Aging as Grief, Aging as Growth

After a 75 year-old immigrant mother gets fired without cause from her lifelong job as a hotel housekeeper, her son takes her on a bucket-list adventure to reclaim her life. As she struggles to find work, he documents a journey that uncovers the economic insecurity shaping not only her future but that of an entire generation. This is the story of mother-daughter team Rebecca Danigelis and filmmaker Sian-Pierre Regis–subjects of the documentary film Duty Free and special guests at this Reimagine event. Rebecca, Sian-Pierre, and Susan Silberman, Senior Director, Research & Evaluation at NCOA (National Council on Aging), will be in conversation about ageism, justice, and pursuing your passions at any age. After their discussion, participants will have the option to join small breakout room sessions guided by the following prompts:

Can you share any insights about yourself resulting from any loss or grief you may be experiencing due to aging? At the same time, can you name at least one new opportunity or see one new pathway that has cleared?

What can you do to regulate difficult emotions you may be feeling?

What acts of service, advocacy, or activism might help you navigate these struggles with aging?

Speakers

Rebecca Danigelis is the 80 year-old star of the critically acclaimed and award-nominated documentary Duty Free. After being fired from her long-time career as a hotel housekeeper at the age of 75, Danigelis has become an activist against ageism in both workplaces and communities. The upbeat mother of three uses her lived experience to educate employers and employees on the values of being age-inclusive, underlining the essentiality of including age in DEI initiatives. As a speaker, Danigelis has the ability to connect with audiences internationally. @rebrexit

Sian-Pierre Regis is a filmmaker who directed, produced and self-distributed his debut feature documentary Duty Free. Released in 30 theaters over Mother's Day 2021, Duty Free was a press magnet garnering coverage from CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, MSNBC, The Tamron Hall Show, AARP; the film was also a #1 Apple News story through the weekend. It is nominated for a prestigious IDA award in the Writing category.

Prior to filmmaking, Regis was a journalist and on-camera contributor to CNN, HLN, MTV and founded Swagger, an online lifestyle magazine for millennials with over 1.5 million fans.

In 2018, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Colgate University. @sianpierre

Susan Silberman, Ph.D. is Senior Director, Research & Evaluation at National Council on Aging. She has more than 25 years of experience in the research and evaluation field as a political economist, researcher, and evaluator focusing on health care, economic security, public policy, and opinion survey research. Silberman has worked in communities across the United States, including with Native Americans and Indigenous people, helping people at the local level learn to evaluate their programs and services.

About NCOA

The National Council on Aging (NCOA) is the national voice for every person’s right to age well. We believe that how we age should not be determined by gender, color, sexuality, income, or ZIP code. Working with thousands of national and local partners, we provide resources, tools, best practices, and advocacy to ensure every person can age with health and financial security. Founded in 1950, we are the oldest national organization focused on older adults. Learn more at www.ncoa.org and @NCOAging.

About Reimagine and the “Aging as Grief, Aging as Growth” Series

Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and–at our own pace– actively channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth. www.letsreimagine.org

Age isn’t “just a number.”

Western culture does an awful job of helping us face the universal experience of aging. We’ve created a society that celebrates and rewards youth and often makes older adults feel invisible and unnecessary. As a solution, beauty brands sell “anti-aging” products. Doctors and researchers suggest that aging is a disease treatable with surgery and medication. Ageism is real for job seekers, beginning with those in their 30s.

Certainly, there are real adversities and challenges associated with aging, and so few spaces to acknowledge and mourn these losses. At the same time, there are aspects of getting older that are, in fact, gifts to recognize and share with our loved ones, communities, and workplaces…if only we could see them.

With guidance from healers, artists, social entrepreneurs, and activists, we’ll gain tools and inspiration to view aging not only as an inevitable challenge, but also as a source of newfound strength, vitality, and wonder.

