cover image Breaking Patterns: Redesigning Your Later Years

Breaking Patterns: Redesigning Your Later Years

Catherine Chapman Pacheco. Andrews McMeel Publishing, $15.95 (181pp) ISBN 978-0-8362-2622-5

In their later years, the author and her husband Tom ``recommenced'' instead of retiring, disposing of their landlubberly possessions and moving to their 38-foot sailboat, Romany Star . Life aboard, as Pacheco describes it, is a daily adventure, enhanced by the companionship of kindred souls met on their constant travels. Told with zest, the stories about the Pachecos--who seem never to drop anchor--and other nontraditionalists minimize the problems of a nomadic life, but breaking out of expected patterns clearly rejuvenates these pioneers who relish ``ways of living to try on,'' impossible for older people who sideline themselves. It is best, the author advises, to avoid naysayers (no matter how well-meaning) who attempt to keep one bound to a stodgy existence when you long to fly free. (May)