LIFE LESSONS

Elise, Zurich – Switzerland

Big news: The interviews of the ladies we did in Hanover are on Vimeo. Watch Margarethe talk about her wish to go to Africa, Hildegard‘s wise words on wanting to know it all, Hanna on living through WWI and WII and reflect on Elfriede‘s favorite poem.

The portraits by German photographer Karsten Thormaelhen are all displayed on the Happy At Hundred website.

Elise, Zurich – Switzerland

Last weekend I hopped on a train direction Hanover in the north of Germany. Tina and Nic, my Couchsurfing hosts for the weekend, welcomed me at the main station and showed me around. After diner and a beer we all went to bed for a big day awaited us.

Saturday morning, Tina and I rode the train to Bad Oyenhausen. Karsten Thormaehlen picked us up at the railway station and off we went to the first interview. Pampered by a professional makeup artist, 102-year old Hildegard was waiting for us. It was the first time Hildegard ever wore makeup in her life. She wore a beautiful white blouse with a golden chain. She shared her words of wisdom seating in her daughter’s garden: “Do the things you have to do and be grateful for what you have”. A plane flew by, a dog barked and a man laughed out loud. After the short video interview, Karsten took over armed with his handful of light modifiers, several cameras and a good sense of humor. Hildegard took the pose like a pro model and wouldn’t stop.

Running late after our first interview, we headed to Margarethe’s granddaughter. Born on the 24th of May 1910, she had just turned 103 years old. If you want a tip for getting this old, try her secret diet: low fat curd cheese and cucumber! A little shy at first, this charming tiny lady opened up telling us about the store she owned with her sister, her dream to go to Africa and the luck she’s had living such a good life. We left right before the birthday party her family had organized to head to another centenarian living in the same village, Elfriede.

Elfriede, 100 years old, still lives at home, gardens every day and enjoys a glass of schnapps once in a while. She welcomed us with a round of prune liquor seated with her neighbors. During the interview, she relaxed a little and she later rocked every pose she did in front of Karsten’s lens. Sheyla, her Irish neighbor and her husband Helmut, invited us all over for afternoon tea and cake. Elfriede who somehow had tested us at first, was joking all around. Having just had the last bite of cake, we had to drive off to interview the most joyful centenarian we had ever met.

Hanna’s daughter welcomed us…with pie and tea. With double (for some triple!) portions of cake and fruit pie, whipped cream, tea and coffee, we were all on a sugar rush. This was a prediction for the session that had yet to come. During the interview, Hanna was very moved by all the attention she was getting, her heart beat fast as she answered the questions. She released the tension during the photo shoot. Sitting on her kitchen chair, she couldn’t refrain her laughs. She kept on laughing, with a few serious interludes in between.

The for the last interview, we all drove to Hanover to meet Helene Gisy, 100-year old entrepreneur who started a shoe business with her husband back in the early 1930s. With a taste for opera, nice shoes, a passion for education and horse riding, Helene told us about her life as an entrepreneur, the need of having joy in one’s life and the dark years of WWII.

5 centenarians representing 505 years of wisdom in a day, that was a first for Life Lessons. We’ve been working on the videos and the portraits, which we will post on the projects’ respective websites. It was a great experimental collaboration with Karsten Thormaehlen, which I hope to be able to continue. Special thank yous go the our five ladies, their families, their friends. Big kudos to Karsten, Rosie, Tina, Nic and Peter for a great joined Jahrhundertmensch and Life Lessons session in Germany.

Elise, Zurich – Switzerland

Long time no see! We’ve been on a winter hiatus after the great US Life Lessons railroad trip. I took this time to reflex on the project, on possible evolutions and collaborations. Speaking of which, the Life Lessons railroad journey continues…

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a link over Swissmiss blog mentioning the Happy At Hundred photography project featuring portraits of centennials. I liked the somewhat poetic touch, the vivid eyes and the smiling faces of these centennials. I reached out to the photographer, Karsten Thormaehlen to congratulate him on the series. He was interested in knowing how I had heard about it and the reason why I had contacted him. I mentioned that I was interested in initiatives that throw a different and empowering light on the elderly, such as AdvancedStyle by Ari Seth Cohen, and told him about Life Lessons.

After a Skype call and numerous emails, Karsten invited me to collaborate on a shooting planned for next weekend in Hannover, in the north of Germany. He will photograph centennials, while I will ask them tailor-made ‘life lessons’ questions. It’s a first in the Life Lessons project that I will interview non-English speakers. For now, the plan is to feature the videos in German on Life Lessons, while I look for volunteer translators. Shout out to all the German-English speaking folks out there, this is your chance to become part of the Life Lessons team!

Elise, Zurich – Switzerland

I hope you had a great Holiday Season and that you had a wonderful start in the New Year! I wish you all an amazing 2013, filled with joy, quality time with your friends and family, and good health. Why not kickoff 2013 with inspiring takes from the seniors I met on the road?

