Aged to Perfection

Getting comfortable.....

2012-03-04T21:08:00.000-05:00

We're not a comfortable couple, never have been.

A bit stand off-ish.

We just don't understand one another. Maybe there's even a little fear involved. Certainly not the basis for a healthy relationship.

But last week we took a step to learn more about one another, and I must admit, we're much more comfortable in each other's presence.

Guns and me.....who would have thought?

But in order to shoot a hand gun, my "thing I had never done before" for February, I was required to take the NRA Basic Pistol Safety Course, a two hour session that forced us to become acquainted on an intimate level: the parts of a gun, how it operates, how to keep our sights straight, where not to point it (at anything you don't intend to destroy), and how to take care of one another. All relationships are built on these things, it seems to me.

At the end of the second hour sitting in a chair, I was getting antsy, ready to get my hands on my partner in a real way. So, off to the range we went, ear muffs, goggles, pistols and semiautomatics. My instructor finally got us together, and I have to admit, the lessons helped. We made beautiful music together.

There is now less fear and more understanding, essentials for any relationship. Do I plan on moving in with my new companion? No, we're still a little hesitant around each other, and it's probably best that we live apart. But it was great fun for a one-day stand, and the whole experience supported the axiom that knowledge is power. I am not going to run out and apply for a permit to carry a gun, but I know I would feel more comfortable with a weapon in my house if I change my mind.

Thanks for my instructor, Ed Blaker, who was patient and kind to this liberal who showed up on his doorstep without much notice on a Sunday. (The fact that he kissed my hand has absolutely nothing to do with it.)

And, Jack...thank you for, well, you know. You saved my February adventure when we had to go to Plan B!

”The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
~Patrick Henry

Get out the sledgehammer......

2012-02-26T21:11:00.001-05:00

Assisted living centers.

Nursing homes.

Clunky plastic shoes.

Unending doctors' visits.

Arid, sexless unions.

Steel gray hair.

Golf carts parked in the carport.

Rocking chairs.

Ticking clocks in the silence instead of rock and roll at full volume.

Do you have the visual yet? Go ahead....I'll wait.

Now that you have it, destroy it! With a sledgehammer if you must.

Apparently my subconscious had that visual in place for decades, just biding its time until the clock ticked over to age 60 for me a few years ago. I didn't realize that I had that perception of life after that particular age, but based on my reaction when the calendar flipped over to December 28 a few years ago, that is exactly what I thought.

I was OLD. Life was essentially over for me. I was depressed for months that year. And I know that most people under the age of about 50 have that same perception. If you don't believe me, just ask them at what age they will be "old." I bet that most of them say 60.

With that, they think life will consist of the list I provided above, with the essence of existence sucked right out of them.

Instead I find vibrant people who not only refuse to buy into that stereotype, they are secretly amused by it. They don't have to prove anything to anyone, and they know it.

I know it now.

And then the fun began.....just ask me about it. I'll be glad to tell you!

The old are in a second childhood.

ARISTOPHANES, The Cloud

I can but I don't want to......

2012-02-20T12:56:00.000-05:00

I can hit a softball pretty good.

I can shoot a basketball and get it near the net at least.

I can organize and pull off an event, from a parent's sports meeting to a church social and everyone will have a great time.

I can park outside a VERY large discount store that sounds like an amusement park and walk all the way to the back to buy, well, whatever they sell back there in the mists.

But I don't want to.

And by the time one reaches my age, we have the right to say that. No excuses, no diversionary tactics, no verbal deflections. Simply, "I don't want to do that."

We no longer have much to prove to others, or, perhaps more importantly, to ourselves. I know my strengths, and I got to be a master at them. Sometimes I still even enjoy participating in the activity once it starts, but the planning, the internal stress, the snafus that always happen, I don't miss those at all.

So, I step aside and let the younger folks knock themselves out. I sit in my hot tub, or go dancing, or sit on the dock and watch the clouds pass by overhead in the sky. I'll be glad to offer my advice, if I am asked, but other than that, I have better things to do.....or not. The choice is mine.

I also shop at stores that only park about 20 vehicles.

My name is Deborah and I'm an addict.....

2012-02-11T11:55:00.002-05:00

I'm a Facebook junkie. Who would have thought, especially for someone who isn't 20 any more? I get up in the morning, turn on my computer on the way to the coffee pot and then spend the next 30 minutes catching up with all my "friends" and their lives. At least as much of their lives as they want hundreds (thousands?) of people to know. I usually post a status update about the day ahead of me or the one just passed, and then sit back and wait for comments to my post. Or their requests for a reputable auto mechanic or plumber. Or they pass along inspirational or motivational quotes. Some great photos or unusual music. And on it goes, like an unending coffee shop conversation. Where the whole coffee shop gets involved.

It's easy to send the Facebook page up into the minimized folder as I sit down at my office desk. Every once in a while I sneak a look to see who else has signed on and what they have to add to the conversation. And heaven forbid a political topic comes up, because everyone starts weighing in with their two cents and away we go.

I realize I'm a bit out of the norm here. My age alone, at least in the studies done about social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace (is that even still around??), indicate that most of my peers are not joining me here in these cyberspace neighborhoods. I won't bore you with statistics; let's just say that I'm closer to social security than most of you. Take my word for it.

But I have found a community on Facebook that defies what most people believe about it and similar sites. Mainstream media routinely trumpets headlines about the lack of social and relationship skills young people will have due to texting, emailing, and Facebooking. It is kind of creepy to watch a group of 20-somethings sitting together in a bar and see them all texting. To whom? (Hopefully not each other. Then we really do have a problem.) The art of conversation might actually be taking a hit here. I'll leave that to the social scientists, though.

Yet, I have found that my network of acquaintances has actually grown and been strengthened as I follow up on former classmates (notice I didn't say "OLD"?) from high school or college, one leading to another and then another. My college roommate was friends with my first husband on Facebook, which put me back in touch with him, too. I didn't even recognize his photo. Don't know what that means, but it was a shock, anyway.

Then someone suggests someone else who has common interests and maybe some valuable contacts in the world of those interests. I have also reconnected with friends I used to work with and then we continue to stay in touch. Sometimes Facebook "friends" become real friends. I have several that I didn't know other than through my computer screen and then we got together in person, thus widening our circle in very real ways. I have some whom I have never met in person, yet feel very close to, even though that sounds kind of creepy. We share a passion for something, in my case it is usually other writers or creative types, and we commiserate, critique, and commemorate each others' work. Over time, I will probably meet some of these people in person, too. And who knows who THEY know? Networking at its best.

No, I don't own a piece of Facebook, although that will soon be a possibility. All I know is that is has widened and strengthened my own community and has added an interesting dimension of camaraderie to my life.

Even if I am old.

The thing that we are trying to do at Facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently. Mark Zuckerberg

Old dogs and new tricks.....

2012-02-07T12:03:00.000-05:00

You have all heard it, too:

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Oh, yes, you can. I'm walking proof of it, so I have no patience for others in my age group (or older) who use the statement as their default excuse for everything.

You know, the ones who say things like, "I've been this way my whole life! I can't change now." Mutter, grumble, whine........

What they really mean is that they don't WANT to change. They want everyone else to pat them on the head, either literally or figuratively, and give them a free pass to demean, moan, belittle, and complain their way through the rest of their lives.

Don't plan on it around me, that's all I can say. Although I have no definitive explanation for it, I went through one metamorphasis at age 35 that reconfigured my personality and thus, my life. I often "joke" that I learned to talk at age 35 and haven't stopped talking since.

It's not a joke. Those who have been on the receiving end of some of my verbal dissertations can attest to it, too.

Then about a year ago I morphed again, but this time I know why. It was deliberate and well-planned, although it has worked better than even I had envisioned. I was bored with myself. Life presented itself to me each day in shades of gray, the mist hovering around my head like a perpetual storm cloud just waiting to envelop me. To be honest, it didn't matter to me if I woke up the next day or not.

And then a book offered me a way out of my ennui, and I embarked on a year of new experiences that has delivered me out of the gray mist.I dance through my days, I smile all the time, and most importantly, I have taken back my life. It's up to me to be happy.....and I am.

So, don't default around me. I have no patience for it.

Plus, I'm just having too much fun to listen to you!

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davis

Disconnected......

2012-02-01T14:14:00.005-05:00

Jimmy Buffett and I need to hang out. You know those people who are famous or otherwise high profile that you know in your bones would be great friends if you could just get to them? JImmy is one of those for me. (Simon Cowell, too, but that's a story for another day.....for sure.)

I was listening to one of Jimmy's greatest hits albums in my car the other day. The specific song is not important.....and I don't remember the name of it anyway.....but he was lamenting the concept of "supersizing" at movie theaters, ending with the cry "I don't want that much organization in my life!"

Me, neither. A little order is necessary, especially if one is in a professional position. But a little of that goes a very long way, to fall back on a cliche. Yes, a VERY long way.

This particular point smacked me in the face last week as I traveled out of town on business with the young woman who runs the company I work for. For a short period last year, I ached to buy an iPhone. Other expenses took higher priority, though, so I am forced to stick with my tiny, outdated cell phone.

Well, hallelujah is all I can say! Technology has added much to our lives, there is no doubt about that. We can keep in touch in ways that were unheard of a few years ago.But my traveling companion spent the entire trip, right up until her head hit the pillow each night, answering email and text messges from customers and the office back home.

She is never off duty.

I don't want that much organization in my life. Ever. But we are allowing one another unlimited access to our lives through the use of these devices, our stress level rising every day until we each reach our personal flash points.

And I don't want to know what that point is for me. So, Jimmy and I are sitting out here by the pool with my antiquated phone silent next to me.

Plus, I bet it's five o'clock somewhere.

And the genie dances again.....

2012-01-27T19:22:00.000-05:00

It would be easy to become so hardened by life that no one would ever break through the shell, wouldn't it?

Life has a unique way of knocking us around and then laughing at us as we teeter on the brink of not only disaster but sanity sometimes.

I'm exaggerating, you say?

Just think about your own life. If you're over the age of about 40, you can probably list five or six events in your life that other people would have a hard time believing if you told them the whole, sad, crazy story.

I'm right, aren't I?

If this chronicle of my journey into the misty recesses of turning 60 a few years ago has done nothing else, it has given you, the reader, an unprecedented glimpse into someone else's life, with all its ugly blemishes and cracked veneer. Sometimes its beauty, too.

That would be MY life, of course. But I'm no different than any of you. We move through our days, we make huge mistakes, we clean up after ourselves the best we can, and we try again. And again. Often, we aren't the ones making the errors: It is others who stumble into our lives, smashing the furniture and generally creating havoc. All we can do in those instances is go find the dustpan and broom and start sweeping the mess out of the way. Or step over the broken pieces of our lives and just keep going.

Do you remember the publisher who called and "offered me a contract" on my book manuscript, the book about not complaining? Oh, the irony of it all. I researched the company, I scoured their website and their listing in my Writer's Market book, the bible for authors. I trusted the woman who called me that Sunday in early September, the one who said the words every writer longs to hear. They wanted to publish my work.

It seems the cosmic genie is dancing a jig in the padded room again. The publishing company neglected to say, or to disclose to that bible I mentioned earlier, that oh, by the way, the author has to pay for the first printing of her book.

I believe that is called self-publishing, isn't it? The very thing I was dead set against with this book. And I still am.

A kick in the gut, for sure. Deceitful chicanery at its best. The genie is dancing in double time right now.

Oh, yes....I admit it. I complained for a little over a week. Loudly. I cried. And I hated to tell all of you about how I was deceived, even at my age.

But that's why we all convene here, isn't it? The roller coaster catapults down into the depths and scares us to death. But it always comes back up.

Stand back. Here I come again.

"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying. "Here comes number seventy-one!" Richard M. Devos

A birthday tribute......

2012-01-23T06:28:00.001-05:00

She will live in my mind and heart as a sunny child, blonde curls bouncing, her smile quick and sweet. My daughter’s twenty-eighth birthday is today, that age when we see that next decade looming ahead, yet aren't quite ready to leave the one of non-stop fun behind. Adult responsibilities are hers now, buying groceries and paying bills, all the things I tried to shield her from as long as I could. At that age, we all believe it will be different for us, only to find the days just as our parents often described, sometimes tedious, sometimes frightening, but often filled with beauty.

