Episode 329: Go Outside with Caroline Paul
Midlife and menopause month continues with the witty and wise Caroline Paul. The adventurer and author encourages us to add outdoor adventure to our lives, whether its birding or boogie boarding, how the outdoors is really for all of us - not just rich white folks, and the power of upending a single belief and the force it holds over your life. Plus, Elise becomes ordained to perform a wedding ceremony and Doree has a satisfying aha moment.
Photo Credit: Lauren Tabak
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Transcript
*Transcripts are AI generated.
Doree: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise: And I'm Elise Hugh. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums, and this month we are talking a lot about midlife and menopause. You are joining us during our very first and our very special theme month that was chosen by our listeners in which we are just zeroing in on aging and growing older and going through perimenopause or menopause and what that's all about with a series of really fabulous guests.
Doree: And one of them we have on today, Caroline Paul, we'll get to her bio in a little bit, but she was, she's so cool.
Elise: Jesus. We had this month planned way before events of the world and events of this country of late, but I'm so grateful that it's all happening now. Me too. And that we're doing this because these guests have been so fortifying
Doree: In
Elise: The moment we've needed it the most.
Doree: I think. I agree. It's been really wonderful. How are you doing, Elise?
Elise: I'm doing one thing that has made me feel really good this week, so I wanted to share with you and share with the listeners
Doree: Please.
Elise: I got ordained by the Universal Life Ministry online.
Doree: Are you going to officiate a wedding?
Elise: Yeah, I'm going to officiate my first wedding and it's a gay wedding. It's two of my really good friends, Matt and Brian.
Doree: Oh my gosh.
Elise: Yeah, they've been together for 17 years
Doree: And
Elise: They decided since Project 2025 puts L-G-B-T-Q people under Threat. They were like, let's just get married right now as soon as we can in California. So we got about a four hours heads up, four hour heads up to go get married or to get them married. So
I got ordained like yesterday and what I'm doing in advance is I'm kind of reporting them out as if they're a story like their couplehood is a story that's fun. And so I got to interview both Groom, but then I also asked each of them for people in their lives that I should talk to. So I have been setting up Zooms and talking to their friends about them, the two of them and each of them individually, what makes their relationship so special, the gifts that they give to us as human beings and oh my gosh, I've just really needed it. I feel like they are such gracious human beings as it is, but then even this gift of getting to be part of their wedding has been really the pleasure is mine in this time. So it's really awesome. If you ever get a chance to just talk to your loved ones about somebody that they love, it makes you feel awesome.
Doree: That's so nice. I love that.
Elise: Yeah. So what about you? How are you hanging in?
Doree: How am I hanging in? It's a really, really good question. My son does OT and I took him to OT yesterday and he does this really, I love his ot. They do outdoor ot, which is benefit of being in southern California. You can do OT outside pretty much year round. Anyway, I was talking to his OT and as he was doing some stuff with a couple of the trainees and she was like, he just seems like a happy kid. I was like, you know what he is? I'm looking at him do an obstacle course. He has this huge smile on his face. I was like, you know what? The world is on fire and my life is a little bit in shambles, but at least I have done something right with my child. So that is something that is bringing me a little bit of joy and solace right now.
Elise: Oh, it's such a gift. Yeah, it's such a gift to just have a healthy content kid. I think. So even when my girls are being super loud and chaotic and they're driving me crazy, the fact that they are doing something that they love or doing something together and enjoying it
Doree: Totally
Elise: Is a great privilege.
Doree: Totally. And obviously Henry has stuff that he needs to deal with, which is why he's an ot, but he just loves life. You know what I mean? He's just happy. And so that was a moment where I was like, this is something I'm grateful for and just gives me a little bit of hope. But yeah, I said this on the casual chat, but I'll repeat it for the vast majority of our listeners, but I've been playing tennis pretty obsessively for the past couple of years, and every so often I have one of those moments where I just look up and I'm like, oh my God. So this is so amazing that I get to do this and the weather is amazing and I am physically able to do it, and I get to play this game that I love that has brought me so much joy and introduced me to so many people and I'm really grateful for that. And I think that you talk a lot about community and I think that it feels really special to me that I've been able to find this community in tennis
Elise: You've cultivated and helped lead it too. So that's a testament to what you give, but I just feel like the more you give, the more you get too. And it seems like that's been bearing out with your tennis.
