th, 80th and even 90th birthday experiencing strong physical, emotional, spiritual and financial health. Success follows those who continue along a path of healthy habits. This is not to say that everyone excels in all aspects of well-being. Rarely does anyone person have it all, but the stronger the commitment to each of these, the more satisfying, joyous and peaceful this phase of life. One can excel in some areas without all, for instance, many successful 80-year-olds achieve meaning from volunteering, taking up new hobbies, focusing on family or pets, even if they are limited physically. Those with strong family connections can feel appreciative and grateful for their lives by knowing they are supporting family.

Two principles apply to well-being for the octogenarian and beyond. The first is “use it or lose it: It’s never too late.” The second is “never give up, just modify.”

While individuals approaching retirement who lack any prior attention to self-care will certainly have a bit of catching up to do, those with positive attitudes and willingness to commit to hard work can achieve amazing success. It is astonishing to see even health professionals approach this stage, having not followed any previous guidelines, and state, “Now it’s time for me!” Starting from scratch has obvious disadvantages but it is never too late to improve your health. Studies have shown that exercise programs begun at any age, even in your 90s, increase strength, endurance and flexibility. Seeing the glass half full is a powerful personal trait when facing personal change. Positivity and gratitude for what is going well, even if many areas are not, is key to self-improvement at any age.

Many, however, get discouraged with the aging body or mind that no longer performs as it had. We can often become negative and fall into distorted thoughts of personal

INTELLECTUAL WELL-BEING

Intellectual well-being refers to the concept of being cognitively energized by participating in stimulating activity and exposure to new experiences (e.g., arts, theatre, science, computers). Consider your daily activities and reflect on the following: “Do I …”

failure. Fear of death can be overwhelming, and frustration with inabilities can be devastating. Adaptation is key and cognitive flexibility is critical, particularly when physical flexibility diminishes. Acceptance of change and resetting of goals adjusting for limitations allow for continued success on different levels. For example, computers offer opportunities to learn and connect.

The top causes of death over the age of 60 are heart disease, cancer and chronic lung disease. Following the basics guidelines and avoiding behaviors outlined for those 20-40 and 40-60 will have already established a strong baseline of health. Additional contributors that impact health and happiness in these golden years include attention to intellectual and social well-being.

Intellectual and social stimulation prior to this age are often taken for granted as both are likely part of a daily routine. Sustaining mental stimulation and social connections adds health benefit for us and those we love.

To help assess what you may need to improve, after reading each category — intellectual and social well-being — ask yourself these three questions: 1. What behavior(s) above am I doing well?

2. What behavior(s) need improvement?

3. What behavior(s) might I consider changing to improve my physical health?

• Learn something new every day?

• Make time to read, write and share daily?

• Stay engaged with social media and maintain electronic skills?

• Remain current with local, national or world news?

• Seek regular advice from advisors and/or mentors?

• Belong to a community of learners?

• Listen to others and question myself?

• Observe and explore the world around me?

• Develop new knowledge and skills?

• Apply problem solving skills?

• Promote lifelong learning principles?

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Lifelong

Social Well-being Social well-being is the sense of connection to others, a perception of belonging within a community, supporting others and receiving support in times of need. Reflect on your relationships and consider the following: “Do I …”

• Nurture old friendships as well as form new ones?

• Contribute positively to my community?

• Stay connected by scheduling regular time with significant people in my life?

• Interact with people of different ages, backgrounds, races and lifestyles?

• Demonstrate appreciation for family and friends?

• Have a mentor?

• Mentor others?

• Communicate on important matters to those I love?

• Grant forgiveness to myself and others?

• Trust others to support me when I need it?

We cannot avoid aging, but we can prepare for a long, healthy life by prioritizing prevention and self-care. Healthy habits are cumulative, and planting the seeds for well-being early and often with good habits become the foundation for longevity. Daily reminders of what is important and what you value provide permission to make changes and reroute as needed. Never give up on yourself. Start today and enjoy tomorrow! Our legacy lives on long after we are gone and our health habits shape the lives of the next generation. Caring for ourselves is also caring for others. For more details on successfully changing health behaviors, read “A Doctor’s Dozen; 12 Strategies for Personal Health and a Culture of Wellness.”

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Mental Health Minutes for 60+

By Kelly Halldorson

The care of seniors with serious mental illness most often falls on the shoulders of grown children, nieces, nephews or younger siblings. The challenges faced parallel those dealing with a relative suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s. Some of the behavioral symptoms overlap and others don’t. What’s shared is society’s compassion and understanding. People understand how difficult caring for aging relatives can be. Family members are able find comfort in caregiver support groups as well as through friends and extended family. This may be the one age group family members benefit from the most outside support.