There aren’t many things we can point to in our lives that are perfect. We move through our days bewildered and unsure of our decisions, and then we’re faced with cleaning up after ourselves, wondering what we could have been thinking when we set off on a rocky path. But this child, a woman now, was a being in the universe waiting patiently to find her way to me. Our destinies were determined timeless eons ago, and ultimately that time arrived. I knew her name the moment she was conceived, the instant marked in my heart as well as my body. She spoke it to me, soul to soul, heart to heart, and it was done. I read to her as she laid waiting in my womb, my words falling around us as I rocked her within, the Colorado wind molding a world that sparkled with sun and snow. Then, as she lay in my arms for the first time, we already knew each other well.

I turned around and she was five, marching off to kindergarten, unconcerned about leaving me behind, knowing I would be there at the end of the day. This was a new adventure to her, something else to be conquered along with basketball or any other ball that bounded across her path. Braces followed when she was 10, another rite of passage along with a failed experiment with eyeglasses. Contact lenses didn’t get in the way of all those balls, so the switch was made, her optometrist amazed at her ability to adjust at her age.

High school passed in the mere blink of an eye, a blur to me of awards for a tapestry of topics from art to building a successful stock portfolio in economics class. And the balls kept on bouncing, earning her a scholarship to college, one of her fondest dreams realized. My pride burst for her.

But the image of those blond curls framing the bright hazel eyes of a little girl is still the picture that clicks into focus first when I think of her. Only then is it followed by the reality of her adulthood, a reminder of the march of time for me. I regret many things in my life. Those who say otherwise aren’t paying attention. Some of my regrets involve my daughter: How I handled a normal, yet difficult, teenage situation, or a decision I made on her behalf. But the certainty of her being part of my soul has never been questioned. We knew each other millions of years ago, somewhere, and we knew what our roles were to be.

A daughter is a miracle that never ceases to be miraculous...full of beauty and forever beautiful...loving and caring and truly amazing.
-- Deanna Beisser

Dancing fool, part 5

2012-01-20T07:13:00.002-05:00

It has been such an unusual experience. My love affair with dance, specifically ballroom and Latin dance, caught me totally off guard about 9 months ago. If you recall, I walked into a dance studio on April 28, 2011 to take ONE dance lesson. It was part of my monthly "do something I've never done before" adventure that has brought me such joy and rejuvenation.

That ONE lesson has turned into 9 months....so far....and I anticipate the lessons will continue as long as I can scrape up the money for them. I made a conscious decision to set aside all other purchases, like the iPhone I was about to buy right then, or any new clothes that weren't essential, and certainly no new shoes. And I haven't regretted that decision for a second.

When asked why I love this art form so much, I have no answer. I can't even explain it to myself when no one is around to hear my rambling. All I know is that my twice-weekly dance lessons are the highlight of my week, my life actually. I've gone from being an up-tight woman who has lived her entire life enmeshed in intellectual effort and have embraced movement without thought (well, at least I try....my instructor would differ on how much progress I've actually made, I'm sure).

So, when I came across this reading in a book that I'm working my way through this year, I was struck with how closely it does mirror how I feel about dance in my life. I hope the author doesn't mind that I'm making a few changes; I'll give her full credit before we leave:

Just being on the dance floor.....is to reach the place where the only thing that exists is the sound and the moving with the sound. The music...that was outside of you is now within you, and moves through you; you are a channel for the music, and move from the center of your being. Everything that you have consciously learned, all of your knowledge, emanates from you. There is a sense of oneness in which the heart of the dancer and heart of the music meet, in which there is no room for self-conscious thought. You are one with yourself and that act...... and you are effortlessly releasing it. The music is in your body, in the air, in the room, the music is everywhere, and the whole universe is contained in the experience of dancing.

I have always been closely connected to music. It touches me deeply in many ways. Perhaps moving to music is the connection that I was missing all my life.

I am so grateful that now I have movement through which to touch music right back.The circle has been completed.

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

William Butler Yeates

The original was entitled The Music by Mildred Chase, as quoted in 365 Nirvana: Here and Now, edited by Josh Baran.

Baggage claim.......

2012-01-13T22:05:00.000-05:00

I've got some.

You've got some, too.

Everybody has a bit to lug around.

And if they say they don't, they're deluded.

But my personal favorite is people who expect you to deny your own.

What the heck am I talking about, you ask? I'm talking about the baggage we all have.

You know....that baggage that you're lugging along behind you, some of the contents spilling out all over the sidewalk as you desperately try to ignore them. The suitcase that has gaudy stickers all over it with the names of all the places...well, actually, people.......who have wandered in and out of your life, creating messes that you've had to clean up or run away from. You've tried to peel those darn things off the trunk with your fingertips, but no such luck. Little corners tear off here and there, but the glue sticks to your fingers anyway, leaving the residue behind. And the rest of those stickers just stay stuck anyway, refusing to be removed and insisting on remaining part of your life no matter how hard you try to ignore them. We just can't seem to get rid of the mess.

I met a man at a Japanese restaurant for lunch a number of years ago. It was our first meeting, the one where you size each other up, trying to envision if there is any future for the two of you. Usually not, but we are eternal optimists, aren't we? We ate funny looking food, we shared information about ourselves, he kept aligning his napkin perfectly with the edge of his knife. (I should have known right then.) Finally, he looked at me and said, "I'm not looking for anyone who has any baggage." I smiled as I lied and assured him that I had no such thing, my luggage was safely stowed away at home, behaving itself. I mean, what did he expect me to say to that, anyway?

In reality, as all sane people know, those bags hold our lives, both the good stuff and the bad. We can't deny that, or expect others to deny theirs.

And by the way.....that man turned out to have a steamer trunk of his own, filled with enough neurosis to sink the Titanic. My advice to younger women is this: If he asks you if you have baggage, stand up tall, say, "Of course! And it's made me the woman I am today!" and then RUN.

No matter how far we travel, the memories will follow in the baggage car.

August Strindberg

It'll turn up......

2012-01-06T09:19:00.000-05:00

I had a really good topic for today, but I've forgotten what it was.

My best thinking is done in my car, my moving meditation device. So I bought one of those hand-held recorders to keep in the console right next to me. That way, as I wended my way through traffic, enjoying the tailgater behind me immensely and a thought struck me (at least a different one than what I was screaming at the tailgater), I could whisk that device out and record enough to jog my memory later.

Then the recorder got lost in my car.

I also lost all the tiny tapes, one by one, after I took them out of the machine, carefully labelled them, and put them.....somewhere.

The most maddening part of this phenomenon is that I can search, and search, and search for some errant item and then finally give up. Only to find it later, sitting in plain sight where I had just been looking.

This is so common that I have a "one size fits all" catch phrase for this: It'll turn up. And it usually does. So, I stop looking, turn my attention elsewhere, and sure enough, it turns up.

If you're waiting for me to explain this, you can go read something else. I don't have a clue.

But my personal favorite experience is when I forget what I'm saying right in the middle of saying it. How does that happen?

Talk about embarrasing, especially if it occurs in the middle of a business meeting. You're on a roll, supporting your plan or your viewpoint or whatever is on the table at the time, and for no reason at all, your entire train of thought vanishes! Poof! Your mouth even may still be moving from the word before, and then your mind literally becomes a blank slate, empty, while your lips struggle to form whatever word WAS going to be there just a second before.

It's as if your mind develops holes in it, like the sieve you use in the kitchen. Instantaneously. With no warning, everything that was just there leaks out, and you're left with.....nothing. A deserted warehouse.

There is so much that is wonderful about getting older, aging gracefully in a society that is youth-obsessed.

This isn't one of them.

“The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to.” *Friedrich Nietzsche*

A toast to broken boxes......

2011-12-31T21:51:00.000-05:00

Who knew?

Who could have possibly guessed?

When this year opened its sleepy eyes last January, it yawned, stretched its arms wide like a baby, and appeared it to be like the 62 that had already shown up on my life's doorstep. Appearances certainly deceive, don't they?

Instead, 2011 sneaked up on me that month in a hookah lounge called The Casbah, and then strutted out at my birthday party last week as I shamelessly sang karaoke with a backup group made up of my daughter and some good friends.

In between, I explored adventures that intrigued, challenged, or scared me to death. All because I dared to dismantle the box I had been living in for decades, the one that had been dictating what was acceptable for me, based on the judgements and opinions of others. In other words, today I am no longer bored--or boring.

And my New Year's resolutions, you ask?

I have only one: Here's to a 2012 filled with beauty and excitement that will continue to surprise all of us!

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. ..... Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. ~G.K. Chesterton

Conga lines and karaoke.....

2011-12-29T13:15:00.000-05:00

I was sweating and it wasn't even time yet. My heart raced just visualizing what was going to happen, my palms got sweaty, and I began to think of excuses for NOT following through on my public proclamation to do this particular ridiculous thing. Not only do it, but carry it out in front of everyone at my birthday party.

Yesterday it was time for the 12th installment of "things I've never done before." The journey I started on last January, generated by a book called "The Second Half of Life" by Angeles Arrien.

Enough already, you say. How did I embarrass myself this month?

Are you ready?

Karaoke. With a hideous singing voice. And no rhythm, something my dance instructor can now attest to with vigor.

But, hey. Isn't that the same way I felt when I opened that dance studio door for the first time last April? And look what happened with that one: A passion was born for ballroom dance that reconfigured my life in ways I could never have imagined.

So, what was a short song in front of those who love me? My party was in full-swing, and the time arrived. I sashayed up to the stage with a few groupies, and we belted out Linda Ronstadt's "When Will I Be Loved?" I even camped it up a bit, demonstrating some of my newly-minted hip moves at the appropriate places. (You had to be there to know where those places were.)

My life this year has been filled with such delight. I believe this monthly twist has had much to do with that, too. A year ago, I felt old, uninspired, unmotivated. Stale. My world was painted in shades of gray, and the cloud cover existed in more places than overhead. It was also IN my head, leaching color and joy from my life.

I celebrated my 63rd birthday last night, complete with a conga line, a sweetheart dance where I got to dance with about 8 partners within the course of one song, and, of course, a bit of karaoke. I look forward to my next adventure, some activity that I've never tried before or have even feared.

Because, yes, I've decided to continue this journey for another 12 months, and have already picked out where I'm headed in January.

Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull?

For those of you who are new to my adventure, you can find the first one at http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html and catch up.

Merry holidays, fa-la-la-la

2011-12-23T21:48:00.000-05:00

O Holy Night.....

The Sacred Festival of Lights....

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays.....

The media frenzy as we approach primaries.....

More bizarre weather events around the globe.....

So much to attend to in the world as we move through the winter solstice....

All of it critical to our survival as a country, as a conglomeration of nations, as a planet.

Our attention should be focused on all of these momentous events, each of us adding our voices to those of our neighbors, both next door and across the globe. Right?

How long have you been reading this column, anyway? You should know better than that....

I DO want to focus on what's concerning me, the matter that keeps me awake at night, distressed and full of angst. It's these tiny bumps that have appeared all over my shins. Kind of like barnacles on the underside of a boat, but these have affixed themselves to the front of my legs, where everyone can see them. Now, THAT'S concerning me.

Plus, now I find out that other people experience the same thing as the aging process sneaks up on them and smacks them right between the eyes, laughing and pointing as we all look on in horror to our bodies morph and slide and....well, those of you who have been through this know what I'm talking about, don't you? The least some of you could have done, though, was TELL the rest of us that this was going to happen.

At first I thought I'd just have to live with these pesky adhesions, but then I Googled the situation. And do you know what I found out? You can scrape them off with a rough sponge, just like those little boat freeloaders can be scraped from the hull of a boat. Sweet.....I would never have thought of trying that.

Bet you didn't know that, either, did you? That's because people who have already gone down the road of birthday cakes burning to a crisp are hiding all of this information for some reason, holding it close to their drooping chests or bent backs, chuckling and whispering with glee, "Just wait.....!" until the next catastrophe strikes, the one that plays even more havoc on our bodies or our minds.

So, go ahead and argue about whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, or which Republican is going to come out on top when the tear gas clears and the blood stops flowing. For me, I'm going to get out my little loofah and start scrubbing.

Merry holidays, ya'll.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

Douglas MacArthur

Dazzling.....

2011-12-20T08:58:00.001-05:00

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake...”

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon knew a thing or two, didn't he? Even if he was old......

Oh, wait....my whole reason for Aged to Perfection, and taking all of you along with me, is to celebrate the fact that we do get better as we move along the earthly time continuum. I know the younger you are, the less you believe that. But you will someday.

Plus, the learning process just never stops. Here's something I have learned about myself in the past few years: I like to sparkle.

I am drawn to clothes that glitter. I want my hair to sparkle, even if I have to sprinkle glitter through it. My nails are always polished to a high gleam.

