by Merilyn Simonds
RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
2025/$35.00/272 pp.
Walking past me on the sidewalk, would you see me? I mostly prefer to blend in, but the question struck me reading Walking with Beth, by Merilyn Simonds. Merilyn refers to her age as “Biblical three-score and ten.” I am not far behind. What do women “of a certain age” have to offer that the world should take notice of? Merilyn’s answer: plenty.
Part memoir, part philosophical treatise on aging, part celebration of later life and the cohorts we are lucky enough to have by our side on that journey, Merilyn’s book invites us along on her walks with her friend Beth (Elizabeth) Robinson, whose colourful passions and no-nonsense reflections as a centenarian brand her a quiet radical. Many of those walks happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the book reminds us that the world of COVID-19 was (is?) justifiably frightening, especially for the most vulnerable.
Walking outdoors in and around Kingston, Ontario, became a safe and welcome escape for Merilyn and Beth. Over three years, their far-reaching conversations on those regular walks ultimately give the reader insight into “what the view is like from here… looking forward” from the ages of 70+ and 100+.
On one walk they discuss “retirement,” which Merilyn describes as carrying a “whiff of solitude, of separation from active life, of defeat.” Beth pushes back against the word. “Not retirement but re-engagement. Not working for economic survival but taking up activities that stir the soul. Not giving up but striding forward.”
Merilyn Simonds is a Governor General’s Award finalist who has authored 20 books, including personal essay, memoir, travel, literary fiction and creative non-fiction. Her writing is exquisite. Writers and oral storytellers alike will relate to her description of the human need for narrative. “This is how we fashion stories,” she writes, “weaving together the slender threads of what is known with what we imagine, what we hope.”
Estimates for 2025 suggest that of Alberta’s 65+ population, 54 per cent are women. And our numbers are growing. Beth has lessons to offer us on aging well: “We all need to take care of ourselves physically and emotionally. And we all need a passion that is our own. How can we navigate a journey that pushes and pulls at us as hard as life does, unless we can imagine?”
Will Walking with Beth appeal to a younger demographic, such as women under 30? If they are helping their parents manoeuvre through a later life landscape, perhaps. If not, they’ll be keen to snatch up this book when they come face to face with their own mortality. Which is as certain as the requirement for them to file an income tax return for 2025.
Doreen Vanderstoop is the author of Watershed (Freehand).
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