Over two hours of raw footage with an average length of 5 minutes per video, these seniors got me listening. Out of the 23 videos shot in 29 days, there are plenty of takes to reflect on. I decided to write down a few. For those who are active on Twitter, I tweeted some yesterday, sending words of wisdom in the inter webs.

For most seniors, getting an education was a key advice to younger generations, I therefore decided to leave out takes oriented on career, you can find in the videos. I focused on takes that echoed to me and I hope they will have you reflect too. By cliking on the name of the senior, you’ll be redirected to the video.

Annie, 83 years old, Atlanta, GA. “I love to tell jokes, I love to deal with people. I love to make them laugh and they make me laugh, and it’s really, it makes my day, it’s pretty damn right, it makes my day.”

Nancy, 90 years old, Atlanta, GA. “Tell the truth, and laugh a lot.”

Ruth, 80 years old, Chicago, IL. “Don’t follow the crowds, use your own brains and your own intuition and follow your own dream.”

Robert, 85 years old, New Orleans, LA. “Please, please, please, do something for somebody every day.”

Ann, 83 years old, Chicago, IL. “Grab every minute, make it the best, your best, of your life.”

Nancy, 80 years old, Oak Park, IL. “Live in the moment and for the future.”

Effie, 83 years old, Chicago, IL. “Do things, go places, as much as possible.”

Bill, 83 years old, Oak Park, IL. “Take it as it comes and don’t be in any hurry because there is only so much time you’re going to have anyway.”

Ann, 74 years old, Oak Park, IL. “Once you’ve found something that you like to do, follow it as far as you can.”

Elise, Zurich – Switzerland

I came back from the Life Lessons rail road trip two weeks ago and life has been a roller coaster since then. Still jet lagged and sleep-deprived I flew to Berlin 2 days after landing in Zurich to get on The StartupBus / FounderBus, pushing for entrepreneurship being my other passion.

I finally have some time to step back and look at this incredible month spent on the US trains, buses, streetcars and subway cars. Geared with my tripod, my camera, my laptop, my iPad, chargers and fully charged batteries, I wandered the neighborhoods of Atlanta, New Orleans and Chicago. I got very lucky in Atlanta, being able to interview seniors at the Wheat Street Towers right off the Martin Luther King Center. In New Orleans, having encountered difficulties finding seniors due to confidentiality policies. In Chicago, I discovered the city through the stories of Lithuanian immigrants and thanks to the help of dedicated social workers in Nordwood Park and Oak Park, I met Chicagoans from various backgrounds. I’m taking the opportunity here to thank Rachel, Stephanie, Will, Liucijia, Mindaugas, Melanie, Bethany, Jillian and Keith for their help. The seniors are the pillars of this blog, without them, there wouldn’t have been any life lesson. They took their time, their energy to share some nuggets of their life, and I would like to thank them for this wonderful present.

Over roughly a month I collected 23 video life lessons of amazing women and men. In other numbers, it’s 1,842 years of wisdom. What I learned from talking to these seniors was to listen. I found that it was in the most trivial answers, the simple ones, where wisdom laid silent. I met some seniors who were widowed, who went through extreme difficult times, but who kept smiling and were not bitter. There were some really touching times, when memories came back, and I felt very luck to be part of these special moments.

I received a lot of encouragements from social workers, seniors, anonymous, and friends in the last few weeks. I sense that there is definite interest for seniors and younger generations to teach each other and learn. I felt energized by the positive feedbacks and that motivated me to pursue the project. Now that I’m back in Switzerland, I will spend some time thinking about the possible shapes the project could take. When the time has come, I will let you know what the next steps are. In the meantime, I will upload the few videos remaining on the Life Lessons Vimeo channel.

Elise – Chicago, IL 

The people I have had the chance to meet so far were all 70-years old, having in common the wish to share and to talk. Some were widows, some were still married. A few were single or divorced. There were fathers, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers. Some were healthy, some were terminally ill and some were already forgetting. A couple of them didn’t want to be filmed, so we simply talked. What struck me beyond their wish to share their wisdom and experience by answering to the 7 questions I asked them, was their need to talk, to have someone who would listen to them. We flipped through family albums together, looked at family pictures hung on walls, looked at special awards, shared cups of coffee and munched on cookies and munchkins.

Dan from Chicago pointed out that we don’t master the art of listening. Meeting these seniors, I quickly noticed their need to voice out their experience, their failures, their memories and share them with younger people, passing on life lessons. Every time I sat down with these seniors, no matter their background or the kind of life they had, there is always this moment where, in the midst of answering a question, it happens: a spark in their eyes. Some were shy, some were brief, some were talkative and some were very humorous. All had this moment of truth. Mirroring the need for them to talk, I felt a need of younger generations to know more about their grandparents, where the family came from and what their lives were like throughout the decades. There is a need from younger people to learn from their elders, to look at life with a senior’s perspective, like putting on glasses to fantom reality differently.