But most importantly, my face shines, reflective of the glitz that is going on inside these days. My adventures this year have brought new passion into my life, a regenerated state of being that shines through me each morning. Sometimes I feel as if sunbeams shoot from my fingertips.

I smile from my soul, even as I approach my 63rd birthday next week.

So, to all my younger friends, and especially to my daughter, I say this:

We're never too old to be dazzling!

Fire on the keyboard......

2011-12-14T16:08:00.001-05:00

I used to exist in a perpetual state of outrage. There is so much injustice slapping us around on a daily basis, and the world can be a cold, heartless place. My letters to the editor of whatever publication I was nearest at the time were filled with pleas to City Hall, our legislators, even the dog catcher if he got out of line. No one was safe from my scathing keyboard.

I am still a believer in the power of the individual. And, as a teacher, I passed that torch to teenagers who struggled with the same kinds of feelings I had, but they had no clue how to make themselves heard. They know now.

But I don't get too involved any more in the daily turning of the planet. My shoulders are worn down from all the burdens I carried for myself as well as others, and I have to say that I don't see that much has improved during my lifetime of speaking out. So, today I write creatively and professionally, and I dance. Those of you who are regular followers of my journey know that I'm happier for it, too. The aging process tends to mellow us out a bit, and provides some perspective in many ways.

But every one in a while, something happens that really smacks me between the eyes. And I can't stay silent.

A young woman I know was recently told by her employer (who was also supposedly a friend) that the business had to cut back. No surprises there. Millions of folks are in the same situation, laid off through no fault of their own, put out on the street to line up, applications in hand, to compete for very few job openings. I've been there, and you probably have, too.

But this employer took a despicable action to prevent the employees from filing unemployment. They are kept on the company's books with the designation "as needed." And ever since this young woman has been "as needed," which has been over three months, she hasn't been needed once. Not once. She has really been laid off, but is being prevented from filing for some help while she looks for work in a damaged economy. Is it any wonder cities across this country are being occupied?

My daughter was laid off yesterday, too. She has been working one full time job and two part time jobs to make ends meet, and has been happy to do so. She grew up watching me work from before dawn until I literally couldn't stand up any more, and has inherited that work horse gene.

She lost the full time job yesterday, but she filed for unemployment before the sun went down. That's the way it's supposed to work, and it's what we pay taxes for.

But the other young woman is sinking fast. Her "employer" won't release her, so she can't file for help. Get a lawyer, some folks advise. And pay them with what?

My keyboard is on fire again.

How do people like that sleep at night?

Delay in justice is injustice.

Fool me once.....

2011-12-07T17:38:00.003-05:00

Dr. Phil irritates me. My DVR list used to be chock full of episodes of his show, and I was usually glued to the television as he put addicts and philandering spouses in their places. Usually some kind of rehab paid for by the facilities as a form of advertising that we’re not supposed to notice. At least my life wasn’t a total train wreck compared to the guests sitting on his stage, I thought as I watched. But over time he grates, doesn’t he? He’s pompous and loud and acts pretty superior to the rest of us. He and Robin in all their wealth and glamour get a bit too much in these days of so many people in need. Maybe I'm just jealous.

So, now my DVR records lighter programming, like Family Feud. At least everyone in those families is giggling and slapping hands over their silly answers full of innuendo, instead of slapping each other with paternity suits. Come to think of it maybe it’s really the same thing, just with a funnier host.

There is one gem of wisdom from Dr. P that remains tucked in my psyche, I have to admit.

“Past behavior is a predictor of future behavior.” I pull that one out often and polish it up for my daughter and other young people. It’s a good one to carry around in your pocket, I’ve found. Generally, if someone has betrayed your trust once, it stretches the limits of wisdom if you hand it over to them a second time, for example.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…..” and all that, you know.

Yes, you there in the back of the room. You have a question? Oh, you want to know why I’m channeling Dr. Phil and his wisdom today? You all know me well by now, don’t you?

Someone from my past has reappeared, someone whose eyes still have the capability of consuming me and burning me to a crisp. As they did once before, when I trusted his passionate pursuit and words of commitment and caring. My world literally glowed then, taking on the hue of FOREVER, a word he gently handed to me like an elegantly wrapped gift. A word I was heartbreakingly receptive to at that point in time.

FOREVER apparently came from a different dictionary for him, as you probably have guessed by now. It ended ugly, let’s leave it at that. Therapy was required. My world collapsed. As did I for over a year. I went to work, I moved through my days with my pain undetected by most people, but I was a shell of a woman who had had everything promised only to have it snatched away in an instant. And then given to someone else. Someday I’ll share the rest of the story, but I can only stare at it, even today, for short periods of time.

And here he is again. In my younger, more foolish days, I would have been tempted. Oh, shoot, let me be honest. I’m still tempted. I’m human. And to make it even more dangerous, I am alone. I have no idea what he is thinking, but that isn't the point. I don't care. I know my own capabilities, I know my ability to laser in on a goal, my singlemindedness. And I know my weaknesses better now, too, such as my tendency to be motivated by a challenge, which sounds like a good thing. But sometimes it isn't. Take my word for it.

But Dr. Phil’s words have been buzzing around, trying to protect me from myself, tapping me sharply on the shoulder, and thumping my forehead when I start thinking, “Well, maybe this time…..”

It’s this simple: If someone betrays your trust once, they will do it again. I believe this.

There won’t be any fooling me twice.

“Trust is like a vase.. once it's broken, though you can fix it the vase will never be same again.”

What was that you dared to ask me?

2011-11-30T08:15:00.001-05:00

I smile.

I nod and smile.

I nod, smile, and change the subject.

But I have learned that I don't have to answer a question just because someone has asked one.

When I was younger, I felt a compulsion to respond to any query put to me. No matter how rude, how intrusive, how "it's none of your business" that question was. Heaven forbid someone should be angry with me, that was one of my fears, I think. I also cared too much about how people viewed me, so I was compliant above all else. Which meant I told people things that they had no business asking about, much less knowing about me and my life.

Now I know that some people are just so deficient that they suck life right out of others, primarily because they have none of their own. Life, I mean. Drama queens, busy bodies, call them what you will. They think everything that happens within their realm, and often outside it, too, belongs to them.

So, I've learned some great responses. (A friend told me once that I can tell people where to go so sweetly that they don't know what just happened to them. I say, hooray for me!)

I say things like, "I'm not prepared to answer that right now." (Or ever, probably.)

"I'll have to think about that."

"Why?"

"Let's talk about something else."

As you can imagine, when I say things like that in response to a question, the other person gets uncomfortable. Sometimes huffy. And when I was younger, I couldn't handle that. No more.

If you don't like what you can see and hear when you're in my presence, by the way I live my life, and what I am willing to share with you, I can also smile sweetly as I tell you where the door is.

It's an important lesson for younger people to learn, I think.

Now, what was that you asked me?

People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it- walk.
Ayn Rand

Tell me the truth.....

2011-11-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

It’s so confusing. Is honesty always the best policy? Really? Before you get all huffy and self-righteous, think about your answer.

You would think that we’d figure these essential questions out as we age. Surprisingly, it’s been my experience walking this planet that you would be wrong about that. The older I get, the more gray I see in places other than my hair.

A husband hikes his beer, belches, and proceeds to blast his wife to his buddy, for example. They think they’re alone as they lean back in their recliners in front of the football game, but the buddy's wife overhears it. She is outraged that this man would show such disrespect to his wife, so off to the phone she tiptoes. She can’t wait to tell her friend, the clueless victim of this verbal attack. “She should know,” many would insist. Hmmm…….do you think she’s going to be better off with this knowledge? Maybe…..not.

Or an unsolicited (and unwanted) kiss from a coworker sends the married recipient into a tailspin of indecision. I put the coworker in his place, she thinks, and he won't do it again but should I tell my husband, she agonizes as she drives home from the office party? Isn’t our relationship based on honesty and trust? Back the truck up a minute, I say, before engaging in that particular conversation. This woman’s husband is feeling particularly vulnerable these days, out of work for six months and struggling with his self-image as “provider of the family.” What would be gained between this couple by sharing this information about an event that the wife did not initiate, did not willingly participate in, and subsequently put a stop to?

I realize I may be walking a tightrope here, but I don’t believe honesty is called for –or even desired by those involved—in all situations. I didn’t always think this, though; it has come as a result of watching people throw rocks of truth at each other in the name of doing what is "right.” I’ve had some of those rocks rip me apart, too, blood oozing from cuts inflicted by those who simply had to tell me the truth.

The wife whose mate speaks disrespectfully of her will gain exactly what by hearing it whispered into her ear by someone outside that relationship? And the kiss from a coworker who will be around for awhile and who now knows not to try it again? What is the reason for confessing the incident? And what would be “confessed” anyway—the errant coworker is a jerk with an overinflated view of himself as a Lothario?

I have come to understand that those who simply have to tell everything are seekers of drama. They relish being the keeper of the keys of secrets. It somehow makes them feel important, valued, no matter the destruction their words leave behind.

As for me, I say there is much to be said for a bit of discretion. Or I could just be confused…..again.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

Don Marquis

Dancing fool: Exposed

2011-11-13T12:01:00.001-05:00

Sometimes in life we get it right.

Last night was one of those times for me. I did my "something I've never done before" for this month, an event that was unthinkable, unimaginable even six months ago.

On April 28th, 2011, I took my first dance lesson. (See http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/05/dancing-fool.html to refresh your memories about that day.) It was supposed to be ONE dance lesson to fulfill my April experience.

Last night, nearly a full six months later, I performed a choreographed waltz in front of friends, family, and a few strangers. My instructor/partner and I had been practicing for at least 2 months for this performance, dancing that waltz over and over again.....and then we practiced it some more. Some practices were wonderful, many were tedious, and some were downright torture. I take two lessons a week, and even with the tedium and torture, I absolutely love it. I walk more gracefully and I have more awareness of my body. I am leaner and stronger.

As we prepared for last night, I imagined myself dancing to the music I chose for my waltz, Josh Grobin's "Un Dia Llegara," with all my friends and family gathered to watch. I pictured them all celebrating my new-found self-confidence with me and, yes, being impressed with my dance. After all, a mere half year ago I routinely refused to dance and had resigned myself to the fact that I COULDN'T dance. Even with a few missteps or a foot not pointed correctly, they would love it and love me dancing. I envisaged us all going out to dinner afterwards, long-time friends of mine who had never met one another, and we could all share a meal and fellowship on a special night.

Many asked me before the performance if I was nervous. There was a mere 15 minutes on the way to the studio when nerves showed up in the car with me, but then I went back to my vision and the nerves were ejected from the car. I also was determined that I was not going to disappoint my instructor, James Bell. He had worked too hard (and had MUCH to overcome in me!) for me to make mistakes that would reflect on him as a teacher. It just wasn't going to happen. Plus, as my college roommate said, if I could stand in front of a room of middle schoolers for 15 years, I could do anything.....and she's right. I have so much life experience, good and bad and horrible, that I was determined to enjoy this new page in my life, the one that has changed me forever.

And my vision came to life last night. It was magical.

Deb. Hansen and James Bell

Wait! Don't jump there......

2011-11-08T12:34:00.000-05:00

Conclusions can be dangerous things. Especially if one jumps onto one too quickly, sailing off into the horizon of justification and an affinity for being "right."

Another lesson learned over the decades, that's for sure. Like most lessons, though--at least the important ones--they are gifts that keep on giving.

I had occasion to become reacquainted with this one a few days ago, when I nearly tripped into the abyss of, well, several vats of muck. Muck that would have stuck to me for a while if I had fallen all the way in. But I caught myself in time, causing myself only a few hours of discomfort. The alternative would not have been pretty and it would have affected my life dramatically, and not for the better, I'm thinking.

People are strange and wonderful beings, much more complicated than the black/white, either/or, all/none, thinkers care to admit. Yet we do tend to follow patterns of behavior that we find comfortable over the years. If a person acts in one way in situation A over and over again, then it's safe to say that she will follow that general pattern every time (or most times) that situation A reoccurs.

I had occasion to be somewhere, and the person who was supposed to be there with me was......not. "WELL! How dare they?" I huffed to myself. "We just talked about this! Now I'm sitting here by myself, can't get in, it's cold, and I don't know what's going on!!" (There's that thing about me, the trait that someone close to me shared with me one day: I HAVE to know EVERYTHING. It raised its ugly head again, and I can't blame others for this compulsion of mine. It's bad enough that I have to live with it.)

I sat there. I fumed. And then my years of learning this lesson about jumping to nasty conclusions took over. This was totally out of character for this person. Had never happened before.