Doree: Yeah, for sure. One of the members of the team, her son is in the hospital and I brought her flowers and La Van Bakery stuff from the whole team, you know what I mean? Everyone kind of banded together and a lot of people didn't know each other before and it's just like a nice group of people who care about each other. So that's been really cool. That's what
Elise: We need right now. That's what we need right now.
Doree: And also we're in first place in the league, so congrats and
Elise: Winning is always
Doree: Great and winning feels good. Well, should we get to our guest?
Elise: Yeah, it's a little bit tied into, we talk a little bit about tennis and finding tennis at midlife and just also being out in nature, and so we don't want to give it away too much, but Caroline drops a lot of wisdom in this conversation. Doree, I'll let you introduce Caroline.
Doree: Okay, great. Caroline Paul is the author of the New York Times bestseller, the Gutsy Girl Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure and Lost Cat, A True Story of Love, desperation and GPS technology. She's also the author of the Memoir Fighting Fire, the Middle Grade Book, you Are Mighty, A Guide to Changing the World and the novel East Wind Rain. And her new book is called Tough Broad from Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking, how Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as we Age. And it is a fascinating, inspiring, wonderful book and I learned so much from it and I learned so much from talking to Caroline.
Elise: Yeah, she is a former firefighter. She is an identical twin. Her identical twin is an actor you might remember if you ever watched Baywatch. Her twin is Alexandra Paul and apparently her brother is an animal rights leader, Jonathan Paul. So if you've ever heard of him too,
Doree: So cool. There's
Elise: Some kick ass siblings.
Doree: What an accomplished family.
Elise: Yeah, and then she surfs and skis and electric skateboards and writes about all of that and she does it in her sixties.
Doree: Yeah, no big deal. Alright, before we get to Caroline, I just want to remind everyone that any links to anything we mention are always on our website, Ferber 35 podcast.com. We're also on Instagram at podcast. Our Patreon is at patreon.com/forever five. Our favorite products are at shop my us slash Forever35. Our newsletter is at Forever35 podcast.com/newsletter. And you can call or text us at (781) 591-0390 and our email is Forever35 podcast at gmail com. Alright, here is Caroline.
Elise: Caroline Paul, welcome to Forever35. We are so delighted to have you.
Caroline: I'm really happy to be here. Thank you.
Doree: So Caroline, we always start off by asking our guests about a self-care practice that they have. And I realize the book that we are going to be talking about that you recently came out with a few months ago, tough brought is sort of about a self-care practice. But I'm wondering if you have anything that you want to talk about that you would consider a self-care practice Right now
Caroline: I work out very consistently and it's very hard to convince me not to. So I always make sure that that's part of my day. And also one big thing that I do that I think is different from other people that's not outy is that I do not pack my day with commitments because I want to be really present with each thing that I do. And I have friends who go from commitment to commitment and they are definitely grabbing life. But for me personally, that means that I'm not present. I'm just worrying always about logistics and because I really feel strongly that I shouldn't be late for things because I respect other people's time. I just build in a lot of time between things. So I never drive fast, I never run through airports. Sometimes it drives people crazy how I'm like, yeah, no, I'm actually going to leave X amount of time beforehand, but it's so that my drive, I don't hit anybody. Or when I'm at lunch with somebody, I'm not looking at my watch.
Doree: That's really impressive,
Caroline: Honestly. Or in a very simple life, streamlined life.
Doree: Yeah, that sounds really nice. I have a five-year-old son and I'm just thinking about, a lot of times you'll hear parents of young kids being like, we're so rushed in the morning, we can never find anything. We don't have time. My kid is stalling. And I'm always like, I know the answers to just start everything earlier and then you're not rushing. But it's hard for me to actually do that. So this is a good reminder.
Caroline: I mean, let's be clear, I don't have kids and have not had kids, so I have the luxury, the privilege of making sure my life just has a little bit more breathing room.
Doree: Sure. But I think it's a good thing for all of us to keep in mind.
Elise: Caroline, your latest book, tough Broad Mixes in memoir and social commentary and journalism just on adventure and outdoor adventure outside, you've always been somebody who is drawn towards and done extreme sports, but in this book, it was great. You wanted to explore why so many older women don't get outside and surf and ski and ride around on an electric skateboard as you do. So what do you think, just as a premise here, what are the factors holding women back in the first place and what are we missing when we're not spending more time in nature as we get older?
