Hello Dear Readers
from Lynne Berrett
I want to thank you for being patient with my silence here over the past weeks. In early December I developed a sinus infection that has lingered in spite of antibiotics. I have learned a lot from this experience. For one thing, the foolish belief that I’m invincible has been severely shaken. Getting sick for a long period at 86 feels a lot different from when I was younger. I’ve also re-learned that when I’m sick, my brain focuses on taking care of my body’s needs and pretty much shuts down everything else. Sleeping 12 hours a day may be necessary then, but it’s very boring. You can guess that I am feeling more like myself now as I write this.
In fact, I’m writing to share much more positive news with you as I make my way back to normalcy. Two big things are happening for us in 2025!
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Here’s the first:
On a cold January 28th in 1965 – much like our current harsh winter – Josh and I, along with two friends who offered to be our witnesses, met at City Hall in lower Manhattan to get married. We have a number of friends who have been married longer than us, but I doubt that any of them were married in quite the same circumstances. We sat in a big room with many other couples, waiting to be called before the Acting Deputy Clerk (he wasn’t even the real deputy clerk)! We were escorted to a room where the ADC stood at a podium in front of a large American flag, his feet firmly planted on a bright green carpet that was surely made of artificial turf. It suggested strongly that the staff played miniature golf there after hours.
The ADC was a fellow who looked to be in his sixties. We were in our mid-twenties, so who knows how old he actually was. He clearly took his work seriously. As he started to intone the ceremonial words, starting with “Dearly Beloved,” in a dramatic bass singsong, Josh and I looked at each other -- which was a mistake because we both had the same reaction. We started to smile, then stifled a giggle. The more we tried to contain ourselves, the more impossible it became. The poor ADC frowned at us as he continued to emote, until we burst out laughing, totally out of control. He didn’t throw us out for unbecoming behavior, but I’m sure we had one of the fastest ceremonies he had ever performed. The main memory we have retained of our wedding is that we laughed our way through it.
We were poor graduate students at the time, so there was no party and no honeymoon. After the wedding I got onto a Greyhound bus and returned to my graduate program 300 miles north of New York City. Everyone in my department, I later learned, was convinced I had gotten married because I was pregnant. So let me clear the record: we married in haste because Josh’s student visa from South Africa was about to run out. I was his ticket to a green card. It was the most practical solution, everyone agreed. The story of our courtship and wedding has become family folklore. Our sons have done comic riffs on it at various events, although we notice that they didn’t opt to follow our example when they got married.
Our shared sense of humor has saved our marriage many times over the years. That and navigating our differences, which we still find interesting and challenging. We both feel very grateful that we’re alive and able to enjoy working together on projects that are both fun and meaningful to us and, we hope, others. True to form, we did not do anything special on our 50th anniversary. We are such cheap dates. 😊 But we are determined to do something for this one. But what? We are open to all suggestions.
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The second big thing is that 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of the Ageless Mind Project’s birth.
I’ve described our origin story in previous posts. This seemed a natural next step for us, building on programs we had been developing together since the early 2000’s, starting with our first blog, Music and Happiness.
So this 10th year anniversary is also something to celebrate. For us, it feels like an appropriate time to reflect on the purpose and focus of AMP. Between the early 2000’s and now, research in the fields of gerontology, longevity, brain health, and neuroscience has grown exponentially. New organizations have sprung up around important topics like ageism in society. We ourselves belong to many of these groups and subscribe to the many newsletters dedicated to healthy aging. We read posts by the many talented writers who describe their experiences of aging or offer advice on aging in very attractive and useful formats. We support all these efforts to help readers become knowledgeable and proactive for their own wellbeing – to be able to “walk the talk.”
We’re also considering how AMP can best contribute to this exciting movement going forward. Like our marriage, our approach to healthful aging has always been both practical and a little offbeat, because that’s who we are. Josh, the hedgehog, naturally burrows deep into whatever he does. He is an expert guide to music that nourishes body, mind and spirit. In fact, he has recently renamed his personal Substack “Music is Brain Food: Music for an Ageless Mind,” a return to our early programs, incorporating new things we’ve learned along the way.
On the other hand, I the fox tend to run in a number of directions through a variety of burrows. I love to explore new possibilities. It’s immensely satisfying. for example, that the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with many different kinds of people in my virtual life has made it possible for me to create immersive experiences there for better brain health that are playful yet based on serious science. What I’ve learned by doing this has enriched other parts of my life, which is one reason I want to share more about my adventures with you. Who knows what new realms you too might discover?
The bottom line is that AMP will continue to uphold the value of personal experience – encouraging you to join us in testing out new ideas and going more deeply into familiar ones in order to learn what pathways for your continued growth are promising and what are dead ends; what makes you glad to be alive and what sucks the life out of you, even if it’s supposed to be “good” for everyone.
We also are ready to stretch a bit more by exploring ways we can connect generations through music and imagination. And also connect more with you, our readers. Perhaps it’s time to start a Substack Chat so we can learn directly from each other‘s explorations and questions?
Finally, as part of this year of renewal we will be updating our website, https://agelessmindproject.org, over the next few weeks. We will still be reachable here and by email at agelessmindproject@gmail.com. In fact, this is the perfect time to let us hear from you. What do you think about our ideas and focus? What else would you like us to consider? We promise to respond, because you are our reason for being in the first place.
With love and respect,
Lynne and Josh Berrett
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