"Lupus has been my best teacher throughout my adult life; [it] has helped me learn to pace myself."
a Midlifer in Profile: Susan J Tweit
Susan J Tweit is a plant ecologist who has always thought of plants — especially those native to the continent — as her kin.
Her career began in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, studying grizzly bear habitat — collecting and dissecting bear poop — mapping historic wildfires, and researching big sagebrush. Susan has written thirteen books on the nature of life and humans' place in it, along with hundreds of magazine articles, newspaper columns, and essays. Her latest book, Bless the Birds: Living With Love in a Time of Dying, won the Sarton Award for memoir and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Awards.
Susan is a widow, a sister, a step-mom, a caregiver for her family. She is a friend and a Friend (Quaker). She loves to garden, cook, and take long walks in the nearby wild, and her happiest of happy places is on horseback in the wilderness.
resides outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can learn more about her through her publication, Practicing Terraphilia.IN WHICH GENERATION DO YOU BELONG?
Gen Jones: 1955 - 1964
DO YOU WORK? IF SO, WHAT DO YOU DO?
My primary work is as a freelance writer; I also "re-story" unloved houses and landscapes. Giving unloved houses new life and new stories has carried me —financially and emotionally — through the past decade-plus since my husband died of brain cancer. It has also allowed me to wander the Rocky Mountain West in search of a home for this solo me, moving to different places as I find a house that needs work, buy it, live in it while restoring it, and try out the community. Re-storying landscapes is my passion, work that ranges from designing pollinators and songbird habitats right at home to tackling invasive weeds to restore health to wild landscapes.
WHAT WOULD THE 25-YEAR-OLD VERSION OF YOU THINK OF YOU TODAY? HOW ARE YOU MOST DIFFERENT FROM HER?
At 25, I had recently been diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune condition that is often fatal, along with Raynaud's and Sjogren's (dry mouth syndrome), and was so ill that my prognosis was 3 to 5 years. My 25-year-old self would be very surprised and pleased to know that I figured out how to modify my life to live with my particular health. I am now 67 years old and quite healthy, all things considered. (Learning how to live with myself and how to make my way back to an intimate relationship with nature is the through-line of my first memoir, Walking Nature Home. I still get fan emails and even letters from that book fifteen years after it was published!)
WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED ABOUT YOU?
My cell-deep affiliation for this earth and we who share the planet, especially plants, and my dedication to leaving my patch of earth in better shape than I found it.
GOOD OR BAD, WHAT ABOUT MIDLIFE HAS SURPRISED YOU SO FAR?
That I achieved it! And that I am happy solo after being married to the love of my life for almost 29 years before his death from brain cancer.
WHAT ONE HABIT ARE YOU ACTIVELY WORKING ON THESE DAYS?
Finding a sustainable pace. I say that Lupus has been my best teacher throughout my adult life because the health condition has helped me learn to pace myself. (I don't call it a disease because it's not caused by some infectious agent. Lupus is an ongoing conversation between my immune system and the way I deal with stress.) If I push myself too much, my Lupus flares into fevers, joint pain, and organ dysfunction, so the consequences are dire. But I am still working on listening to my body, and as I age, the pace I thought was working needs modifying again. It's a constant effort to know what I can do and still stay healthy.
WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE PHRASE ‘FULFILLING LIFE’? HOW HAS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THIS CHANGED AS YOU GOT OLDER?
I used to conflate "fulfilling" with "success" in the temporal sense: money, recognition, and the like. Now I realize that for me, fulfilling is about living in a way that contributes to what Quakers call the "Ocean of Light and Love" in the world. Love is what lasts.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT THESE DAYS?
Writing about what matters most to me rather than what a magazine or newspaper, or publisher thinks they can sell. Substack has given me that opportunity and also given me back my excitement about being a writer.
IF YOU COULD GIVE SOME WORDS OF WISDOM TO SOMEONE 20 YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU, WHAT MIGHT IT BE?
Life is unpredictable, which I know from personal experience after my husband, always rudely healthy and who we assumed would long outlive me, died of brain cancer when he was just 61 and beginning to explore his passion for abstract sculpture. Find a way to do what you love, whether as your income or your passion, while you can!
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION: WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE SINGER/BAND GROWING UP?
My mother, who had a beautiful singing voice, and Joan Baez.
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Thank you, Lou, for the great questions and for featuring me in this series. I am honored--and best of all, I learned something new about myself. And it was especially sweet to remember my mom's singing voice in answering the last question.