The fact that I then worried for hours until the mystery was solved speaks to a different trait of mine. But that's a topic for another day.

All was well, and I was right to pull back from that dangerous ledge of acting and speaking rashly. It wouldn't have been pretty, the person didn't deserve it, and my actions would have created bad feelings that had no basis in fact.

Now about that other fun thing that I do......

A conclusion is just simply the place where

someone decided to stop thinking.

There's water all over the floor......

2011-11-04T00:04:00.002-04:00

I've always wanted to learn to play chess. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because there is an appeal to a game that requires thinking about more than your next move.

"Hmmm. If I move this castle thing here now, that horse over there can spring on me two moves from now....at least if my opponent scoots his Queen into that space on his next move." (You can tell, I'm sure, that I don't know anything about who can move where and when, or not.......but I've made my point. I hope.)

And all of this has become more understandable to me as I've gotten older. Not that any of that understanding came easily. I'm thinking about all those impulsive actions I took when I was younger. Like having no thought at all about what might happen tomorrow if I stole that street sign and put it in my garage for a laugh. Or when I took off for Colorado with four college friends, driving from Florida in a Pinto with a cat in the back seat. The one who had never traveled anywhere before and screamed halfway across the country. (The cat, not me.)

When we're younger, we just don't think about what hides behind the move right in front of us. Or we don't want to look that far because then our fun would be spoiled today. But once made, those decisions cannot be unmade, much like trying to put water back into a bottle. Not going to happen. The water simply makes the floor slick enough for some nasty falls. People get hurt, things get broken, and the damage is done. Very often forever.

So, much like chess, maturity in life brings with it the ability to peek around that next action we're considering, just for a tiny minute, to see if we can forecast the consequences of one decision or another, one path or the other. We have the ability to hold ourselves in check, at least long enough to weigh our moves, and save ourselves a lot of heartache in the end.

And maybe some jail time when the cops come looking for their sign.

So, let's play chess!

The beauty of a move lies not in its appearance but in the thought behind it.

Aaron Nimzowitsch

Dancing fool, part 4

2011-10-28T11:15:00.001-04:00

I had originally been saving this topic for a few more weeks. Until after the "Open House" at my dance studio, the day when I will stand in front of friends, family, and strangers (sometimes those categories bleed over into one another, I know, I know) and dance for the first time in PUBLIC!

Yikes! Does that sound scary or what?

You would think so. Heck, I would have thought so, too, until very recently. Me, the painfully shy teenager who had to swallow OTC sedatives to make it through Speech 101 in college. The one who shook so hard in front of her first Dale Carngie class that her teeth literally chattered. The same one who never had a date in high school, at least until the BLIND date to her senior prom. Sad, but true.

But this is where age is a beautiful thing in many ways. Not all, I'll admit, but we don't want to get into the chicken skin thing again, do we? I'm talking about vivid changes that transform us, if we let them, as we let our guard down and we stop taking ourselves--and life--so seriously.

The fact that I'm even taking ballroom dance lessons is a wonder, a thing of indescribable beauty. Joy suffuses my life, color and texture added to what had become an oppressive drabness pressing me to the ground. I was becoming invisible. So dancing in front of others is another huge leap forward, a leap I am delighted to take. Missteps will happen, I'm sure, just as they have throughout my life. Yours, too, I bet.

But my dance instructor has reinforced, through dance, so many lessons I have begun to learn about life, too.

"Don't stop and just keep smiling," he says. And he's right.

We're never too old for wisdom like that. I'll catch back up with you when it's all over!

There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them. ~Vicki Baum

Elusive but attainable.....

2011-10-22T13:09:00.002-04:00

I have hiked to 11,000 feet in the mountains of Colorado, carrying a 50 pound pack on my back as I scooted across logs traversing rivers with rapids rushing underneath.

I saw signs of bears and mountain lions along the barely discernible trail, and learned to hang the food high in trees during the night.

I have camped in the snow. (Those raised in Florida don't immediately understand that spring comes to the Rockies MUCH later than ever encountered at home in the tropics!)

I have, therefore, experienced having to untie frozen ropes with numbed fingers when the snow got too heavy on the top of the tent and we had to finish the night in our cars.

I have climbed "14ers."

I have led men into the woods (oh, stop that, let me finish my thought before you go jumping to conclusions) as the first female pack leader at the Boy Scouts of America's management training facility in New Jersey in the 1970s. I learned to cook blueberry cobbler in a cast iron pot and got to tell the guys what to do....and they had to do it! Without grumbling or rolling their eyes, even.

But I had never gone fishing. Until today.

The sky was blue and clear and majestic. The breeze across the lake near my daughter's apartment complex was brisk and cool, Fall finally having arrived over the past few days.

We took her fishing rod and tackle box out to the edge of the lake, and it didn't take long for the turtles to show up, their long necks stretched up to check us out. We could see small brim just beneath the water's surface, rippled by the wind. And then my daughter began to prepare the line and the hook. And the weights. And the tangled line around the reel. And the bobber. And tiny balls of bread.

Patience, patience. Not one of my finest virtues, but one that is necessary in this activity, I found. Finally we were ready. She showed me how to cast out over the lake and how to flip the lever on the reel that controls the line. Then we waited.

There's a lot of that in fishing, I discovered. Waiting, I mean. But, finally we had a bite and reeled in a turtle. Oops. My daughter and her friend scurried down to the edge of the water to assist the poor thing. I stayed out of the way. I'm glad turtles don't have vocal cords, that's all I can say.

Then it was my turn to cast for the first time. I'm a good student, if nothing else. I flung that line out into the middle of the lake, and started slowly reeling it in, like I was instructed. Suddenly the yellow plastic bobber ducked under water, which was my cue to jerk the hook up and start reeling like mad. And there it was, a little brim at the end of my line, wiggling and flapping around like....well, like we probably would in the same situation.

Did I take it off the hook? Surely you're kidding. No, that task went to my daughter, who returned it to the lake after taking the picture proving that I did catch something my first try.

Who said it's not called catching?

But I think I see why so many people love to do this. The day was gorgeous and I was out enjoying it. I was sharing time with people I care about. We could talk....or not. The fish don't care one way or the other.

And for me, it's been such a treat to spend this year being the student in so many ways.

Thanks, Sara and Christina!

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable,

a perpetual series of occasions for hope.

John Buchan

Sometimes, it just isn't enough.....

2011-10-14T12:09:00.002-04:00

Love, love, love. It's everywhere.......

Love will keep us together.
Love will build a bridge.
All you need is love.

Sounds good, right, all warm and fuzzy, chocolates and flowers, hugs and kisses?

I realize it's dangerous to argue with all of that, but you know me....I'm going to do it anyway. My argument is this, and it's one that I fought against valiantly for as long as I could:

Sometimes, love isn't enough.

It just isn't.

Two people CAN love one another, sometimes desperately, and still not make it work. I know. I've been there. Life intervenes in so many ways that sets up walls and barriers between you. Expectations change, maturity levels change, family dynamics change.

When we're young, we think that as long as we have love, we can make anything work. We have a hand to hold, a partner to stand with as the world tries to beat us down. That love can hold on, but sometimes we can't hold out against the forces that are working against us.

Not that there aren't long-term relationships out there. There are. You know it and I know it. All I'm saying is that sometimes the L-word simply isn't enough to carry us through.

So, what's my point? (Other than depressing everyone in sight.) It's this: A failed relationship does not make one a failure. It took me a very long time to realize this. Some of us are better prepared for relationships in general, for dozens of reasons that stretch all the way back to our playpens. If we're not, though, it doesn't make one a deficient person. We can still love, often passionately, but long-standing love stories won't be on our bookshelves.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: All you can do is all you can do. If it somehow isn't enough no matter what you do, lay down the guilt and the pain and the idea that you muck up everything you touch.......love may not be enough, but you always will be.

Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones.

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Zipping it in time.....

2011-10-10T13:21:00.002-04:00

We sat next to each other in the waiting area, the stranger and I, chatting about the weather, the traffic, life in general as we passed the time until it was our respective turns. People came and went, some within hearing range, others buried in their magazines or their fancy phones that do everything but, well, they do everything, don't they?

Time passed, we talked some more, and then the topic turned to one of my hot button issues. Oops. I jumped on that bandwagon as it chugged on by us there in that waiting room, others joining in as their cages were rattled, too. It's a huge issue in our city, as well as all over the country, and it's like tossing a match onto a kerosene-soaked rag in your garage. You'd better stand back or you'll get the eyebrows singed right off your face.

I've learned some things as my decades have slipped by like flood waters under a door, though. My rant stopped short of naming names in our town, those misguided folks who I feel are the cause of the problems....or at least, they don't understand the problems they were hired to fix so just manage to make things worse. With our money. (I'm not going to name the problem, if you're skimming ahead to nail it down. Too many people know me in this town.)

But to return to what I've learned, I hope younger people are reading this and save themselves some huge embarrassment along the way. Here it is:
You never know who you're talking to.

That happened to me once. I ranted and raved about [insert name] and found out later that the person I was ranting TO was related to the person I was ranting ABOUT. I had no idea. And I had no way of knowing that, either, at the time. Not until it was too late.

Ouch.

So, I zipped it there in that waiting room before I fell off that particular cliff again. And sure enough, I later found out that the woman WAS related to one of the people I was tirading about.

Whew! I avoided the precipice and lived to rant another day.

I like restraint, if it doesn't go too far.

Mae West

Approved!

2011-10-04T13:57:00.001-04:00

There isn't much it compares with. Let me think....

Will you marry me?
You're going to have a baby!
I want to offer you the job.
I'm going to let you off with a warning....

But the phone call I received a week or so ago trumps all of them.

After years of rejection letters clogging my mailbox like they were multiplying inside that small metal space, I heard the words I had begun to think would elude me forever:

"We want to offer you a contract on your book."

Tears flooded my eyes, unbidden. Me, the person who has never cried openly in a movie theater. I collapsed on the nearest chair and started to tremble. I ran screaming through the house after I hung up.

The woman might as well have slapped "APPROVED!" across my forehead with an oversized rubber stamp. In red. I was validated.....finally.

I can't explain why I needed that validation from a traditional publisher. I know I'm a good writer. I've gotten plenty of positive feedback from other writers and from educated people I respect. But I decided that this manuscript was going to be my totem, the visible mark of my worth as a writer. I threw all my energy into it and to its marketing.

"We want to offer you a contract on your book!" And I only had to wait several decades to hear it.

Yes, it was worth it.

Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies. ~Terri Guillemets

Wow! What a ride....

2011-09-29T15:35:00.000-04:00

I've shaken my head in the past and "tsk'ed, tsk'ed" when I see them on the road, sometimes weaving in and out of traffic, as if the rules of the road don't apply to them. How foolish, I'd think, these daredevils who climb on, often without the proper equipment to keep them safe. After all, I've muttered to myself, if they kill themselves, they might take one of us with them, plus somebody has to pay to clean up the mess they'll leave on the road. HARRUMPH, I grumbled in my old lady-ishness!

My, my....how times change, don't they? I'm nine months of the way through my year-long journey of rejuvenation, and I have to say that my world has been knocked off its axis already. I can't wait to see how the rest of the year plays out!

This month flowed by, a river of seconds transforming themselves into minutes and hours until the days were nearly done before I decided how to recreate myself once again. The joy that fills my life now is incalculable, on so many levels. Instead of searching for new things to do, unique adventures to grab onto, I find I have choices each month now, the floodgates opened to a new psyche. I love it. If you pass me on the street today, I might look like the same person.....but you would be wrong. Seriously wrong.

So I was ready to step a bit farther out of my box, the one whose sides have been torn by my previous months' ventures as I stretched my mind, my body, and ultimately my very existence into a nearly unrecognizable internal landscape.

So, here I was, riding on a motorcyle for the first time. You know, the machine that mothers everywhere shudder whenever the mere word is spoken, the icy fingers of death poking them in the eye with threats of taking their children.....no matter that those children have become adults with briefcases and mortgages of their own. The insidious things kill people. Smear them all over roads or smash them against cement abuttments on highways.

I climbed on that back of that motorized killer and loved every minute of it. We didn't go far, but we travelled miles outside of the life I had been so stagnant in, the one where fear often ruled the roost. The day was crystal clear and warm, the sky a bowl of blue above us as the wind blew in my face and the motor purred beneath me.

I now understand the attraction, the willingness to taunt an existence that is always practical, safe. Boring.

As Hunter Thompson said, Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, 'Wow! What a Ride!'

And that can apply to riding a motorcyle on a breathtaking fall day or to just plain getting older.