Caroline: Yeah, I mean this book really was a quest for my own fulfilling aging journey. I conceived of it when I was 55 and just wondering what this next phase was going to be like. I was post perimenopause and everybody around me seemed to be sad about it and I wasn't. But I also didn't know how to proceed because I had been an outdoor adventurer all my life specifically, I would go, let's say surfing and I'd look around and there would be no women my age out there on the waves and I'm not a good surfer. So I knew women could do these waves, it would be sort of sloppy winter swell and I wouldn't see anybody the same thing when I was on my electric skateboard. And I also fly experimental planes. And again, very few women out there, but lots of men my age and older doing this.
And I was like, oh, is there something I don't know. So really this book, tough Broad is about my quest to figure out whether I could should keep outdoor adventure in my life. And it turns out, and it really, I did not know anything. I really knew nothing except I had an instinct that I was my best self in the outdoors, but I didn't know any of the science. And so I proceeded to look to research and also ask women older than me who were outdoors what it was doing for them. And thus the book, oh, so to answer your other part is like why aren't women out there? Well, that puzzled me. But it turns out, and we all know this and actually don't, the book is full of research, but I don't feel like I needed to have studies about this, but the messaging that we get as we age is really toxic. It basically tells us that we're increasingly frail, increasingly on a cognitive decline. We have to watch out for our bones, we really should be narrowing our life. And I think women will agree. They start to feel invisible at a certain age and culturally irrelevant. And so these real negative messaging about our aging journey, if we get messaging at all by the way, because we're often just completely ignored, just tells us don't start doing new things. Don't push your comfort zones.
Elise: What did you find after the exploration?
Caroline: Well, I mean very early on, because I wrote this book during COD and I was just going to sort of jump off a proverbial cliff with my paraglider and interview people and sort of just cast about for the line of the book. But covid happened, so I couldn't interview anyone, so I had to sit in a computer and do a lot of research. The very early on I found research that really pushed this book along, which is that the way we look at our own aging predicts how well we age. And so what that means is if we have a negative view of our aging, we have a higher chance of a decline earlier and higher chance of heart issues earlier. And the opposite is true. If you have an exhilarated, a positive view of your own aging journey, you are happier and healthier and you live seven and a half years longer.
And this study has been replicated over and over. So then the question is obvious, this was eyeopening to me, but I asked the scientists from my desk in Covid, but how do we get that positive attitude in the face of such toxic messaging? And I started to realize that the way we do it is to go outside because when you go outside, what nature asks of us puts a lie to all that messaging that we're frail, that we're on a decline and that we're irrelevant. And I saw this over and over, and may I say just one specific anecdote that really very early on, I went and visited these boogie boarders in San Diego and they were in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and even in their nineties. And I thought, Ooh, this is a great way to interview people about how just doing an easy sport and getting outside is really good for you.
I actually kind of looked down on boogie boarding, I will say, because I'm a surfer, I'm a bad surfer somehow I felt like I could, but it's a simple sport for kids. And they agreed. They were like, you don't really have to know anything to Boogie Board. You don't even have to be fit. But one of the women came up to me and she said, boogie boarding changed my life. And I was like, how did Boogie Boarding change your life? And she said, look, here I am in the Pacific Ocean. Here it is big cold. I'm helping my friends have fun. I have to make decisions about the waves. I'm getting tumbled by the water and I'm 62 years old and I'm in it. And what I saw was that she had really upended her own the messaging that she had been hearing about herself by getting the water and doing this.
She had had no outdoor life before this. She had no hobby that really spoke to her. And she had gone in the water kind of on a whim, and it had really, and once she started upending her expectations in this one area, which some people would be like, oh, so yeah, you like boogie boarding and that surprised you, big deal. But no, because when you push your comfort zone and when you upend these sort of beliefs you have about yourself, then you wonder what else can I do? Who else am I? And that is where you begin your exploratory journey as you age.
Doree: In the first chapter of your book, you write the real peril for us as We age is a sedentary life that lacks pizazz and challenge. So I guess what I'm wondering is how do you suggest finding that pizazz and challenge for people who might not be able to easily access it?
