Author and her twin sister thrive on experiencing the outdoors, will be at Ashland library March 18

By Lee Juillerat for Ashland.news

Two Ashland women featured in a new book, “Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking — How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age,” will join the book’s author for a discussion about the book at 6 p.m. Monday, March 18, at the Ashland Public Library.

Author Caroline Paul will discuss the book with her twin sister, actress Alexandra Paul, in the library’s Gresham Room. There will be food, drinks and “milling around” time. Copies of the book will be available through Bloomsbury Books.

Also attending and available to answer questions and offer insights will be Dot Fisher-Smith and Sarah Paul. Sarah Paul is Caroline’s and Alexandra’s mother and is also known as “Mom.” She is a longtime member of the Ashland bike group Rogue Recyclers, and has gone skydiving. Fisher-Smith is well known in Ashland as a passionate solo hiker and camper.

Caroline Paul’s previous books include “The Gutsy Girl,” which was on the New York Times bestseller list.

‘We have to learn something new’

“Being outside is so medicinal, not just for our physical health,” Caroline Paul said in a phone conversation about the book. “We have to keep our brains sharp and to do that we have to learn something new.”

A lifelong adventurer, Caroline, now 62, said she used personal experiences of older women who, unlike men, she said, are often deemed “culturally irrelevant” as they age.

“I was interested in finding the best way to combat that,” she said.

“Tough Broad” took three years to produce, partly because Caroline’s travels to meet and go on outings with women featured in the book were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She used that time to do extensive research on aging and health. Those results are evident in the book, which includes findings from a wide range of medical and other sources.

“It’s about the science and technology on the benefits of outdoor adventure,” Caroline said.

Inspiration was nearby

Part of her inspiration was provided by her mother, Sarah, 87, who moved to Ashland at age 62. Because she was new in town she joined the Rogue Recyclers. According to Caroline, although her mother “wasn’t an outdoors person,” she not only made friends but became an avid bicyclist. “I saw a profound change,” Caroline said of the impact bicycling and being outdoors had on her mother. “She has been such an amazing role model for me. My mom affected my own thoughts about aging.”

For several years her mother participated in 100-mile races and multiple-day rides. But, because of Parkinson’s disease, Sarah has geared back her activities.

In the book, Caroline recounts bicycling with her mother, writing, “Believe me, there is nothing more disconcerting than being out-pedaled on the road by one’s own mother, who also decides to trash talk you as she passes … and even as I was being shamed it was wonderful to see.”

Likewise, Fisher-Smith, who also lives in Ashland, has enjoyed being adventuresome in her advanced age.

Now 95, Fisher-Smith took a three-day trip carrying a 20-pound backpack in the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area and in her 70s hiked on high-elevation trails in the Himalayas. During a visit to Ashland to meet Fisher-Smith, Caroline Paul was startled when she suggested a trek up Grizzly Peak.

“I said ‘No!’” recounts Caroline, who countered, “Can we do less than 3 miles?”

From wing walking to bird watching

Fisher-Smith and Caroline Paul’s mother are just two of the “older” women featured in “Tough Broad.” While several of her profiles are about women taking on high adventure outings such as BASE jumping from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, wing-walking on an airplane in flight and body surfing, other vignettes include a woman who, despite her fears of water, learns to swim, and tales of those who find pleasure in bird watching and walking in a park.

She believes older people, particularly women are often given the message that, “Our older years are a time to curl up, give up.… Yet from the women I know I have to differ. Many have insisted unprompted that that time has been the most rewarding yet. So I look at my mother, as I have looked at all the other women I’ve spoken with, and I am reminded to do it now, before I can’t.”

Caroline’s writing flows and illuminates. In the chapter, “Do It Now,” she writes, “I had once been someone who picked extreme outdoor sports to engage in, and now I was agog at how a simpler activity like walking or boogie boarding or bird-watching could entice. These endeavors, I saw, were as immersive, beneficial, awe-inspiring, and fun as anything that had once flooded my nervous system with adrenaline.”

“Tough Broad” is an invitation to celebrate and relish older age, especially for women of advanced years.

As Caroline says, “It is now crystal clear to me that this final stage can and should be magnificent, thrilling, full of growth and learning and human connection. I am also reminded how beautiful aging can be. My mother blossomed at this later stage. She is still out there, walking, even if it is slowly, looking, exclaiming, feeling, living.”

Along with the Ashland program — 6 p.m. Monday, March 18, at the Ashland Library — Caroline Paul will discuss “Tough Broad” in a nationwide tour.

Copies of “Tough Broad” are $27.99 hardcover and $19.59 ebook.

Email freelance writer Lee Juillerat at [email protected].