MSI Press Blog

  Most modern countries tend to look at aging is a time of slowing down, of loss, of not being able to do what the aging adult has always been able to do or wanted (wants) to do. Creative Aging by Vassiliadis and Romer takes a very different view -- a positive one. An award-winning book, highly recommended by leading reviewers: This timely book...is geared to help those who are at or nearing retirement creatively to plan for their upcoming years. More than a how to, this is a book that opens readers' minds to possibilities ahead. Uplifting...thought-provoking."                                                                       ...

  Excerpt from Creative Aging (Vassiliadis & Romer) - Creative Aging’s Impact on Health Recently, one of my dance students, Sandra O’Brien, age 75, pulled me aside after class. She told me, "You know, Cheryl, a few years ago I didn't like getting older because it meant there would be so many things that I wouldn't be able to do, but since I've started these dance classes, I don't feel that way anymore. I found something I like and feel good doing no matter how old I am.”   When Sandra went in for her annual checkup, the doctor was excited by all the positive changes in her health profile. She’d lost weight, her blood pressure was lower, her balance had improved substantially and most of all, Sandra’s outlook on life had shifted. She no longer dreaded the aging process and all the negative connotations that it had presented.   Sandra has learned to embrace the years ahead and rediscover the things that made her feel good about herself years ago. She pushed me t...

  From Cheryl Vassiliadis - Creative Aging:A Baby Boomer’s Guide to Successful Living  came about as a collaboration of two friends who discussed what the future would look like as we stepped into the troisième age. Joanna Romer, my co-author, was my Communications professor when I started college as a non-conventional student at 45. We were so like-minded that we hit it off in class and then as we became good friends outside of class.  She introduced me to other women engaged in artful endeavors, and I introduced her to a special dance class I launched in my local community for ladies over the age of 50 called Flowing Rhythm. Later, when I moved to an over 55, active adult community in Georgia, I began that dance class in my clubhouse, and it had one of the most rewarding outcomes of my life. Joanna and I stayed in touch and wrote each other back and forth, and when she authored her first book  Widow: A Survival Guide for the First Year  in 2012, she told me I ...

    Excerpt from  Creative Aging  (Vassiliadis & Romer) - INTRODUCTION Do We Have to Grow Old?   “To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.” —Henri Frederic Amiel, Philosopher   Time marches forward whether we like it or not. From the day we emerge on our birthdate with baby-soft skin, tiny toes and fingers, and a world of possibilities ahead, we begin to age. Even as our lungs fill with precious gulps of air and we cry out to tell the world we’ve arrived, time moves ahead. Aging is inevitable. But--do we have to grow old as we age?   As Baby Boomers, we have an imposing heritage. Many of us, in our 20s or younger, pursued the absorbing occupation of self-discovery. Books such as The Road Less Traveled, along with the mystical music of The Beatles and others, opened the imaginations of Baby Boomers across the country. Could there be something else besides the prescribe...

  Franciscan Ladies Lunch Out: from left - the author, Anne, Alice, and Barbara Three of us were a decade apart: Alice, Anne, and I; Barbara was a half-decade between Anne and Alice. Alice - even in her 90s was the renegade; Barbara was the dependable servant; Anne was the intellectual pusher; and I was the world traveler (some of our "out" meetings had to be scheduled around my irregular travel schedule).  We came together in an odd way. We were all Franciscans, and we met monthly for more than ten years for Franciscan Ladies' Night Out, until Alice who had reached her 90s, could not drive in the dark anymore. Then, we switched to Franciscan Ladies' Lunch Out. We always had plenty to talk about and always on the same wavelength. Just one of those lucky and blessed groupings where all of us could always rely on each of us for anything needed, but especially for maintaining sanity in a growingly crazy world as we approached the Covid months. These "out" exper...