Caroline: I talk a lot about this in the book actually. Adaptation is super important based on your financial limitations, your physical limitations, your social limitations. So I think people misperceive when I say adventure because they know that I was a paraglider or a firefighter or I was a whitewater rafter. But when I say adventure, I mean it's something that makes you feel exhilarated, physically vital and accesses your exploratory side and pushes your comfort zone just a little. And so I went birdwatching with a woman who was in a wheelchair and she'd been in a wheelchair since she was 14. So Virginia Rose started a nonprofit called Bird Ability because she realized when she went out in her birdwatching that there was nobody out there in wheelchairs. They were just walking people. And so she believed in the power of birdwatching to change your life. And so she's a classic example of I want an interview her because if Virginia Rose can get outside and then
Most of us can do something outside. Now I have to say that initially I was like, birdwatching not really an adventure. I'm going to do it. But I was so wrong because birdwatching had all the hallmarks of an adventure. It was like a quest. And then there was the anticipation and the exhilaration and the long stretches of boredom, and then the yay, we've seen a bird, even if it's a little brown bird and it's the hundredth brown bird is what I love about bird watchers. They are excited about every bird. So what I realized, and this was me getting schooled, is that adventurous in the eye of the beholder. And so again, if it just has those characteristics of exploring and pushing comfort zones and physical vitality, you're on an adventure. And I'm very clear that I think there's, for a long time being outside has been very exclusionary. It's for white rich people and I really want to change that because the outdoors is for all of us.
Doree: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.
Elise: Speaking of demographics, I have my copy of Tough Broad where you actually wrote, you're a little bit younger than my Target demographic
Doree: And
Elise: Tough Broad is focused on women a bit older than us do and I are in our forties. What are your thoughts on the particular challenges for those of us kind of in our sandwich generation 40 something ladies who are still working and raising kids, but then also dealing with aging parents? How do we carve out time or do we just white knuckle it until we can have more adventure in our lives?
Caroline: No, you don't. White knuckle it, you carve out time. I mean, this is an unfair, I think people should not listen to me because I did not have kids. So as you know, I don't know that I can give advice on that. What do you think after reading the book?
Elise: I think that there is so much value to even just small pockets of time outdoors. I thought Covid was a real time for rest and I probably spent more time in nature in early covid than ever before. But I found it really transformative. And one of the legacies of that is to make sure that I work it into my day somehow. Even with supportive networks like partners or friends or family, it does seem like very overwhelming to try and really demand that we have time. So tricky.
Caroline: It looks like leisure, that's why it looks like you're just going and having fun. But I saw time and time again that these outdoor activities that range from getting on a sea kayak after Al's husband had died and now she's sea kayaked in order to work through her grief or getting on a paddle board and all those look like, oh, we're just having fun. And I think adults down Play. Play. And I talk about the importance of play and play is really still important for our brains just neurologically and also for our wellbeing. One of the other things that really stunned me is just how medicinal being outside is. So what I found that on a basic biological level, when you go outside, your blood pressure lowers, your cortisol, lowers the sound of bird song makes you feel so much better because it's calming. These are all things that caregivers need. And so I think if someone said to you, this is a pill you need to take in order to feel good today and do your very best at caregiving your children and your parents and your partner, then people would be like, I'm taking that pill.
And so that's what I really want to emphasize is going outside is not about just fun for yourself. It's actually on a wellbeing level. I mean there are countries around the world who put aside trails and outdoor spaces because they know their citizenry are so stressed out and they prescribe it almost. It's like, you really should do this. This is what we need for a well-functioning household society.
Elise: Community. We haven't even gotten to this part yet. The community part, you mentioned birders. My mother's a birder and I noticed when I go on bird walks with her that it's just such a friendly group of people who would've never otherwise come together. Most likely. You are often making friends and then you're sharing a passion. You're spending time outdoors with folks for hours. And there's something really beautiful about the community aspect of it that can then ripple out to society. I think.
Caroline: Yeah, I was very interested in the fact that there was a lot of research that said, look, these are the four very important pillars as we age, but they're important no matter at what stage of your life you're in, they're just harder as we age, they tend to fall away. And that is community, purpose, novelty and health. And then I added this positive view about your own aging. If you can keep those five things in your life, then you have a fulfilling journey ahead of you and a really exciting journey, a new journey. And the thing about going outside is that they encompass all of those right away. You can join a book club and that's amazing, and I'm all for that, but you're not really getting the physical vitality, you're not getting the health and you're not getting some of the wellbeing that the outdoors gives you. You can go to the gym and you get the health, but you're not getting a lot of what going outside or the community offer. So that's why as I was writing this book, I began just to be so convinced that I do that staying outside or getting outside because I interviewed women who had never been outside before and who had found in later in life an outdoor activity and how that had profoundly changed them, their bodies and their minds.