There is certainly an emotional toll on adult children who have spent most of their lives being an anchor of stability for their ill

parent. In some cases even having to manage housing, finances and raising younger siblings. Being the parent of your own parent is hard. These later years? If you are open to it, it can be a gift. Utilizing the softening of societal stigma around this population and the support it allows, this time can be an opportunity for healing.

Society as a whole might be more compassionate to family members of these seniors, but unfortunately not as compassionate with the seniors themselves. As a result they really need your support and advocacy.

Recognizing your own limits is still critical. Do not give from an empty cup. Remember to fuel yourself first. You can make a difference in their lives.

One big thing is physical Illness or complaints of pain. These complaints can

“Let go of the burden of home ownership”

be sidelined or dismissed as psychological. Patients with a history of delusions or hypochondria are particularly vulnerable here. This can be dangerous as more serious causes are left unexplored. Documenting for your relative or helping them do so for themselves all of their appointments, ailments and medical concerns can a big help to all involved. I recommend a binder to organize the most recent hospital visits, diagnosis, medications and testing. You can keep a section at the front with a list of questions you have as they arise. Be sure to bring the binder with you to all appointments. Always tried to be well prepared.

Again, it is always OK to question your loved one’s treatment or diagnosis. Doctors are humans too. They make mistakes, miss things and don’t always have time to get all the information. Documenting, researching and organizing important information for them can be really helpful. Do not let yourself get too carried away with it though. Remember they are the experts on the medical side. You are the expert on your loved one.

Working together will yield your loved one the absolute best care.

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Lifelong

RESOURCE GUIDE

Build Your Toolbox A handy roundup of resources from housing and transportation needs to veterans’ services and legal aid from the experts at AARP New Hampshire

By Pamela Dube and Janelle Fassi Pamela Dube is the associate state director of communications for AARP New Hampshire.

She has built her 25-year career working at large nonprofits in the Granite State. Janelle Fassi is a student at Saint Anselm College and an intern at AARP New Hampshire. She expects to graduate in 2021 with a degree in communications and psychology.

local resources for free. 211nh.org, call 211

AARP is the nation’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people to choose how they live as they age. With a nationwide presence and nearly 38 million members, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what matters most to families: health security, financial stability and personal fulfillment. These issues of concern and interest unite residents and play a predominant role in their lives. The focus and momentum for each of these issues is thriving in New Hampshire, which is recognized as one of the oldest states in the nation, with more than 500,000 people who are 50+. AARP New Hampshire has abundant resources for its 225,000 members. If you would like to learn more about what they do in the Granite State, visit aarp.org/nh for more information. The following list is by no means comprehensive but is meant to provide statewide resources for New Hampshire’s 50+ citizens.

Family Support New Hampshire A network of family support and family resource centers. fsnh.org, (603) 224-1279

Financial Stability

NH Elder Abuse & Financial Exploitation Unit Prevents, investigates and prosecutes crimes involving elderly victims of abuse, neglect and financial exploitation. Website lists location and phone numbers of county offices. doj.nh.gov/consumer/elder-abuse/ index.htm, (800) 949-0470 Federal Trade Commission, NH Office Issues complaints about fraud, scams, phishing, identity theft, unwanted telemarketing, credit or debt issues and other unfair business practices. 25 Triangle Park Dr., Concord, ftccomplaintassistant.gov AARP Tax Aid Providing tax preparation and assistance. taxaide@aarp.org, (888) 687-2277 Consumer Protection Bureau, Office of the Attorney General Protects consumers from unfair or deceptive trade practices in New Hampshire. 33 Capitol St., Concord, (603) 271-3658 AARP Fraud Watch Network Avoid scams like identity theft, investment fraud and holiday scams. Watchdog alerts and a scam-tracking map provide real-time alerts from law enforcement. Visit the AARP Fraud

Watch Network helpline at aarp.org/benefits-discounts/all/fraud-watch-network or call (877) 908-3360.