Elise – Chicago, IL 

Yesterday morning I took the yellow train line to Nordwood Park, a suburb northwest of downtown Chicago. I was invited by Keith of the Nordwood Park Senior Center to attend the GeNarrations story telling project. Famous Chicago theater, the Goodman Theater has been holding workshops in several neighborhoods giving seniors a chance to speak their voice. The seniors are trained over a period of 6 to 7 weeks. They pick themes out of a play being currently shown at the theater, discuss them and write a story around it. Today seniors in their late 60s, 70s and 80s presented us their story around the topic ‘life lessons’. Ann told us an episode of her childhood and the shame she felt when her mother looked at her with cold eyes. She wasn’t ashamed for having slapped an older girl who hadn’t been nice to her, but for the way her mom had treated her, finishing her story by ‘the only punishment I had was the shame I felt walking up the stairs behind my mother’. The authenticity of the stories, their quirkiness, their tenderness, sometimes their brutal rendering was very moving. A special thank you goes to Keith, his team and the seniors who shared their life lessons.

Life Lessons gives a voice to older generations online and wants to help them share their stories with younger generations who could learn a lot from these. A project like GeNarrations stimulates seniors to look back, write their stories and share them. It gives them a voice acknowledging their the worth of their contribution to society. The Holidays are coming. It’s a time full of stories, and gatherings. I invite you to read a few of the ‘Christmas Carols‘ stories by Chicago seniors. What would be your story around that theme?

Elise – Memphis, TN

I’m sipping tea at a coffee shop on Main St. in Memphis, TN,  watching the pouring rain and the trolleys passing by. Midway between New Orleans and Chicago on my train journey, I am also midway in the month-long US Life Lessons journey. Perfect time to step back and look at what the journey has been like since I boarded the plane in Zurich.

In the past two weeks I’ve met people of all ages, of all backgrounds, from places like York, AL, Boulder, CO, Adelaide, Baton Rouge, LA, Tempa, FL, Québec, QC. Some were students, others had had many lives and were starting over somewhere new. Every single one had their stories. The people I talked to showed deep interest in the project because of the question it raised: this physical connection between individuals of different generations. Conversations were started and continued well after I left the place. This morning for instance at a coffee shop on Cooper Ave, where I asked the barista what she would ask her grandparents. Her coworker was eaves dropping and she started to think out loud what question she would ask. I’ve also received encouraging emails from acquaintances I hadn’t told about my project, pushing me to find more stories to share, to get wiser together.

I’m headed to Chicago tonight, where I hope to collect as many stories as possible. This project will be what we make of it, I’m only the messenger here. I researched senior centers, contacted people in Chicago, but word of mouth is the best medium for story telling ventures like Life Lessons. Make sure your Chicago-based friends know I’ll be in town ready to capture some nuggets of wisdom, chasing them with my digital butterfly net.

Elise – New Orleans, LA

The Duck Lady would walk around the French quarter holding a duck and followed by a goose. One day, she went through revolving doors, shortly followed by her goose who died on the spot. Robert who moved to New Orleans years back told me the tale of The Duck Lady after I asked him who was the lady portrayed in one of the paintings up the walls of his apartment lot in the French quarter. This is what New Orleans felt like, a city of tales. The Duck Lady, the Hoot Nanny, hurricane Katrina. A city that saw so much change.

When I arrived to New Orleans last Friday I had great expectations for a town that is the birthplace of jazz music. After several misfortunes at senior centers, I decided to follow Alridge’s advice, to keep trying. I decided to walk the street of the French quarter and look for seniors. Having seen older people sitting on the porch at nightfall on Tuesday night, I decided to try my luck on Wednesday morning. Here they were, a few seniors chatting on a sunny morning. A very nice gentleman asked me if he could be of any help. I presented my project and he agreed to talk to me. This is how I met Robert, who later told me about the Duck Lady.

I felt grateful for Robert’s openness to my project and felt relieved in a way to be able to interview one senior in New Orleans. Dance, music and New Orleans tales invited themselves in the interview. A big thank you goes to my friends Bethany and Julie, and to Elliott, who all helped me so much.

I’m off North on Amtrak. My plans have slightly changed. Since it takes a little time to find seniors in each city, I decided to give myself more time in Chicago to find more seniors to interview. I will arrive in Chicago on Monday November 12th after a night in Memphis. If you live in the Chicago area and know a 70+ senior who has great stories to share, let me know!

Elise – New Orleans, LA

Yesterday I swung by two senior centers in New Orleans a friend had indicated to me. After talking to the respective administrations, it turned out that they both have a confidentiality policy that doesn’t allow a project like mine to take place between their walls. Many other senior centers I contacted in New Orleans mentioned a similar confidentiality policy.

I underestimated this parameter when preparing the project back home. Senior centers or assisted living apartment buildings in Switzerland don’t have that many, or sometimes any, confidentiality policies. I was lucky enough to be able to interview Nancy, Dorsey or Gladys in Atlanta, for the senior center didn’t have such policies.

I need your help to collect life lessons here in New Orleans, where I’ll be staying until Friday evening. I will be available to collect life lessons of 70+ seniors here so don’t hesitate to tell relatives or acquaintances about the project. Also, if you know any older person in New Orleans, I would love to share their nuggets of wisdom on Life Lessons. Let’s spread the word and get wiser together!