Thanks, again, J. You keep me on my toes in more ways than one!

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”
Leo Buscaglia

A new day dawning.....

2011-09-22T21:46:00.002-04:00

I won't ever forget that day. There was no way I was going back to that place the next day....at least that's how I felt as I climbed in my car outside the junior high I had been sent to after 5 teachers had come and gone in that classroom. All by November. I cried all the way home, a 25 mile drive, as I made my way to my second job at a dry cleaner after school ended at 2:30. I actually looked forward to that job every day, the one where I got to talk to adults and not think very much as I handed their clothes over the counter.

But, no, I did not want, could NOT go back to that classroom again. The one where the teenagers screamed and fought and generally acted like I wasn't even in the room. The one where I had been ushered by the department head, handed a roll book, and shoved in the door....kind of like a lion tamer, but no one bothered to give me a chair or whip.

But later when I finally picked up my infant daughter and made my way home well after dark, I sat down and faced facts. I HAD to go back. You don't give up your health care when you have a baby. Not when there is no other adult in the house to pick up the financial burden, pat your hand, and say, "It's OK, honey. You stay home and I'll take care of everything." You look at yourself in the mirror, take a deep breath, and iron your clothes for the next day. You know you will get back in the car, drive back to whatever chased you away the day before, and face it all again.

And do you know what? The next day was always better. Every time.

It sounds like a small thing but it is a lesson that has stayed with me for over 20 years. And it is one that I added to my parental toolbox, the one that is full of adages that kids roll their eyes at, but we still hope they soak in somehow.

When a day kicks your butt, and does a grand job of it, take solace in the fact that when the sun comes up again, things really will look better.

I stayed in the classroom for 14 years after that first horrible year. I became a good disciplinarian.....mostly by caring for the kids I taught......and I learned to navigate the bureaucracy that hampers any large organization.

And when I have a tough day now, I rummage around in my mental toolbox, wrap the lesson from that horrible day around my shoulders, and hunker down to wait for the sun to rise again.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Should we tell her??

2011-09-14T13:35:00.001-04:00

A friend and I watched the young woman come into the foyer of the restaurant where we waited for the rest of our party.

There wasn't an ounce of fat on her body. None.

Her legs were lean and tan and unblemished.

Her shorts were VERY short, but they fit her perfectly. Along with the halter top that showed off the smooth skin on her arms and back.

Her hair was thick and lustrous.

My friend looked at me. I looked at her.

"Should we tell her?"

Of course, we didn't tell her anything. First of all, she didn't ask us, but why spoil this child's fun? She has years before it all starts to....well, sag and wrinkle and generally become unrecognizable.

I can remember looking at older women and thinking, complete with a self-righteous sniff, "Why don't they take care of themselves?" I really believed that none of that was going to happen to ME, no way, no how.....nope.

Today I exercise like a fanatic, I dance several times a week, I walk miles before I sleep......and still have body parts that just will NOT cooperate. I'm strong, but that doesn't seem to matter in all the ways I think it should. My stomach might be getting smaller but it still has ripples and moguls that taunt me when I dare to face a mirror at night. My legs have muscle now, but strange brown spots dot the skin, too, just like the ones on my hands.

And the skin on my arms continues to resemble a dead chicken, no matter how much expensive lotion I buy from that company in New Zeland. I'm toned from hours of working with weights at the gym, but that just means that the crepy skin has less fat to spread itself over....so it hangs there, leering at me, like one of those ugly Goonies from the movie.

The oddest thing about this whole stage of life, at least for me, is that I still feel young, and my mind continues to be active and very busy. One thing I CAN tell younger people is that we continue to think outrageous thoughts and covet what we shouldn't (in all the ways one can covet, I might add!). Now, however, we have a better braking system to keep us out of trouble.....or at least, most trouble. We don't care too much about what other people think of us, which comes at a perfect stage of life, I can attest to that.

We watched the young woman walk away, and we sighed. Do I wish someone had told me what to expect? Probably not. Why spoil the next few decades for someone like that??

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. ~George Bernard Shaw

Remembering....

2011-09-11T17:35:00.000-04:00

When I was younger, marking events was not important to me. I'm not sure why I didn't have a "celebration gene," but one thing I've learned over the years is to spend more time looking forward rather than trying to figure out what screwed us up so badly in the past.

And I've always been amazed at friends who knew exactly how many [hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades] have passed since some huge event in their own lives. Me? I often couldn't tell you my own age, often missing it by a year either way. (Nowadays that might be a good thing!)

But I do think as we age we experience our lives in deeper ways, as well as feeling the impact of events going on around us. Today our country marks 10 years since the horror that shredded our sense of security forever. There is no question of this day's significance. And I feel it deeply on many levels....

      For the people working in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that day,
                           unaware that hell was about to explode in their faces.

      For their families and friends.
                           Especially their children

      For the responders and their families.
                           Especially their children.

      For those on United Flight 93, and their families and friends.
                           And their children

       For those filled with hate and righteousness who perpetrated the horror.
                          And their families and children.

      For all those who have been lost, both military and civilian, in our attempt to
                          make us safer in a world that will never feel safe again.
                                      And all the children, from the neighborhoods in America to
                                                       deserts halfway around the globe.

      For all Americans, as shock and fright and fear wrapped their icy arms around us.

      Finally, for those who have embraced the brand of hatred of the terrorists,
                           somehow believing that it is the only way to show our strength.

September 11th can never slip by me unmarked and unobserved. My only hope is that we don't lose our humanity in an attempt to prove our might.

“For never can true reconcilement grow, Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.”

John Milton

Dancing fool, part 4

2011-09-05T20:33:00.000-04:00

This will be quick. Sometimes less is better (well, very often less is better, but we do like the sound of our own voices, don't we?), and this is one of those occasions. I could write a whole column on this, but it wouldn't be any better. Just longer.

During one of my dance lessons last week, I was (still) struggling with the finer points of technique in one of the Latin dances. My instructor, who is about half my age, looked at me and uttered one of those statements that knocks you on your butt by hitting the target, BULLSEYE!, without even realizing what he had done.

But I did.

"You need to commit.....you keep taking the step and then going back! You need to COMMIT!"

Oh, my.......

There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.

~Edwin Denby

That line in the sand...

2011-09-01T08:35:00.001-04:00

Boundaries in life are funny things.

They keep moving. Just when you think you know where one is and you make your decisions accordingly.....zap! It moves this way or that, making you start all over again. Very confusing. Often, though, we are the ones pushing that line in the sand with the tip of our shoe, hoping no one is watching. Because we want what we want when we want it. And that only means trouble for us and anyone else who is wandering in our desert at the time.

But as I age and become an Active Master, I'm getting so much better at recognizing those lines in the sand. And then respecting them.

In my "wild child" days (yes, I did have them!), I often decimated boundaries. If I even saw them at all. And that can be dangerous to one's health and well-being. It certainly tends to complicate one's life, believe me.

OK...I'll tell on myself in an attempt to be helpful to younger people who might have the same situations arise. Take the boundary of not getting involved with your best friend's other half. (Don't stand there with that shocked look on your face. I bet there are skeletons in your closet just banging on the door to get out right now.) Even though my friend insisted they were through, DONE!, never to get together again, I shouldn't have crossed that particular boundary. I saw it there, but I chose to ignore it. I wanted....well, you know what I wanted.

Because you know what happened. If you're over 40 or so, you know what happened. After the dust cleared, I had lost a friend and a lover, and everyone was hurt and very angry. And, yes, I felt ashamed. An emotion that is not good company.

And there are clues that tell us we KNOW we shouldn't be crossing to the other side, aren't there? Like the fact that I didn't enlighten her about the person I was seeing the next night. If you have to hide things from people who are important to you, you might want to re-evaluate what you're doing. Or about to do.

Listen to that raspy voice that is trying to warn you, especially if it gets more insistent over time. Kind of like an alarm clock that is designed to get louder the more times it has to "alarm" you in the morning. And you should listen before you move the tip of your toe over that line. Don't throw a pillow at the noise in an adolescent fit. Listen, then consider what you're doing, and if you're not sure....don't do it.

I have a boundary facing me right now and I bet you do, too. But I know exactly where mine is and I have no intention of getting too close. That's all part of becoming conscious, mature human beings who value those around us, as well as ourselves, too much to trample on them.

Now, get your toe away from that line.

A poetic experiment......

2011-08-27T06:46:00.000-04:00

Now I know why I've never written poetry.

It hurts, similar to bleeding all over the screen as you write. (I used to write on actual paper, but those days are gone for the most part. Now, I have to bleed horizontally as I type.)

And you can't hide when you write poetry.

Some time during this past year, I decided that I was going to write in a way that more accurately echoes my real personality, which can be pretty funny, if I do say so myself. The thing that makes that even....well, funnier...is that I don't LOOK like a person who has a wicked sense of humor. Students used to tell me, when they finally realized it was safe to do so, that I scared them silly when they first walked into my classroom.

I've had men tell me that I scared them at first, but I won't go into detail on that. And most of them never made it past the "at first" part at all. They never experienced having a highly provocative or ironic statement come out of a perfectly straight, rather dour looking face. (I do have a lot of fun with that, I admit.)

So, when I know you well enough to unleash my inner comedian, I'm told it can be quite a shock, whether it is in person or via my keyboard. In any case, I decided to allow that little guy out more often, and from the feedback I've gotten, you all are enjoying it as much as I do. As we get older, we care less about what others think of us anyway.

And then I made the statement last week that I was going to attempt to write poetry as my August "thing I've never done before."

Wish I hadn't done that.

I thought I could just keep going on that track of entertaining you as I simply expressed myself in a genre that is new to me. Wrong.....so wrong.

Julia Cameron, one of the premiere writing gurus around, believes that "the work" is out there, floating around in the ether, and it channels on down to one of us creative types for its birth. We are merely the vehicles through which a poem, or a novel, or an essay, or some other piece of work will be given voice. (By the way, she says if we don't answer the knock when it comes, that piece of work wanders off to find another more willing artist or that it dies......not to put too much pressure on us or anything.)

So, here I was earlier this week, fingers on the keyboard hoping to put my cute spin on some topic in the form of poetry, like I foolishly told all of you that I would.

I sat. I thought. I checked my Facebook page. I put on different music. I even tried silence, which drives me crazy when I'm working. And what came was......nothing. I did write a line or two from my head, but what I'm realizing is that poetry doesn't come from the intellect. It comes from the heart, from the gut, from that place inside that we hide from others and sometimes even from ourselves. So the line sat there, staring at me from the screen where I had abandoned it, the cursor blinking, blinking........blinking..... at me.

I realized I was going to have to evacuate my head and dig into my soul, tapping into my emotional base, a place that I haven't needed to go in quite a while to do the work I have been doing. Interesting. Disturbing......

I took my hands away from the keyboard. I waited. I could feel something rise in me, and it took self control not to tamp it down, down there where it wouldn't need to be tended or even acknowledged.

Well, the work showed up, and there is no humor in it, as you will see. At all. I even tried again today, thinking I could fool the universe into letting me write something comical in free verse. Nope. It was just more of the same.

I started typing, not having any idea what was going to splash across the screen. When I was done, I read what was there, amazed. Laid bare by a knife masquerading as words. And according to Julia, the words came through me, not from me. But I'm not sure I accept that concept any longer, not after this experience. This work is personal, ripping the facade away and exposing the author like a book with its dustcover removed for all to see. It couldn't have come from anyone BUT me....could it?

So, I guess I can't put this off any longer. Be kind, and I promise that next month I'll do something that doesn't involve tapping into my psyche at all. And I hope Julia and "the work" are both happy now, happy that a voice was found.

Because it sure ruined MY day.

#1:

They say that we live what we were taught,

old habits dying hard,
     if they ever die at all.
A gentle touch or a glance that slices deep,
     both speak volumes to the heart
And echo through the soul,
     pulling us back to all we should have left behind.

Is that why loneliness snuggles up so easily next to me,
     the wayward friend that keeps returning home?

#2:

Dawn chased away my dream,
The one where we could be together.
No....

The one where we could love.

It poured out between us, like sun drops

flowing across water.

My reverie chased away the loneliness,
the unfilled void that devours me....
unless I'm dreaming

of you.

Where the heck did THAT come from? I think I'll go crawl under the covers now.

It's time for "something I've never done before".........

2011-08-22T13:57:00.000-04:00

Let's see.....

I hookahed in January.

Did a spinning class in February.

Drove my dream car in March.

Went to take ONE dance lesson in April, which led to an obsession with ballroom dancing that continues.

Tiled my kitchen backsplash in May.

Went to a psychic in June.