NH Department of Justice doj.nh.gov/ consumer/sourcebook/schemes-swindlesscams.htm NH Legal Aid Self-help Guides Free legal help to low-income residents. nhlegalaid.org/self-help-guides

Health Security & Caregiving

NH Easy Gateway to Services Information for services throughout the Granite State. nheasy.nh.gov/#

AARP NH Local Caregiving Resources and Solutions aarp.org/caregiving/local A Resource Guide for NH Relative Caregivers, NH Department of Health and Human Services Find family resource centers, family support groups, legal assistance, financial assistance, community action agencies, mental health care centers and educational resources. dhhs.nh.gov/dcyf/ documents/relativecaregivers.pdf

Housing

NH Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Housing resources for New Hampshire seniors. hud.gov/states/new_hampshire/ homeownership/seniors Talk to a HUD Housing Counselor Counseling on buying, renting, defaults, foreclosures, credit issues and reverse mortgages. hud.gov/i_want_to/talk_to_a_housing_counselor

ServiceLink NH Aging services and support in your community for caregivers. servicelink.nh.gov/caregivers/index.htm (866) 634-9412 NHCarePath Caregiving resources and services from issues such as aging, disability and independent living to counseling and financial planning tools. nhcarepath.dhhs.nh.gov Granite State Independent Living Advocacy, information, education, support and transition services for people as they age. gsil.org, (603) 228-9680 211 Speak with trained Information and referral specialists who can connect you to nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Lifelong Bureau of Elderly & Adult Services Resources, programs and information for elder services. dhhs.nh.gov/dcbcs/beas/ index.htm ServiceLink Financial and home care program resources. servicelink.nh.gov New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration Property tax relief programs for seniors. revenue.nh.gov/faq/ low-moderate.htm New Hampshire Legal Aid nhlegalaid.org/self-help-guides/housing-foreclosure-eviction New Hampshire Legal Assistance nhla.org

RESOURCE GUIDE

Liberty House Inc. Helping homeless and struggling veterans. 75 West Baker St., libertyhousenh.org, (603) 669-0761 NH Care Path Services and support for service members and their families nhcarepath.dhhs.nh.gov/veterans-military/ index.htm Veterans Count Resources and services for veterans and their families. vetscount.org (603) 621-3570

Retirement

NH’s Active Retirement Association Provides educational and cultural programming in the Seacoast area and beyond.

Holds four meetings a year that are free and open to the public for socializing with current and prospective members. unh.edu/ara The Friends Program Provides over 500 volunteers to nonprofit and public organizations across the state to meet community needs. friendsprogram.org/programs/retired-and-senior-volunteer-program-rsvp AARP Retirement Calculator Provides a personalized snapshot of what your financial future might look like. aarp.org/ work/retirement-planning/retirement_calculator.html

NH Housing Finance Authority Promotes, finances and supports affordable housing and related services. nhhfa.org

Legal Assistance

New Hampshire Legal Aid nhlegalaid.org New Hampshire Legal Assistance, Senior Law Project nhla.org

Lifelong Learning Colby Sawyer College colby-sawyer.edu/ adventures Dartmouth College osher.dartmouth.edu Granite State College olli.granite.edu/ classes.html NH Department of Education education. nh.gov/career/adult/adult_learner.htm Rivier Institute for Senior Education rivier.edu/academics/rise Southern NH University snhu.edu University of New Hampshire unh.edu/ continuingeducation/university-coursework

Medicare

ServiceLink Trained and certified Medicare specialist support. servicelink.nh.gov/medicare/index.htm, (866) 634-9412 AARP Medicare Q & A Tool aarp.org/ health/medicare-qa-tool

Military & Veterans Services

VA Benefits & Healthcare va.gov/directory/guide/fac_list_by_state. cfm?State=NH&dnum=All NH State Office of Veterans Services nh.gov/nhveterans 78

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Backpacker at Hermit Lake with the headwall of Tuckerman Ravine in the distance

RWD-116 4.625 x 7.45 NH mag Franzs ad.qxp_Layout 1 11/15/19 10:12 AM Page 1

Senior Discounts

The Senior Discount List for NH seniorcitizendiscountlist.org/new-hampshire-nh-senior-citizen-discount-listrestaurant-retail-grocery-travel

A CONCEPT SO SMART, IT BELONGS IN A COLLEGE TOWN.

AARP Benefits & Member Discounts aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/membership_services/2013-06/ MBCHAE-GUIDE-JOIN.pdf

Social Security

Social Security Administration Apply for retirement benefits, use the retirement benefits calculator and more. ssa.gov/benefits Local Social Security Administration Offices: Concord: 70 Commercial St. (888) 397-9798 Keene: 9 Elm St., (877) 405-3651 Littleton: 177 W Main St., (877) 405-7658 Manchester: 1100 Elm St., #201 (800) 772-1213 Nashua: 175 Amherst St., (800) 772-1213 Portsmouth: 80 Daniel St., #210a (800) 772-1213