Designed for people of all ages and from all walks of life, this workshop led by the co-founders of Old School explores the losses and gains associated with aging. At every age, we experience loss: the culmination of first-time experiences, missed opportunities, reduced abilities, and the passing of loved ones. The ageism that is prevalent in our culture exacerbates these losses and turns the natural process of aging into a personal failure and a disease. We will start our time together by recognizing the cultural context we live in, most notably the stigma associated with aging and how it is related to stigma associated with loss. From there, we will be with our age-related losses, giving them voice and space. Finally, we will uncover the capacity and opportunities that grieving our losses provides. This workshop will be highly interactive and include breakout rooms, quiet contemplations, sharing amongst the larger group, and more. Our aim is to explore some very big ideas in a very practical way.

Facilitators

Kyrié Carpenter, trained as a therapist, is a teacher and public speaker, specializing in ageism and dementia. She co-founded the anti-ageism clearinghouse OldSchool.info with Ashton Applewhite and Ryan Backer, is an educator with The Eden Alternative, author of Healing Dementia, and adjunct faculty at USI and Pacifica Graduate Institute. She loves to travel, was a cast member on Dr. Bill Thomas' nationwide ChangingAging Tour, and has been living part-time in a campervan with her family since 2015. https://oldschool.info/

Ryan Backer, co-founder of Old School, is an age activist, public speaker, and ‘old person in training.’ They are aiming to eradicate ageism intersectionally, along with white supremacy, gender bias, ableism, body shaming, homophobia, classism, and all other forms of oppression. They are a white, non-binary, anarchist settler who has been circling the sun since 1988. https://oldschool.info/

About Old School

Old School curates, creates, commissions and disseminates free resources to educate people about ageism and how to end it; hosts and facilitates spaces where age advocates around the world can connect; collaborates with other pro-aging organizations; and shows up for other social-justice movements.

Old School is working towards a world where everyone has the opportunity to live long and to live well. We are advancing the movement to dismantle ageism, and we are leveraging the fact that everyone ages (and experiences age bias) in order to address the intersectional nature of all oppression—and of all activism. https://oldschool.info/

About Reimagine and the “Aging as Grief, Aging as Growth” Series

Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and–at our own pace– actively channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth. www.letsreimagine.org

Age isn’t “just a number.”

Western culture does an awful job of helping us face the universal experience of aging. We’ve created a society that celebrates and rewards youth and often makes older adults feel invisible and unnecessary. As a solution, beauty brands sell “anti-aging” products. Doctors and researchers suggest that aging is a disease treatable with surgery and medication. Ageism is real for job seekers, beginning with those in their 30s.

Certainly, there are real adversities and challenges associated with aging, and so few spaces to acknowledge and mourn these losses. At the same time, there are aspects of getting older that are, in fact, gifts to recognize and share with our loved ones, communities, and workplaces…if only we could see them.

With guidance from healers, artists, social entrepreneurs, and activists, we’ll gain tools and inspiration to view aging not only as an inevitable challenge, but also as a source of newfound strength, vitality, and wonder.

In this lively panel discussion, speakers from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds provide new definitions of aging and elderhood. Leaning on their practice-based research and lived experiences, these experts in medicine, healing, art, and social innovation offer tools and strategies to help us change our own mindsets and ultimately shift how society values aging.

Meet award-winning author and geriatrician Louise Aronson, M.D., a vocal critic of the ways in which our society and healthcare system neglect, stereotype, and mistreat older adults. Engage with Omisade Burney-Scott, founder of The Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause and a leader in fostering healing spaces for non-binary, Black women, and femmes to share stories about life, aging, intimacy, pleasure, and vulnerability. Learn with Jeff Hamaoui, founding partner and Head of Education and Innovation at MEA, a school dedicated to helping you navigate midlife and beyond. And rock with June Millington: guitarist, music educator, and co-founder of the pioneering band Fanny.

Topics include:

• Is elderhood an ending? A decline? Another stage of life with its own hardships, opportunities, and joys?
• How must medical systems change in order for us to age well throughout the arc of our life cycle?
• How can we transition effectively as our minds and bodies advance and decline?
• How can intergenerational exchange promote creativity and regeneration, especially for women and people of color?