Doree: Do you have thoughts on how people can find these communities if they are seeking them?
Caroline: I really expected a lot of the women that I interviewed, and they ranged from 54 was the youngest to 94, was the oldest that they would be fairly Luddite, but in fact, they use the internet a lot. They use meetups. This one woman, Cynthia Hicks, who was a woman who had been outdoorsy all her life, but she had had cancer and then she had some injuries. So she was needing to adapt, but she wanted to keep cool things in her life. She said, she told me that she would do these little trips around the country or near her town, town and just type in something fun to do here. I love that. And then she would look and something fun to do here led to some pretty hilarious great things. And then Alona told me the woman who had lost her husband, that when she was trying to reconnect to herself, honestly to her new independent self and to the wider world after having taken care of her husband through illness and then death, she used meetups.
Elise: I think you say something so powerful about our capacity and just the limitations on our beliefs about our own capacities. Doree has been playing all this tennis. I didn't start playing tennis until I was 40, I think for my 40th birthday. And part of the reason why was because my brother was always the athlete in the family. And so when we were growing up, I got the message that I was the unathletic one or the not coordinated one. And so I never even tried something that I ended up finding that I had the capacity to do or the capability to do. So
Caroline: Yeah, our beliefs are very rooted and we often even don't know them that they're guiding us, but that's why it's so powerful when you upend one little belief, you kind of spin your head like, oh, hold it. Who else am I? What other parts am I? Do I not know? Vaj, Riva, Ava, I talked to, she learned to swim at 68 and she had no outdoor life at all. She not even had a walking practice. I mean, she was born in India, so there was this whole cultural thing. It never occurred to her. And when she moved to California, there was a pool in her condominium complex and she saw kids playing in it and was like, they look like they're having fun. And she's super fun, very, she had that adventurous spirit. She had just never applied it specifically to any outdoor activity. And she saw kids in it.
She just didn't think it was for her. She just never occurred to her until her doctor said, Hey, you need some exercise. Why don't you swim in your pool? And then she said, well, I don't know how to swim. And she said, her doctor said, take lessons. And so she did, which is amazing. I think that is a real testament to Vijaya, just having that sort of, already having that ability to be. I think she just, well, her doctor said it was for her health, and I think that's a lot of times an inflection point for people. And then she asked a friend who was her age and Preti and they went out and they learned to swim. And it was an incredible journey for her because she began to ask herself, what else if I can swim, what else can I do
Elise: To avoid putting all of the burden on individuals? I'd love to know you touch on this towards the end. What are the structural incentives that you think need to shift in order to better support us as we age?
Caroline: I mean, without doubt going outside and any activity, just simply walking, sitting under a tree, all that is really good for us. I'm convinced I've written about the science, and so I think insurance companies should be somehow funding that for us. They've done a lot of studies on what happens when you're outside in areas that are not healthy. Like when trees die in your area, there's a lot more individual, they have a word for it, mortality. And a lot of it is definitely just the air, just simply that the but also that just on a psychological level, that's really taxing for people when your nature is disappearing. And so I think parks already give, so national parks do are interested in this. They haven't, I know from people that they're trying to implement programs where they team up with insurance companies, but I don't think it's gotten anywhere. Doctors should be prescribing this. Doctors should be telling their patients, instead of, take that pill, please go outside, please. And in one fell swoop, your wellbeing, your emotional wellbeing will be tended to as well as your physical health. And again, time, time again. I just saw that.
Elise: Okay, let's take a break and we will be right back.
Doree: Can you list for us all of the sports and adventurous things that you do?
