Margareta Magnusson •
The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly •

“At my age it is really important to sometimes think, What the hell!”

Don’t expect conventional wisdom or sugar-coated bromides from Margareta Magnusson, an 80-something artist and the mother of five. Suggestions that may sound mundane (Eat chocolate; Wear stripes; and the ever-popular Don’t fall) quickly segue into colorful anecdotes from her adventurous life. Encountering modern-day pirates while sailing the South China Sea. Taking her children to see Alice in Wonderland, not realizing that the version in question was a porno film rather than the Lewis Carroll classic. “Our thoughts, our fun, our troubles, are all treasures that no one can ever take from me.”

Reading her easy, conversational style, you would never know that Magnusson struggled to learn English when her family relocated to the United States. On one occasion she told the apartment caretaker that there was a large poodle under her kitchen table where dripping water had accumulated. Another time she served homemade cinnamon rolls to the headmaster of her son’s school, then asked politely, “How do you like my buns?”

Her kids, on the other hand, were soon swearing like stevedores in their adopted tongue. With innate practicality, she found this reassuring rather than appalling: “They would be safe at school.”

As a nationality, says Magnusson, Swedes “tend to be quite blunt, clear-eyed, and unsentimental.” Certainly this is true of her no-nonsense approach to aging, characterized not by dread or resignation, but robust enjoyment and zest for daily life. “You were expecting Swedish secrets, and yet I think the secrets of aging well and happily are in finding ways to make your routines dear to you.”

If Sweden is populated by gin-and-tonic-swigging, stripe-wearing, chocolate-eating pragmatists blessed with low-key humor, it sounds like a delightful place to spend your golden years.