Transportation Medicaid Medical Transportation Program Provides medical services to Medicaid recipients. (603) 271-3770 or (800) 852-3345, extension 3770 (in New Hampshire only), dhhs.nh.gov/ombp/ medicaid/transportation/index.htm ServiceLink Locate transportation providers and resources. servicelink.nh.gov (866) 634-9412 The Bureau of Elderly & Adult Services Transportation programs for seniors and disabled adults. (866) 634-9412 NH Rideshare Free commuter matching services. nh.gov/dot/programs/rideshare, (800) 462-8707 or nh.gov/dot/programs/ rideshare

Resident-driven. Socially engaged. Artistically and intellectually stimulating. Everything you could wish for in an independent community, including quality health care if and when you need it in the future. Learn more about this smart new community!

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NH Department of Transportation Public transportation information and providers. nh.gov/dot/org/aerorailtransit/ railandtransit/transit.htm NH Transit Association Information, education and support to improve mobility, nhtransit.com. (603) 623-8801 ext. 5152 nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

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Lifelong

Wear Cleats or Die A perfect gift for your Medicare birthday

BY REBECCA RULE

W

hen she was little, our daughter nicknamed her dad the Fairy Lightfoot. Not a small man, he demonstrated remarkable balance. He could scamper over the roof, nailing shingles as he went.

He could step from the dock into a boat creating barely a ripple. He could cross a brook on slippery rocks without wetting a toe. At 70, maybe he can still do those things. Maybe not. Last summer when the roof needed replacing, we hired the job out.

Years ago, my grandmother said of the eldercare facility where she lived, “It’d be better if they’d stopped falling down.”

Having celebrated my Medicare birthday, I know what she meant. Martha misses the bottom stair with her arms full of laundry and ends up

with a broken ankle. Penny, riding her bike, hits a pot hole and wakes up in the ambulance with cracked ribs and a face peel.

Monty tumbles from his tree stand and is impaled on a spruce, which, luckily, missed the important bits.

Of course, these mishaps could happen to anyone at any age. But they seem to be happening more often to my peers. The older I get, the more I worry about bones.

As a kid, I took ski lessons. Learned the snowplow and stem christie. Rode a chairlift to the top of Ragged Mountain. Slid, slipped, rolled and skidded down, then trotted into the lodge for hot chocolate that scalded my tongue, my only injury. I never really took to skiing. The boots weighed a ton. My toes froze. Other kids skied faster, soon out of sight. It was lonely on the mountain.

But how I loved to slide. I’d hop on a saucer and spin down Littlefields’ hill, oblivious to obstacles (like rocks), confident the universe was

looking out for me. Confident in my rubber bones.

A bunch of us would pile onto a toboggan and shove off on a crust so thick and sharp it could slice a kid. We didn’t think what might happen if we veered into the trees. We were unconcerned about the puckerbrush and barbed wire at the bottom, or the traffic we’d slide into if the puckerbrush and barbed wire didn’t stop us.

Recently, I drove past a sign at a ski area that said “Free Tubing.”

Fun! I thought and almost said to the Fairy Lightfoot, “Let’s tube!” But before the words were out of my mouth, I pictured myself thrown from the tube, crumpled, bone sticking out through the skin.

Tubing’s for kids, I thought sadly, meaning people who have not celebrated their Medicare birthday.

Years ago, my mother stood on her front step looking at fresh snow. Next thing you know, black ice has melted under her soles, she’s down, and her wrist is broken.

Last winter, I stood on a trail at Northwood Meadows State Park having just said to the Fairy Lightfoot: “It’s slick under the snow.” Next thing I know, the back of my skull thunks the frozen ground. Am I dead?

I wondered.

Five Outdoor Survival Tips for Persons of a Certain Age in New Hampshire in Winter

That said, many ski resorts offer free passes to seniors. I know several rosy-cheeked septuagenarians who ski daily without incident. If you’ve been an Alpine skier for decades, carry on. If, on the other hand, you’ve never skied before, consider cross-country or, my favorite, snowshoeing. The cleats are built in.

Finally, a cautionary tale: This last Christmas Sally Struthers, of “All in the Family” fame, played Miss Hannigan in “Annie” at the Portsmouth Music Hall — until she slipped on a snowy walkway and broke her leg.

She did not stay upright.

And, though newspaper accounts did not specify, I’m guessing she was cleatless. NH 80

nhmagazine.com | Lifelong 2020

illustration by brad fitzpatrick

#1 Your bones don’t bend like they used to.

Choose activities accordingly. #2 Take small steps. #3 Hiking poles = handy. #4 Wear cleats. #5 Stay upright!

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