Speakers

Louise Aronson, MD, MFA, is a leading geriatrician, writer, educator, professor of medicine at UCSF and the author of the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Aronson has received the Gold Professorship in Humanism in Medicine, the California Homecare Physician of the Year award, and the American Geriatrics Society Clinician-Teacher of the Year award. In addition to her clinical practice and teaching, she currently leads the AGE SELF CARE program and serves as an advisor to the state of California on Covid19 in elders. Her writing credits include the New York Times, Atlantic, Washington Post, JAMA, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine, and her work has been featured on NPR, NBC, CBS, and the New Yorker. https://louisearonson.com/

Omisade Burney-Scott (she/her) is a Black southern 7th-generation native North Carolinian feminist, mother and healer with decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and social justice. She is a founding tribe member of SpiritHouse and previously served as a board member of The Beautiful Project, Village of Wisdom, and Working Films. Omisade is the creator of The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, a multimedia project seeking to curate and share the stories and realities of Black women and femmes over 50. She is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, the proud mother of two sons, and resides in Durham.

https://blackgirlsguidetosurvivingmenopause.com/ @blackgirlsguidetomenopause

Jeff Hamaoui is Co-Founder and Chief Education and Innovation Officer of Modern Elder Academy, the first-ever ‘midlife wisdom school.’ Dedicated to reframing the concept of aging, Modern Elder Academy (MEA) supports students to navigate midlife with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. With prior roles at NASA, IKEA, and Nike before permanently landing in Baja at MEA in midlife, Hamaoui is a seasoned teacher and master facilitator with an entrepreneurial mind, teacher’s heart, and seeker’s soul. Hamaoui is also the founder of Baja Sage, MEA’s adjacent residential community. This new type of community utilizes regenerative principles to support flourishing and resiliency across the entire community.

June Millington, “one of the hottest female guitarists in the industry”(Guitar Player Magazine), has been making music since she was a child playing ukulele in her native Philippines. Having moved from Manila to California in the early sixties, she and her sister, bassist Jean, turned in their folk guitars for electric guitar and bass and formed a succession of all-girl bands. By 1969 they were in Hollywood with their band Fanny, one of the first all-women’s rock bands to be signed to a major label (Reprise). Through five successful albums and extensive touring of Europe and North America, Fanny served notice that women could do more than simply sing; they could write and play passionate rock ‘n roll. As David Bowie said of the group in an interview with Rolling Stone, “They were one of the finest fucking rock bands of their time ... They were extraordinary: They wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers...They are as important as anyone else who’s ever been, ever...” In 1975 June played on Cris Wiliamson’s “The Changer and the Changed” which launched her involvement in the genre of women’s music, and which led to being a co-founder and Artistic Director of the Institute for the Musical Arts (IMA), a non-profit organization for women and girls. IMA has been hosting Rock ‘n Roll Girls Camps each summer since 2002 and has grown into an internationally known teaching, performing, and recording facility supporting women in music and music-related business. The founding board included activist/writer Angela Davis and acclaimed engineer/producer Roma Baran (Laurie Anderson, Rosalie Sorrels). June released her autobiography “Land of a Thousand Bridges: Island Girl in a Rock ‘n Roll World” in 2015; Bobbi Jo Hart’s documentary, Fanny: The Right to Rock, is currently streaming on PBS. June’s latest album, Snapshots, was released last year via IMA on her label Fabulous Records.

About Reimagine and the “Aging as Grief, Aging as Growth” Series

Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and–at our own pace– actively channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth. www.letsreimagine.org

Age isn’t “just a number.”

Western culture does an awful job of helping us face the universal experience of aging. We’ve created a society that celebrates and rewards youth and often makes older adults feel invisible and unnecessary. As a solution, beauty brands sell “anti-aging” products. Doctors and researchers suggest that aging is a disease treatable with surgery and medication. Ageism is real for job seekers, beginning with those in their 30s.

Certainly, there are real adversities and challenges associated with aging, and so few spaces to acknowledge and mourn these losses. At the same time, there are aspects of getting older that are, in fact, gifts to recognize and share with our loved ones, communities, and workplaces…if only we could see them.

With guidance from healers, artists, social entrepreneurs, and activists, we’ll gain tools and inspiration to view aging not only as an inevitable challenge, but also as a source of newfound strength, vitality, and wonder.