56 pages • 1 hour read
Mary PipherWomen Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing As We Age
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4, Chapters 18-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “The Northern Lights”
Part 4, Chapter 18 Summary: “Moon River: Authenticity and Self-Acceptance”
Chapter 18 focuses on authenticity and self-acceptance. It first describes an anecdote about Emma, who learned to set boundaries with her daughter and listen to her inner voice, which positively impacted their relationship. Pipher shows how Emma’s work on herself helped her learn her true identity later in life, highlighting the importance of authenticity and self-acceptance in finding one’s “true self” through self-awareness. This growth results from having intention and learning new skills, including not caring about what other people think, accepting negative feelings and limitations, and prioritizing people they enjoy spending time with.
Women exhibit authenticity in multiple ways, such as setting boundaries, discussing pain and anxiety with friends, or doing what they want. An anecdote about Kestrel illustrates that authenticity involves learning to trust. When she became vulnerable in her discussions with Becca, she developed trust. Through Sal, Pipher demonstrates that authenticity can involve religion: Throughout Sal’s life, religion has kept her grounded through addiction, breast cancer, and other struggles.
Pipher argues that “authentic lives result from a deepening process that requires us to listen to our bodies, our hearts, and our minds” (204). This can occur through meditation, art, journaling, yoga, or discussions that create self-awareness, which helps women recognize the difference between their needs and wants and those of others. They should also “check in” with themselves frequently about their thoughts and feelings. She also notes that finding authenticity requires self-acceptance and self-forgiveness, which makes it easier to forgive others.
A story about Willow illustrates the benefits of self-acceptance. When Willow quit her job because of her husband’s Parkinson’s disease, she developed a new purpose: to care for him. She balanced this new life with self-care activities. Pipher describes her own self-acceptance and how she learned to be content despite being driven by self-improvement for most of her life: “My constant quest to be a better person has often kept me from just enjoying my own personality” (206). While she still aims to improve herself, she appreciates who she is, flaws and all. She relates a story about taking a vacation with a friend to the Grand Bahama Island, spending time outside and looking at the stars with the expectation that they would reveal a bigger truth. She realized that she needed to “let the stars be the stars” by living in the moment and seeing negative emotions for what they are, instead of trying to change them: “I need not spin anything, deny anything or claim anything” (207). Instead, she allowed the emotions the happen, knowing they would eventually go away.
Part 4, Chapter 19 Summary: “The Long View”
Chapter 19 addresses the role of time in creating perspective, healing, and growth. Pipher explains that although time requires change and adaptation, there are still consistencies in people’s lives, such as continuing interests and influences. She discusses the continuing influences on her life, including historical events and people like teachers, friends, and family. She even learns from negative people by being different from them. These influences create her identity and self-understanding and help her identify what is important to her. Aging allows people to solve problems and better cope with challenges, as well as be more empathetic, because they have dealt with these challenges before and learned skills like empathy.
Several anecdotes provide context: Willow’s life shows how aging provides perspective and helps people learn to face challenges. Some of her relatives died in the Holocaust, and her parents fled Russia. Her husband’s Parkinson’s disease strengthened their marriage, and her work helped her handle challenges. These experiences taught her how to deal with difficulties. Sylvia’s life perspective includes both sadness about her distant relationship with her daughter and pride in her grandchildren, as well as her ability to move beyond the life situation of her parents, who were sharecroppers. Emma draws on memories when she feels sad, a skill related to resilience, and Pipher uses memories of her friends and family to help them feel love, because she knows what makes them feel joy.
A story about a tailor who visited the pope depicts the impact of perspective on one’s life. When the tailor returned to his small town, the people asked what the pope was like and he said, “The pope wears a size forty-four medium” (215-26). This demonstrates how “we don’t see the world as it is, but rather as we are” (216). People interpret the world through their own perspectives, experiences, and emotions, and the tailor saw his experience in relation to his work.