And took a piano lesson in July.

Worthy activities, and yes, a lot of fun. (Well, maybe not the tiling.....)

That brings me to this month's "thing I've never done before," the continuation of my year of stretching my wings and re-learning how to have fun. (If you are new to this adventure, go to http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/01/have-you-hookahed.html to begin the saga.)

A funny thing has happened to me along the way, I've noticed. Well, a lot of funny things have occured during this year, which is part of the process, I think. But I noticed this month that I am routinely doing new things without even thinking about them in the context of my intentional adventure.

For example, I went out dancing ON PURPOSE early in the month, and I never even thought about using that as my event for August. If you know me, you understand that dancing has been a difficult thing for me. So, for me to accompany my dance instructor and some of his other students one evening to a place where dancing is the reason people show up....well, you know what a big thing that was. But it didn't occur to me to mention it, which speaks volumes about my new mental attitude. And I had a great time, thank you for asking.

What to do for August? I've sought suggestions from others, I've consulted the list I've been keeping in my trusty spiral notebook. Ride on a motorcycle? Sing karaoke? Rock climb? I hadn't decided yet.

Until today. And it hasn't been on any list to date. Go figure. But here goes.

For all the genres of writing that I have tried over the years, I have never written poetry. I knew better than to try to rhyme anything. Somehow I knew that would turn into an exercise in hilarity, both in topic and effort and maybe couldn't even be shared in polite company. So, I looked up "free verse," and Wikepedia told me to go ahead....give it a try. No rules to abide by, which suits me just fine these days.

Oh.....you thought I was going to share it with you? Not yet....it isn't the 28th, which is the witching day for my monthly adventure. I'm working on it, though, and you'll be the first to know when I'm done. I guess we can just be thankful I'm not attempting limericks.

Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes. ~Carl Sandburg

Driving into the sunset.....

2011-08-17T22:26:00.000-04:00

Traveling takes on a different perspective as we age. Some people sell their homes, buy huge RVs, and hit the road. Some become cruise kings and queens, sailing dozens of times every year. And, let's face it, many people today can't afford to go anywhere.

But for me, the main thing to know is that I don't fly any more. It's not that I'm afraid to fly, which makes my reasoning not quite logical, but it won't be the first (or last) time people look at me with that quizzical, sideways squint that means "This chick is a little crazy, right?"

It's that flying is boring and way too much hassle these days. Heightened security, tiny seats, no food, overpriced drinks, the fact that everyone is cranky....it's all just too much for me at this point in my life. Throw in the chance that you might sit in a closed airplane, on the ground, for hours before you even take off, and I'm just not willing to face it. We have become pawns in the grinding gears of bureaucracy in far too many arenas as it is....I don't need this one, too.

What this means, of course, is that I drive everywhere I need to go. (So far that hasn't meant motoring to California or other such distant locales.....I'll think about that if it happens.) I plot my route on my GPS and on the Internet, try to make sure my atlas is in my car, get my music and books on CD ready, and off I go. I enjoy actually seeing where I'm going and the freedom to stop whenever I want to. Someday I'm going to get in my car and just drive, with no idea where I'm going. Just to see where I end up.

Yes, I know that this means the whole process takes much longer, and therein lies the lack of logic, considering flying is a mere inconvenience to me and not a fear. I have no defense; it's just the way it is.

And to add more illogic to the scenario, I have to admit that my stamina for travel is less these days. Like today.....I am sitting in a hotel room not more than 10 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico, but I've been too tired to get myself there. I can practically smell the salt in the air, but this bed is soft and comfy, and my room has a balcony that allows me to watch the sunset through the palm trees outside. Maybe I wouldn't have been so tired if I had just flown here, boredom be damned.

My days of "Got to get up and DO something!" are long gone, too. Hotel rooms have become much more comfortable, I think, with pillow top mattresses, a real desk with wireless Internet, sofas and coffee tables, and happy hour in the bar. Sure, I would like to get over to the beach, but I'm pretty comfortable where I am, too. Maybe I can live here.

So many things change as we age, and I've found that traveling is one that has changed the most for me. No more airplanes, hitting the road instead, and the willingness to just sit and enjoy wherever it is I find myself. Doesn't sound too bad, does it?

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on.

~Jean Kerr, "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall," The Snake Has All the Lines, 1958

After all, tomorrow is another day.....

2011-08-13T21:40:00.000-04:00

Scarlett and I have much in common. Well, maybe I've never had to dig in the dirt to grow my food at my daddy's plantation, or rip the green velvet curtains off the windows to make a dress, or even shoot a leering soldier that broke into the family mansion, but she and I grapple with life on our own terms in some very similar ways.

Those of you who know me can probably pinpoint the first time I repeated Scarlett's famous line in your presence: "I'll think about that tomorrow!" We all laugh, but maybe some people think I can't deal with reality, choosing instead to swerve and avoid it when it suits me to do so. Think what you will, but as I've maneuvered my way from my 20s to where I am now, I've learned to accept the wisdom in that philosophy. As a matter of fact, it has saved me many times......saved me from acting impetuously in ways that might have hurt me or others, from uttering damaging words that could never be called back, or from wasting valuable time. I think those words and their guidance have also allowed me to toss a lot of worry into the trashcan. On the spot.

What a gift.

Dredge up the last time YOU fell prey to the worry cycle. Did you toss and turn all night, dreading what might come the next day due to the situation you were wallowing in, only to lose a night of valuable sleep to find that the very thing you thought might happen never happened at all? Or you made a decision quickly based on the information you had at the time, only to find out the next day how incomplete that information actually was. (I can recall a marriage that happened for me that way, flying to Reno, something about roulette.....but I digress.) Hopefully the results for you weren't too dire, but I have made some really bad decisions because I acted too quickly, spoke too soon.

Now, I channel Scarlett frequently, she and I meeting green eyes to green eyes as she stands tall and utters the words that pull me back from the brink of disaster more than I probably will ever know. I trust her, that strong Southern woman who was, admittedly, a tad self-involved, but she had a backbone of steel.

True, she didn't know much about birthin' babies, but give a lady a break......we all have our limits. And hopefully, as we age, we learn who we can trust and what is worth worrying about.

No, I don't want to do that......

2011-08-09T11:43:00.000-04:00

"No.....I don't want to do that."

Sounds simple, right? But for people-pleasers, like I once was, they are some of the hardest words to say, believe me.

No matter that I already had a full calendar on that day, if somone (anyone) indicated that they wanted me to do something, I would scramble, I would rearrange, I would inconvenience others to accomodate this latest request. The result? One person was happy, most of my friends were mad at me for changing the "yeses" I had told them the day before, and I was miserable doing things I didn't want to do.

But one of the beautiful things about getting older is that we can throw off that heavy cloak of accomodation. We probably get away with it due to society's tendency to think we don't matter anyway, so who cares if we show up or not? I hate to think that, but another thing that happens as we travel this road is that we lose our rose-colored glasses. Actually, we probably just forget where we left them.

Go to the outlet mall in Georgia? Don't think so.....riding on a bus and then tottering around with a group of hard of hearing women doesn't quite match my version of a "fun" day. Sorry, I don't want to.

Watch your dog while you're out of town? Last time I did that the dog refused to go out into my fenced in back yard because the grass was over 1/2 inch long. Sorry...find a kennel for your darling. I don't want to do that.

Babysit for your grandkids so you can go to the movies with your daughter? Nope....don't want to do that. The only babysitting around here will happen when I have my own grandkids, which hasn't happened yet.

The ability to say NO with no excuses is a gift to us as we age. The people around us probably aren't having as much fun with it as we are, I realize, but they don't expect much from us anyway, remember? We're OLD.

But at least I am not pushing a stroller with your grandkids and a dog at the mall.....in Georgia.

“Don't worry about growing older or pleasing others. Please yourself.”

David Brown

Dancing fool, part 3

2011-08-03T18:04:00.000-04:00

A simple spin, that's all he was asking me to do. Of course, my arms are going one way while my head is supposed to be keeping me focused on a spot in the corner. All of that while I'm pivoting half-way around......without falling over, that is.

You do know about my coordination issue, right?

What is wrong with me? I can stand at a podium and talk to an audience of hundreds for hours. I mediate between some very angry people, and no one has gotten out of control yet. I can write 500 words in about 15 minutes, and it sounds coherent most of the time. In other words, my skill set is pretty well developed at this point in my life.

I've gotten complacent. Self-satisfied. Competent in my chosen profession. So, I experience quite a lot of success and don't often have anyone tell me that what I'm doing is lacking in some way.

Until he asks me to spin without falling over. Even gently and with a lot of patience.

So, today when he said, "It doesn't have to be perfect," the room lit up. I DON'T have to be perfect at everything I do?? Even though I'm a driven Capricorn who is never without lipstick or every hair in place? For real??

Imperfect humans are allowed to practice dancing. No wonder I love this so much.

Sometimes we strive so hard for perfection that we forget that imperfection is happiness.

Karen Nave

Don't ever call me a "senior citizen"..........

2011-07-30T08:49:00.000-04:00

Don't call me a "senior citizen".......ever.

Or "retired"......that day will never come, I'm afraid. To be honest, I'm not sure I want it to.

"Aged"? Don't even try that one.

I have decided that Active Master fits the bill just fine. I discovered this term in Deepak Chopra's book, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, one of my current stack that I'm reading in the morning on my back patio as the sun comes up each day. I wish I could claim it as my own, but this column is about honesty above all else, so let's give credit where it's due.

Since I left the world of "doing what the boss wants" for doing my own thing, I have become my own master in that sense of the word. I write for a living now, full time, and am relishing the life of creative effort. And I'm certainly active, since discovering ballroom dancing while also keeping up my gym routine of weights, circuits, and cardio. Then there are my 2 mile walks with a friend a couple of times a week so we can chat and catch up on our respective lives, plus a weekly high-intensity fitness workout, and you can see there isn't much time left in my week for the "active" part.

But I think there is more to the Master part.

Here's what I think: As we age and experience life, with its successes and defeats, we learn to master the roller coaster. We realize that the ideals we had in our youth might still be valuable, but the road to their achievement will not be straight. And often not pleasant. That doesn't mean they have no value; it just means we learn to take the downturns that life throws at us, yet we still fly back up to the top of those rails every once in awhile. And sometimes what appears to be a defeat turns out to be a blessing after all; but sometimes it works the other way, too. What I thought was a valid, worthy goal when I was 20 or 30 or even 40 turned out to be a devil in disguise. I had to experience all of that to understand it, though.

And here I am. I'm still standing and I'm stronger in all ways possible. I'm an Active Master revelling in the journey.

Now, if I could just master that Latin hip thing, I'd have it made.

How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is.

Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt

Lions and bees....oh my!

2011-07-25T19:46:00.002-04:00

Lazy Lion sounded pretty good, actually. And Buzzing Bees....well, I excelled on that one! My fingers followed the teacher's instructions without too much trouble, and she said I exercised good pressure for a first timer.

Today was the July episode of my "doing something I've never done before" adventure. I did something I had often wondered about, but never had the opportunity to try. I took a piano lesson.

In elementary school, a man showed up in my classroom once with an assortment of instruments, and I fell in love with the violin. It was glossy and sleek and elegant to my 10 year old eyes. I don't remember why I never took lessons, considering how enamored I was with that beautiful piece of wood, but I guess that was my one opportunity. Such a thing never came up again.

I found a piano teacher by sending out a call to all my Facebook friends, and today was the day. She already knew about my year-long adventure and was willing to give me one lesson. She was gracious and patient with me, an adult with absolutely no knowledge of music other than I love it. She dug out a child's beginner book, a little hesitantly I noticed, thinking I might be offended. I quickly disavowed her of that concern. I may be a lot of things, but I know what I don't know. A kid's book is exactly where I needed to be.

We discussed terms I had never heard before, like steps with skips, traids, and solfeige. She showed me that my fingers are numbered and where to start on the keyboard. I never knew the difference between black keys and white ones, but I do now. I played Lazy Lion on the black keys once I got the finger-numbering system down. Then the two of us played an improvised tune, she on one side of the keyboard and me on the other. Just striking a succession of keys.....and it sounded pretty good!

She was intrigued with my struggles to learn ballroom dancing, things like hearing the beat and coordination (or my lack thereof). There seems to be some correlation that hadn't occured to me before. Interesting, all of it.

I have learned a great deal from this adventure, doing something each month for a year that I've never done before. Much more than I ever anticpated. I have done things that turned out to be one-time events, and I also discovered a passion in April that I never expected, one that I hope to continue forever. I am so grateful that I have undertaken this mission, as I have discovered corners of my soul I never knew existed. And today, to feel music begin in my fingers and then wrap itself around me was a wondrous happening.