Caroline: That I do now? Yeah, now it's funny. I am very, I'm pretty. I like small things. I like getting on my paddleboard very right here. I live in the city in San Francisco. I just take my paddleboard and kind of very casually paddle it out. I'm not trying to be the first or the fastest or the strongest anymore. And I definitely wanted to be that when I was young
Doree: And
Caroline: I did have some firsts and it was fine, but it's very uninteresting now. And what I found, and I talk about this in the book, is that what I look for now when I go outside is awe. And I think awe is worth talking about here because
It's a concept we've all heard, or it's a word we've heard, but we associate it with religious experiences. But recently it's really exploded into the public consciousness and into science. It used to just be this thing that if you were religious, that you understood implicitly. And we said, oh, awesome. And that's it. But in fact, awe is this feeling that you get in the presence of something bigger than you. Mysterious seems more powerful. And it's a mixture of fear, wonder, veneration, and it's really good for us. It lowers our inflammation levels. It lowers depression and anxiety. And these effects stay long after that. A experience, it makes us feel more interconnected in the world. And nature's an surefire awe trigger. Look up at the night sky. That's the feeling that you're getting. Look at the Grand Canyon, that's the feeling. Or look at just a beautiful little bird.
And I had no idea that this is what I was feeling. I honestly did not have a word for it, kind of didn't even really pay attention to it when I flew my gyrocopter or my, I've flown a couple different experimental planes when I fly them. I wasn't thinking about all it was. I thought, oh, this is all adrenaline. But in fact, it wasn't, especially as you get better and better at something. And I got older and older and I was like, I don't want adrenaline. I want to feel this feeling, but I didn't have a word for it. When I found that word, I realized that I've been seeking it in my outdoor adventures almost my whole life. So my answer to you is yes. So I do fly gyrocopters. I ride an electric skateboard in my past. I've flown paragliders and I've gone done first descents down big rivers around the world.
But I think awe was always part of that in a way that I did not understand. Though I think as a youngster, if someone had said, you should be going after awe, I would've pshaw haw. I think as we age, we're just perfectly primed to appreciate awe. And we live in a world of anti awe devices like our computer and our phone, and they narrow our focus. They make us feel powerful and in control. And that's not good for us, doesn't feel good. And so I urge people to seek awe. And one of the ways you can do it in poetry, you can do it in music. One of the ways, the surefire ways is to go outside. And so they did this study where they asked people between the ages of 60 and 80 to go on what they called all walks, which is they simply gave them the instructions to look at everything with fresh childlike eyes. That was their instruction. And then they did this for 15 minutes a day over an eight week period. And they had a control group where people just walked and looked at their phones and they found all these things after the All walkers were soon self-reporting an uptick in gratitude and compassion and a lowering of anxiety and depression, which is something that older as we get older is something we have to face.
And then this was funny, when I read the paper, you have to read it really closely as almost as an afterthought. They said, Hey, can you take a selfie on each of your walks? And initially that selfie, the all walker's face was in the middle. Most of the time we take a selfie, it's like of us. But as the walks progressed, the face got smaller and the background got bigger. And what this suggested is that the All walkers were more curious about their background. And they call it actually the small self perspective, which is your understanding of yourself in the wider world health in a healthy, proportional way, not the way that our computers make us feel, which is powerful and in control in the center of everything.
Elise: Caroline, you are joining us during a month that we are dedicating to midlife and menopause and aging. So before we let you go, I'd love for you to just reflect on your own evolution and your own aging journey. I know that you have reflected upon it in your writings, but just, I mean, every day we're another day older. So what have you found and learned as you have evolved?
Caroline: Well, I will tell you that when I interviewed people, anybody who was older than me told me the sixties is my favorite decade, which was such a shock because most of us guild, our youth, our twenties and our thirties when we're so vibrant and Dewey, that's supposed to be the favorite decade, but these women over and over said, no, it's the sixties. And there are some external reasons for that. Their kids are gone and they're sort of more, they're set, they're set in their career or they're retiring. And there's, but there's also a chemical reason. You probably know this, but the extreme sort of attachment hormones that we need as caregivers, as raising kids, have receded with menopause. And it's not like we're not empathetic anymore, but we turn our empathy more towards ourselves. And so what that means is that we become more vibrant individuals, curious about ourselves, which is great for everyone around us, frankly.
So it's not a selfish situation, but it is a more self-oriented, and we become that, and it's a super vibrant time. So it makes me sad when people bemoan the fact they're getting older. I'm like, no, are you kidding? Getting older kind of rocks. And it's funny because I'm 61 right now, and I will tell you that as soon as I turned 60, I was like, this is great. And they were right. And part of it is the endocrine system, and part of it is just that intersection between experience, health, what you've accomplished in your life, it rocks
Elise: Well, then may we all get the privilege of growing older. I look forward to it. It's aspirational. Thank you so much, Caroline.
