Forward From Here

Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age - and Other Unexpected Adventures by Reeve Lindbergh
Nonfiction - Essays
2008 Simon & Schuster
Finished on December 10, 2018
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage in life, turning sixty, the period her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described as "the youth of old age." It is a time of life, she writes, that produces some unexpected surprises. Age brings loss, but also love; disaster, but also delight. The second-graders Reeve taught many years ago are now middle-aged; her own children grow, marry, have children themselves. "Time flies,' she observes, " but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too." A milestone birthday is also an opportunity to take stock of oneself, although such self-reflection may lead to nothing more than the realization, as Reeve puts if, "that I just seem to continue being me, the same person I was at twelve and at fifty." At sixty, as she observes, "all I really can do with the rest of my life is to...feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can."

Age is only one of many subjects that Reeve writes about with perception and insight. In northern Vermont, nature is an integral part of daily life, especially on a farm. Whether it is the arrival and departure of certain birds in spring and fall, wandering turtles, or the springtime ritual of lambing, the natural world is a constant revelation.

With a wry sense of humor, Reeve contemplates the infirmities of the aging body, as well as the many new drugs that treat these maladies. Briefly considering the risks of drug dependency, she writes that "the least we [the "Sixties Generation"] can do for ourselves is live up to our mythology, and take lots of drugs." Legal drugs that is -- although what sustains us as we grow older is not drugs but an appreciation for life, augmented by compassion, a sense of humor, and common sense.

And of course there is family -- especially with the Lindberghs. Reeve writes about discovering, thirty years after her father's death and two and a half years after her mother's, that her father had three secret families in Europe. She travels to meet them, learning to expand her self-understanding: "daughter of," "mother of," "sister of" -- sister of many more siblings than she'd known, in a family more complicated than even she had imagined.

Forward from Here is a brave book, a reflective book, a funny book -- a book that will charm and fascinate anyone on the journey from middle age to the uncertain future that lies ahead.


Well. That is one of the lengthiest blurbs I've read on a book jacket in a long time, and it pretty much sums up the entire book, about which I had mixed feelings. Some of the essays held my interest more than others, particularly the one about her father's secret life and her visits with her half siblings. Others were less interesting and at one point I was tempted to give up on the book, but decided to keep reading, hoping to discover a few gems. I love essay collections, but Lindbergh's writing didn't hold my interest as that of Kelly Corrigan, Ann Hood, and Anna Quindlen. I have no passages to share, which is rare for this sort of book, and reading this just before my 57th birthday, I don't think it was a case of not fitting the demographic (although I don't feel like I'm about to leave middle age!). Perhaps it was just a case of bad timing...

I really wanted to love this book, but it was flat and fell short of my expectations. Nonetheless, I still intend to read Under a Wing: A Memoir and Moving to the Country, which have been on my shelves for years. I am also inspired to re-read Gift From the Sea, the classic book which was written by Reeve's mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.