Even if it was only Lazy Lion and Buzzing Bees.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach

Visit Martha McKie's website at http://pianolessonsmandarin.com/ to learn about piano lessons.

Don't laugh at...or lie to...a lover

2011-07-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

As I've told you before, relationships haven't been my strong suit over the years. I'll be the first to admit that. However, that doesn't mean I haven't learned a lot from them. Relationships, I mean. I guess that's one thing about getting older. Our experiences become cumulative and have more depth over time.

Some of those lessons learned were easily acquired. Like, it's not a good idea for the health of a relationship to laugh at someone who is trying to explain how they feel. If you make that mistake more than once, peace be with you, because you're going to have a rough road keeping your bed warm on a cold night.

Or that lies have a way of rebounding, kind of like a billiard ball that doesn't drop where you thought it was going. It just keeps bouncing around, hitting things. Usually you.

I've made small mistakes, as well as some huge ones. Some have cost me dearly. But the most interesting, and I believe most valuable, lessons have shown me what I am capable of as an individual. For example, only recently have I been able to write about the most devastating relationship I ever had. It's a sad, strange story, believe me. One that no novelist could ever make up. I had to see a therapist for a short time to process exactly what had happened. And the therapist handed me a gift when I was ready to head out on my own again.

That gift? "No matter how painful this experience was for you, at least now you know the passion you're capable of." Needless to say, I didn't look at the situation that way for a long time. I was too busy tending to my shredded soul. For years.

Relationships can be excruciating. They can bring immense joy. Often both. At the same time.

Sometimes they last. Other times they simply don't. People hurt one another and get hurt in return. But I believe there are always lessons there somewhere. And the older we get, the more we're open to the instruction that results.

And time truly does heal. I have the scars to prove it.

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same. ~Flavia Weedn, Forever, ©

A sweet thing, friendship.....

2011-07-19T11:51:00.000-04:00

Growing up as a Navy brat was tough on me. It's pretty sad when the longest you've lived anywhere is when you go off to a four-year stint at college.

The remnants of my early life are evident today in the fact that I haven't moved in over 20 years, and that my daughter grew up in the same house her entire life. I can even still see the marks on the tree out front where she nailed boards to its trunk so she could climb as high as possible. I love those marks dearly.

The biggest drawback, however, is this: Friendships don't survive the nomad lifestyle. At least they didn't for me, and I think most military kids would agree. And it wasn't for lack of trying on my part. I wrote letters to friends I had to leave behind from one duty station to the other. At first, they would write back to me, updating me on all the gossip among our group, and I'd lament the new Navy base I had been banished to once again.

But over time, the return letters would stop and I would still be struggling to make new friends, me the shy kid with glasses and the hated designation of "the new girl." Always the "new girl."

Somewhere along the way I made a decision that the whole thing was just too painful. My solution? Don't make friends at all. That way, I didn't have to leave them. I didn't have to try to keep in touch with them when I moved on, which I always did. The quiet "new girl" became the kid who never spoke at all. Lonely and mute.

That experience taught me that a friendship is a rare gem to be protected at all costs today. I have often joked that once you are on one of my email distribution lists, you are there forever. I don't let go of people easily any more, sometimes to my own detriment, but I believe friendships need to be nurtured and safeguarded.

Nurturing means things like getting together to catch up frequently, even if it's via phone or email. To share good news and bad, to talk and to share, to advise when asked. To offer encouragement and support. Sometimes just to listen. You can't ignore friends and expect them to hang around very long.

I envy my friends who maintain ties with people they have known since elementary school. They get together and reminisce, look at pictures, laugh and gossip. The fact that they even remember each others' names is amazing to me. I would love to have ties that reach so far and hold so tight.

Today I know all of this. And if you're my friend, I think you know how much I value you.

But my reality growing up was different, and I have learned much from it. I just wish all those lessons didn't have such sharp edges.

Without friends no one would choose to live,

though he had all other goods.
- Artistotle

Paying respects.....

2011-07-15T12:50:00.001-04:00

Funerals suck. There's no other way to put it. Especially now that I'm a bit farther down the road than many of you and they pop up more frequently. However, up until last year--May 27th, 2010 to be exact--I had avoided them like the plague that they were to me.

"They're for the family," I huffed indignantly, like families weren't worth the effort. Or the ceremony for their loved ones was held simply to annoy me, the center of the universe.

"The person who died won't know whether I'm there or not," I proclaimed. Certainly an original thought, don't you think? I went shopping instead.

"The services are at an inconvenient time." I bet the people who are the stars of funerals think so, too.

And then on May 23rd, 2010, my father passed away at age 85. Suddenly, I was part of a family standing next to the casket to say good-bye. I watched in amazement as dozens of people filed in to touch my hand and tell me how much my father meant to them. I had no idea who many of them were. Some of them didn't know him at all, but they knew me, or my brother or sister, or my mother. All these people came to pay homage to my father or to give support to us. Many had the opportunity to stand and speak about my dad that day, of his quiet calmness, his Navy service, his dedication to my mother for 67 years. I was touched to the core.

Today I sat in a funeral service for a woman I didn't know well. She was a teacher, like me, and we shared membership in an organization that supports education and women in that profession. I never spoke to her family, I didn't speak to anyone. But I was there to be human testimony to her life of service to children and to show her family that she meant something just by having spent time here on Earth. Regardless of one's beliefs about what happens when our time here is done, today her family knows that she was respected and we all thought enough of her to show up.

And I will never avoid the opportunity again. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long.

“If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.”

Clarence Day

The teacher as learner......

2011-07-11T21:40:00.001-04:00

This teacher has become the student and the transition has been intriguing. My year-long journey of doing things I've never done before has put me into the role of the student in some new situations, and the lessons are many and varied. For those of you new to this column, the purpose of the journey is to rejuvenate, to experience life in a fresh way at an age when things often go stale. I started in January and have tackled six new things so far this year. (For an update, see http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/01/have-you-hookahed.html for the first installment.) Who knows where the next six months will find me?

One of my new teachers chuckled when I admitted that I hadn't done the homework that he asked me to do. I hemmed, I hawed, I excused my own transgressions. I was pitiful, in other words. And then he seemed to delight in reminding me that my students must have felt the same way when I asked for THEIR homework and they started reciting the litany of reasons why they didn't have it done. You know what they say about payback.

It has also been an eye-opener to be reminded from this new viewpoint that education is repetition. I hear the instruction, I see the demonstration, and I'm simply not getting it. Frustration mounts. And then, a mere change in terminology allows the same concept to finally sink in, making sense where yesterday there was no sense at all. Or it took me being ready to hear it....finally.

These are all things I know and have utilized from the instructor's side of the desk for decades. But by moving to the other side of the desk, the student side, my perspective has been knocked off kilter.

And that is a very good thing, at any age.

Examining everything.....

2011-07-05T07:19:00.000-04:00

The results of the examination aren't important. At least, that's what I think Socrates meant when he said the unexamined life isn't worth living. The important thing is to get out the tally sheet and take stock of what we're doing. The planet spins away from us if we don't tote up the sums once in a while.

I waited much too long, and now have some regrets. One thing I don't want my daughter, or any young person for that matter, to do when they reach 60 is to regret anything they did....or more importantly, things they didn't do with their lives.

Such as......

I wish I had made beautiful gardens sooner.

I wish I had known that all that worrying wouldn't change a thing.

I wish I had spent more time doing nothing. Not even examining anything.

I wish I had worked harder at some things. One relationship comes quickly to mind.

I wish I had spoken up much sooner (like 50 years or so). Everywhere. About everything.

I wish I had understood that I always have the right to change my mind. And I wish I had changed it a couple of times, that's for sure.

I wish I had followed my passion for writing earlier. Many young people got a good teacher, but my voice was silent for much too long.

I wish I had smiled more. (Someone paid me the ultimate compliment the other night when he said that even though I didn't know the steps to the foxtrot yet, I had the smile down..... and that was the most important part.)

I wish I had danced even when I felt awkward and conspicuous. I know now that no one else cares how I look on the dance floor, because they're only thinking about how they look. And if they are assessing me, they need to do some totin' up themselves.

As one becomes long lived, I think we tend to become more contemplative. I surely wish it had happened sooner, though, especially now that I've reached the age when the yellow brick road ahead is shorter than the one behind. There's a lesson here for people just now travelling into adulthood, if they care to hear it. I hope they don't wait until it's nearly too late, like I did.

Of course, Socrates also said, "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing." Go figure.

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings,

so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for."

Socrates

Finding the way even when you think you're lost.....

2011-06-26T09:05:00.001-04:00

I never did find my atlas. The one I spent hours with before I left for my trip to Baltimore, where I was headed to attend a writer's conference at the University of Baltimore. Even though I have a GPS for my car, the visual part of my brain needs to see the whole route in order to.....well, I'm not sure why, but I just need it, OK? It somehow comforts me to know exactly WHERE I am in South Carolina as I cruise along the 700 + mile route between my hometown and Maryland. Yes, you can tell me that it would be nearly impossible to get lost, since the entire route is on ONE road, but I also used to work for the Boy Scouts and you know what their motto is, right?

So, for about two days prior to packing up my things, picking up another writer friend who I cajoled into coming with me, and then hitting I-95, I studied and calculated and imprinted the image of the entire route into my memory banks. I think I've got it, I assured myself, the self who plans everything, including inserting time for getting lost or stopped by endless trains into every trip, even if that trip is only from my house to the dentist's office five minutes away. Might explain why I'm early for everything and annoy everyone by showing up before they're ready for me.

That morning, I threw my things in the car, including the atlas which was on the floor behind my seat, I know it was, I can see it lying there, and we were off. The humidity was around 99% and the pine forests flew by as we left Florida and cruised through Georgia. Before we knew it, we were in South Carolina, which is hard to miss with its omnipresent palm tree and moon logo on every car and sign from one end of the state to the other. They must give babies a copy of it as soon as they're born and make them sign their life over to the damn thing.

We looked for lunch, which is when I reached back to find the atlas, just to verify that we were in fact in South Carolina and I hadn't been captured by aliens and transported off to who knows where without me knowing it. OK...I don't know WHY I have to look at a map to verify what I can see right in front of me. Some people have facial tics. I have a tic that demands that I always know what is happening or what is going to happen.

And the atlas wasn't there. It wasn't behind the other seat, either. Or in the back where all the luggage was, the six bags two women brought for a one and a half day conference, nor was it under the seats I had flipped down to make way for all those bags. It had disappeared. Oh, my.....what was I going to do?

Over the course of the next few days, I kept looking, though. It had to be there, it just had to, I mumbled to myself, I know I put it in the car, I could picture myself doing it the day I finished with it in the house, I walked out and threw it in behind that seat. I simply had to see the route occasionally to reassure myself that.......well, I've already told you I don't know why.

But, somehow, we made it all the way to Baltimore and back. The Aussie voice I downloaded into my GPS helped when we needed to find another Subway (they truly are everywhere), and then we let him go back to his nap after we had eaten. Little by little I forgot about the atlas.

Someone who knew me well made the comment one day that I always had to know everything. I'm sure he made the remark without an agenda, it was just a comment. But I thought about it a lot and he was right. It manifests itself in some really strange, irritating ways, both to others and to me. So, I've made a real effort to eradicate that tic from my personality, all the way from intentionally not planning every minute of my weekends to trusting other people a bit more. Because maybe, just maybe, they will lead me just fine and not let anything bad happen along the way.

I forgot to look for the atlas for about 3 days once we got home.

And, no, I haven't found it yet. Oh, well.......who needs it anyway?

Do you know this?

2011-06-21T14:14:00.001-04:00

She sat on a chair under a stairwell, reading a book and not paying much attention to the crowd swirling around her. I had walked past her once, a neon sign announcing "Psychic Readings" to her right, and then I circled back out of curiosity. It was time for me to do my monthly "thing I've never done before," and this would certainly fill that bill.

I had planned on another activity for this month, one associated with the writers' conference I was in Baltimore to attend, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. Didn't happen.

So, I needed a replacement and I had stumbled on it, quite by accident. Well, that's what I thought at the time. I took the fee out of my wallet and laid it in front of her, and I asked for a palm reading. She put her book down and smiled. Then she asked me to put my right hand, palm up, in front of her on the table.

"You have a very long life line. You will live a long life." She looked up at me, and met my eyes. "Do you know this?" My words tripped over each other at her strange wording. "Well, I guess it's in my genes," I finally managed. After all, my father lived until he was 86 and my mother celebrates her 86th next week. But lots of people have relatives who live into their 80s these days. Good guess.

