Book Review: Caroline Paul and the Tough Broads
Pilot, author and former San Francisco firefighter, Caroline Paul, has always had an affinity for adventure.
Whether it’s riding her one wheel—an electric skateboard with a singular wheel—or hitting the skies in her gyrocopter (a small helicopter-like aircraft), Paul has never shied away from adrenaline.
When she began nearing her sixties, Paul started to notice the changes that came with an aging body, yet she was determined to welcome this phase instead of fight it. How could she step into this new chapter of life with open arms?
In her new book, TOUGH BROAD: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking – How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives As We Age, Caroline Paul—New York-Times bestselling author of The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure—sets out to challenge the societal narrative around aging, especially for women who have felt it’s too late for them or have struggled to find their place in outdoor adventuring.
Paul asks, “Can’t we embrace this long, last phase of our life with excitement, wringing what is possible out of it, despite difficulties?” This prompts her to seek out older women across the United States who pursue adventure in its many different forms.
A Spirit of Adventure
Whether it’s birdwatching, boogie boarding or BASE jumping, throughout the course of the book, Paul dives into the stories of these women who have navigated loss but also experienced the profound gains that come with a renewed joy found in adventure.
Exploring the spirit, body, brain and heart, Paul balances both the lived experience of the women she profiles along with studies that pull on science and psychology to show readers the powerful health benefits that come from engaging in outdoor activity.
While standing firm in her conviction that aging doesn’t have to push us to the sidelines of life, Paul doesn’t ignore the realities that come with an aging body, either. It’s true that as we get older, most of us will become slower, weaker and recovery takes much longer. Not to mention the onslaught of possible health diagnoses and the loss of loved ones that often comes at one point or another.
Reading Caroline’s words as a twenty-something year-old, I have to admit I felt some disconnect. Despite watching my grandparents navigate aging brains and bodies and reading the stories of incredible women taking age head-on, that future—to my young and wide-eyed self—feels distant. It was a saying from one of Paul’s Interviewees, Virginia Rose—a 64-year-old birdwatcher who was confined to a wheelchair at age 14—that struck a chord within me. She said, “We’re all temporarily able-bodied.”
That statement forced me to pause.
Accidents occur, illnesses are diagnosed and all of us are inevitably headed towards a future where our bodies begin to age. At any time, we may experience these kinds of losses.
So, I had to ask myself: What attitude do I have towards aging? How will I approach that time of my life?
Paul explores these questions and more in Tough Broad, emphasizing how we can embrace the changes that come in our life with daring courage and heartening spirit that are not just attributes of our youthful days. This book is for everyone. Young and old alike, it’s a reminder to embrace life-long learning, to face our fears with bravery, to challenge oneself to see with a new lens and overturn our culture’s beliefs about age.
There is a world of awe and wonder just waiting to be discovered, and there are sides to us that will otherwise lie dormant unless we take a step towards the growth found within adventure. In the words of Caroline Paul, “There is a bicycle, a pair of binoculars or a SUP with your name on it.”
You can buy Caroline Paul’s Tough Broad here.