Pipher notes that growth means broadening one’s perspective through various life stages, particularly in adulthood: “By taking the longest possible view, we can experience gratitude, wisdom, and a sense for the moral continuity of our lives. This strengthens our identities and brings us peace and connection” (216). The ability to have perspective allows for these attitudes. She relates a story about attending a naming ceremony for a girl whose parents immigrated from Sierra Leone. Mohamed, the father, brought Pipher a kola nut as part of the ceremony and explained that at first the nuts are bitter, but if she kept chewing, it would become sweeter as the bitterness disappears. Through this experience, she learned that “time can take the sting out of life and make it sweeter” (216). With enough time, people can see the positive in their lives. Time can also create more empathy and connection, forgiveness, and the ability to love.
Part 4, Chapter 20 Summary: “Everything Is Illuminated”
Emma, who planned a family reunion for her husband’s birthday; it resulted in arguments and conflict. When Emma spent time alone in the wilderness, she became more centered and was able to enjoy the good moments of the reunion, feeling like she was part of the universe. Pipher describes this feeling as “bliss” and contends that it occurs when people slow down and enjoy life. She also discusses the role of awe in showing people their true insignificance in the world and connection to a common humanity. She details how Sylvia experienced a moment with her grandson that created bliss, a simple moment during a chaotic day when he said, “Grandma, you are so beautiful” (220).
Kestrel also learned to feel bliss after her mother’s cancer diagnosis and death. During a walk along the beach with Becca, Kestrel felt trust and peace and professed her love. Pipher notes that many people learn to feel bliss and awe when they are in pain, which prompts them to find a way to remedy it: “Great personal suffering can sometimes deepen our souls to the point they crack open and let in great beauty” (221). Pain is an opportunity to discover the beauty in life. This experience also allows people to connect with others who have experienced pain.
An anecdote about Willow relates how Saul’s Parkinson’s disease progressed to the point that he could no longer eat solid food. When he choked on a piece of food, Willow had to give him the Heimlich maneuver. Afterward, he told her he did not fear death because he had a good life with her. This shows how pain and bliss can coincide. Bliss can be accompanied by acceptance, calmness, joy, and gratitude. Pipher explains that this creates a dual experience: “We hold at the same time the deepest sorrow of the world and most exalted happiness. We experience the double nature of reality” (222). She notes that not all older people experience bliss, but that they can always search for it. It only requires choice and intention.
Serious illness can show people the bliss in life, Pipher argues. She describes a story about her friend Jackie, who had cancer and felt both bliss and distress, because even though she was dying, she had strengthened her capacity for love and gratitude, and she learned to accept help.
Noting that bliss requires presence, Pipher describes how she creates her own bliss through nature by visiting the Platte River each March to view the sandhill cranes during their migration each March.
Part 4, Chapters 18-20 Analysis
Part 4 emphasizes broader ideas of positive aging. While previous sections focused on practical matters like the changes experienced in later life, the skills needed to adapt, and the people surrounding older women as they age, this section addresses the bigger picture and provides anecdotes illustrating the changes that occurred in interviewees as they strove to improve their experiences during later life, particularly showing the progress of the main interviewees: Emma, Kestrel, Sylvia, and Willow. Each learned the skills to improve her experiences and built on them to find authenticity and accept her new life and purpose. They also learned to have perspective by growing and healing.
Learning authenticity and self-acceptance and finding bliss links with Intention and Gratitude Support Positive Aging and Refocusing on Self During Aging, as well as the positive psychology concepts that Pipher uses throughout. Positive psychology’s emphasis on strengths instead of limitations and focusing on the positive aspects of life links with the final section’s focus on authenticity, self-acceptance, and finding bliss.
Combined with the skills women have learned to navigate old age, authenticity, acceptance, and perspective create the opportunity to experience bliss. Bliss is the focus of the final chapter because it not only synthesizes the book’s ideas but fully brings together these life skills and experiences into a transcendent experience. Pipher notes that:
[B]liss doesn’t happen because we are perfect or problem-free but rather because over the years we have become wise enough to occasionally be present for the moment. We have acquired the capacity to appreciate what simply is. This state is both the simplest and the most complex of human experiences (225).
By obtaining the skills and ability to fully experience late life, women learn to be present and fully enjoy their experiences in the moment. This final chapter also provides an ending to each of the main interviewees’ stories, showing how they each learned to feel bliss as the culmination of their Facing Change With Growth, Adaptation, and Resilience during late life. Women who confront change, cultivate the skills needed to adapt to it, and shift their perspectives ultimately become more resilient in dealing with issues of old age, a key goal of the book.