Caroline: This is really fun. Thank you. Thanks for your podcast. It's great. Thank you. Thank you.
Doree: Where can our listeners find you?
Caroline: I have a website, caroline paul.com. And I'm not super on Instagram a lot, but I can be found mostly at Caroline, MB Paul on Instagram. But I don't have an email list or anything. I'm very behind on all that people have been asking. I have to get on that. But certainly my website, you can actually get in touch with me through my website.
Elise: Okay, fantastic. Great. Caroline, Paul, thank you so much.
Doree: Well, Caroline was the best. She's so cool.
Elise: I want her to lead me on a hike or something. I don't want her to fly me on the plane because even though she is a pilot, I feel like that would be asking a lot to be like, Hey, I'd love for you to take me on a flight, but I'd love to get together with her and just go on a hike
Doree: And
Elise: Notice things. That'd be
Doree: Right. Totally.
Elise: Alright, let's check in on the intentions that time of the show.
Doree: So my intention last week was running and yeah, I did go on Monday. Today's Wednesday. I went running on Monday before I had to pick up Henry. And how'd it feel? It felt fine. I mean, running is hard and I jogged the first mile and then I did a run walk for the rest, which happy with, but what was good I think is I was a little sore after the first run that I did, but I'm trying to just avoid injury. So I'm hoping that that's the name of the game. That's the name of the game. I'm hoping that the new shoes and the insoles and just taking it easy, not overdoing it and stretching. And I hope all those things are going to help. So knock on wood. Great.
So yeah, so it's going fine. I'm trying to just be kind of chill about it and not set, not be like I have to run five days a week, whatever. Just going to try to do it and feel good about it This week. And this kind of goes back to something I was sort of talking about in the beginning, but I just want to appreciate the small moments because that's what I have to hold onto right now. The small moments we had a guest on who talked a lot about these small moments and I cannot remember who it was. If this rings a bell for anyone, please email me because I feel like I need to go back to her book or
Elise: Something. So that episode, yeah.
Doree: Yes. Or listen to the episode, but I'm like, who was that? So yes, so if you know, lemme know. What about you Elise?
Elise: So last week I wanted something escapist, so I wanted to read a romcom and I started reading, and I don't know that this is a romcom because I don't know if it has a happy ending. I only started it. I started reading Nora Efron's heartburn, which is
Doree: About, oh, one of my favorite books.
Elise: But it's about a divorce, right? Yes. It's about her divorce from Carl Bernstein. Yeah, it's funny. Obviously it's Nora Efron, she's so witty, but I don't Does that count as a romcom? Yes. Yeah, it's a
Doree: Relationship in movie.
Elise: No, I haven't.
Doree: Oh my God, Elise.
Elise: Really?
Doree: It's so good. It's so good.
Elise: But I should still read the book first, right?
Doree: You should still read the book. I don't think it matters. I can't remember. Did I see the movie first? I don't. I truly don't remember. But the book is so wonderful. It's so good.
Elise: I love her. I love her. I'm a big
Doree: Fan. The movie is Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson. It's like
Elise: Dream.
Doree: It's so good.
Elise: So that, and then Rob got hired to do a rewrite of a screenplay. And so it is a romcom. That's fun. So we're having a lot of fun. I'm getting to play the woman and he's getting to play. He's reading because reading through to look for notes and to cut things and all. So that's been a lot of fun that we're doing in between or at meals and that's been an enjoyable thing. Small thing. And then this week we kind of talked about this at the outset of the show, your one line of day, I have really fallen behind on my eye journal in day one, which is a digital app that you can have on your phone and on your desktop and they sync to one another and it can include photos and audio and video if you want. And so I have been good about adding photos of the day to my day one entries, but then not writing anything. So my journaling has gotten to be basically a photo album. And so I really need to actually carve out time to reflect and journal. It's hard for me to write when we write so much for work. We write for a living. And so
Doree: Yeah,
Elise: I know I'm having trouble there, but I want to set it as an intention because there is something really gratifying and lovely about looking back on how you've grown and changed and how time has passed. And so I really need to do that.
Doree: Okay. I love this as an intention for you. Alright everybody, thank you for listening Forever. 35 is hosted and produced by Doree Shafrir. That's me and Elise Hugh, and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partners Acast. Thanks everyone.
Elise: We'll talk to you soon. Bye.