Then she asked me if I was considering any large purchases, like a house or a car. "No," I said. Her eyes remained on my palm. "Well, I see a large investment of some kind, and it will come in January. It will be a good thing for you, so I want you to go ahead. And I don't want you to worry about it." She looked up again, as I thought that her statement could apply to anyone. I'm still not too impressed yet.

"You are a good communicator." She looked up at me. "Do you know this?" To be honest, I think that's one of the things I'm best at. "Yes, I think I do," I said to her.

"What do you do for a living?" she asked. "I'm a writer," answered. She smiled, as if to say, "Of course!" Then she went on: "Something good is going to happen with your work, and it will happen in August. I don't want you to worry about anything. It will be fine," she said. By this time, I'm hoping that she's seeing that my manuscript will sell in August and I will be buying my Z in January. Seemed to fit to me, but I don't really believe in this stuff.

"Your personal life has had its ups and downs. Do you know this?" she offered next. Gulp.....where did THAT come from, I thought? I nodded. And then she looked at me and said, "Tell me about the person with the [insert initial here.]" She had spoken the initial that made perfect sense to me, the only one that fit. Double gulp. So, I told her. She asked where that person was now. I answered. She said that I needed to close that door once and for all, and that all would be well. "You will find happiness," she said as she leaned back in her chair.

My time was up. I have no idea what to think about that, but I sure hope it's not like my dance lessons and I can't stop.

“The key to the universe lies dormant within the self, waiting to awaken through self-discovery”

Taejoon Lee

You will be us.....

2011-06-12T10:05:00.001-04:00

I can remember rolling my eyes and sighing when an "old" person started a statement with something like, "When I was young.....!" And then everyone had to listen to a detail-laden rant about whatever the topic of the hour happened to be. Why were they always so MAD, I wondered?

Ah, time......it adds perspective, I'm finding. But the fact is that the world is going to explode from its own insanity and it will probably be soon. After all, it started way back with the elders among the cave folks complaining about methods of berry-gathering and skinning mastiffs and how their kids only wanted to shoot each other with rocks instead of helping out, you know the drill. Just insert time-appropriate details through the ages and then track it through your grandparents and their grandparents. Older people have been alerting everyone for hundreds of years to the upcoming apocalypse, and no one has ever paid any attention, other than the eye-rolling and sighing.

So, why would anyone listen to my rants? You know, the one about the computer voices we have to endure when we call, well, just about anyone these days. I just spent 6 minutes (I timed it...I'm old, after all) listening to information I don't need in order to get to an actual human being who first asked me if I wanted to take part in a survey when we were all done with our business. A survey?? Are you kidding? They actually want to hear my opinion of the ridiculous "customer service" system that answers the phone for them? Oh, wait...if you've ever taken one of those surveys, it's a computerized voice interacting with you, and the choices offered don't even come close to offering me a choice that I really want to give. Not even close, believe me.

Or the article I read, in a real hold-it-in-your-hand magazine that comes in an actual outside-my-door mailbox, that reported this apocalyptic fact: More and more employers are refusing to interview unemployed people for jobs the company has open. If you haven't heard about this yet, go ahead and re-read that statement. I'll wait for you.

OK, did you throw things at the screen when you read it again? I just about threw the magazine across the room. The impending explosion of the world as we know MUST be near, don't you think?

When I was young, employers put a job posting in the newspaper and welcomed the unemployed who starting lining up at their door on the right day. According to this article, the unemployed are now viewed with mistrust and are not allowed to apply. After all, what transgression did they commit to be without a job? Well, if they're politicians, the article might have a valid point. But let's assume the article was talking about normal folks who really work for a living. That's what the article reported. More and more employers only want the employed to apply for job openings. And when I mentioned this fact (OK....it was more than a "mention"....it was a rant) to someone at a gathering the other day, they had heard about it, too. I didn't conjure the whole thing up on my own in an exercise-induced trance. It's actually happening, in this recession when good people, millions of them, have been downsized, "offered" early retirement, and otherwise booted out the doors of businesses all over this country.

And then to be told, "Sorry...don't apply here unless you already have a job." ?

So, YES! I might be "a wonderfully mature woman" (or old to some readers), but I'm sick of computer voices and store "associates" who have the maturity of 12 year olds telling me I have to call an 800 number to get a refund and idiots not offering people work when they have it to offer.

Go ahead and roll your eyes, people under 40. I know you don't get it, or us, yet....but you will. Oh, yes. Someday you will.

If the Apocalypse comes, beep me.

Buffy, the vampire slayer

Dancing fool, part 2.....

2011-06-07T17:31:00.001-04:00

It's been a long time since I've been surprised by anything. Once you hit about 50, not much can jump out from behind a door, shout "BOO!" and still get a reaction.

But I have to admit....I am startled by my reaction to taking the "one" dance lesson in April that was my "thing I've never done before." (See http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/05/dancing-fool.html for an update.) The one twirl around the dance floor on April 28th led to three more which then led to another 11. And now I'm signing up for months of lessons, expensive or not. I'm not sure I totally understand this myself, which is why I'm writing about it again. I write to process and this needs processing, believe me.

First of all, ballroom dancing for me is hard work. Ask me to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time, and then stand back and have a good laugh. My instructor knows when he shows me a new step, everything he's already taught me in that particular dance flies out of my head for a few minutes. It's like I wandered in off the street by mistake at that particular point in the lesson, a stranger lost in a strange land. We have to do it over and over for me to insert the new into the old and then put it all back together again, Humpty Dumpty-like. In other words, coordinated I am not. But when I get it (and I do), it is a thing of beauty. At least that's how it feels to me.

And unbeknownst to me all these years, I have been disconnected from my body. You want me to move my ribcage that way while my hips stay still? Are you crazy?? At least I'm secure enough to laugh at myself while I'm contorting my body the way he's demonstrating. How does he DO that? He's savvy enough not to laugh out loud at me, but I imagine he has a good chuckle when I stumble on home at the end of the hour. He's patient and kind and he's teaching me things I didn't even know I didn't know. I also have to trust him and relinquish control, one thing that I've learned to withhold and the other I hold onto for dear life.
My life hasn't been much fun for a very long time. All that changed with my first step on the dance floor.

Surprise!

http://www.absolutedancestudio.com/

“You've got to dance like nobody's watching and love like it's never going to hurt.”

The devil made me do it.....

2011-06-03T11:49:00.001-04:00

"It's all HER fault!"

"The devil made me do it."

"The dog ate my homework."

My, my.....there are fingers pointing all over, aren't there? As a teacher, I did hear the one about the homework-devouring canine a few times. I bet it was even true occasionally. And that pesky guy with the pitchfork likes to meddle in our affairs when we let him, that's for sure. I can still hear his raspy chortle in my ear during one of my particularly naughty decades a while back.

But he wasn't to blame for all my misdeeds. Just like the dog....he was only doing what dogs do to stuff left laying around where it doesn't belong. Children can be forgiven, at least a time or two, for acting with less than mature forethought and then blaming everyone else. That's what kids do, and as parents it's our job to train them over time to behave more responsibly and then accept the consequences of their actions.

Some kids learn it and some don't. Those "kids" become adults with a learning disability called "unable to deal with life." And we all know these people, don't we? Their mode of operation is to stumble through life, tripping over their own lack of maturity, and then wailing that it is all....

their mother's fault for not being nurturing enough.
their father's fault for taking off.
their sister's fault for not sharing closet space equally.
their first grade teacher's fault for mispronouncing their name for an entire year.
their neighbor's fault for leaving his wife alone too much. (Oops...where did THAT one come from?)
the government's fault for not writing clear instructions.

And on and on it goes, until we scamper into the nearest doorway when we see them coming, their crocodile tears creating an even greater likelihood of tripping themselves. Somehow their spines never developed to the point where they can stand on their own two feet and tackle life like the rest of us do.

We kick the excuses out the door and do the best we can as adults in charge of our individual lives. We accept responsibility for US. And we stop the tiresome blubbering.

Saving face or saving money?

2011-05-29T20:40:00.000-04:00

The cashier hit at least 50 buttons on her register, looked up and said, “That’ll be 25¢.” Her eyes slid past me to the jeans-clad boy in line behind me, his macho-ness skipping over me to envelope her in his studly grip. She smiled at both of us, me by default, as I said, “Excuse me? 25¢?”

“Well, that IS the senior price!” she huffed, as if I was questioning her math.

Ouch. She had immediately pegged me as one of that class of folks over whatever her company’s “senior” age break happened to be. What about all the money I spend on hair color and highlights? The expensive anti-oxidant oil for my face, applied faithfully twice a day? Good heavens—the HOURS in the gym? Everybody around me tells me I don’t look my age. Are they all lying?

Don’t answer that.

On the other hand, 25¢ for a full-sized cup of coffee is hard to refuse on the principle of “I didn’t ASK for the senior price, did I?” Retired or not, money is tight for all of us and a quarter saved is, well, a good thing. And heaven knows I understand the value of saving money, having had to pinch every penny that has ever passed through my wallet. But should that be at the price of a teenager snapping her gum and stamping me with the “OLD PERSON HERE!” label, without even blinking twice?

However, I bet this same child, the one masquerading as the store’s assistant manager, has had others chew her out for not mentioning the “senior” discount to them. I waited in line once, tapping my foot impatiently, as an elderly man took 10 minutes to decide whether he wanted the chicken sandwich or a cheeseburger, vacillating first this way and then that, as if it was an expensive cut of steak he was debating. His indecision was infuriating to everyone witnessing it. He finally made the choice and paid his money. Not until he got his change back did he say, “Did you give me the senior discount, honey?” I thought honey was going to leap across the counter and throttle the guy, old or not. She probably made a mental note after she calmed down that she would never allow that to happen to her again. Just give ‘em the discount if they look as if they might qualify. Who at corporate would ever know anyway?

I have an idea. Let’s redefine the term. Maybe that will be less offensive to those of us in this quandry. Instead of “seniors,” how about “those with magnificent wisdom,” or “beautifully retired,” or “captivatingly mature”?

Just smile sweetly at me when you say it and then give me the darn discount.

“Old age ain’t no place for sissies.”

Henry Louis Mencken

How did you DO that??

2011-05-25T14:27:00.001-04:00

"How did you know you could do that?"

The question hung in the air for a beat before I could answer it. How DID I know I could cut down a tree with a chain saw 10 years ago when that ugly tree was dying over my roof?

How did I know how to replace the seal under my toilet when I finally figured out where that damn leak was coming from?

How did I get that 6 foot glass top to my new dining set out of the equally big box by myself?

What possessed me to start my own company with nothing but a business license and a lot of disparate information rattling around in my head?

For people like me, I guess the answer is: I didn't know that I could do it. All I did know was that those things needed to be done, and I was the only person on site to take action.

I was a single parent, working two jobs, with a very active daughter to raise. Money was tight, to say the least, but I also have a wide independent streak and believe that there isn't much I CAN'T do. We could delve into a psychological study of women like me who have some control and trust issues and an A type personality, but that would bore everyone to death, wouldn't it?

So, what did I do this month for the "thing I've never done before," my year-long journey of rejuvination that has turned out to be so much fun?

I tiled the back splash in my kitchen. About a year ago I pulled off the fiber board that has been fulfilling that purpose for over 20 years, and I just hadn't found anyone to put up some pretty white tile yet. I had the tile, the grout, the caulking.....it was all sitting there on my porch taunting me. "DO ME, DO ME!" it said every time I walked by.

My mother didn't think I could do it. You know how mothers can convey messages without uttering a word? It's all in the body language, and hers was shouting loud and clear: YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT!! YOU'VE NEVER DONE IT BEFORE! YOU'LL RUIN IT!!" Some friends said they would do it, but everybody is busy with their own stuff and it just never got done.

So, when my mother left for an overnight trip, I cleared off the kitchen counters and I tiled and grouted and caulked the night (and half the next day) away. Yes, it was hard, especially the caulking for some reason, but I just tackled the job. Because it needed to be done.

Maybe that's not on par with my past months of new experiences.....hookah bars and driving Zs and taking a dance lesson......but it WAS new to me, something I've never attempted before.

And nobody had to tell me I could do it.

Tick, tock.....

2011-05-20T11:25:00.000-04:00

"Only 53 more days!"

"It's Wednesday! Only two more days until the weekend."

"Six months until my vacation!"

"10 minutes until quitting time...."

What about this minute, this hour, this day? While we're counting down the days--sometimes even the seconds--today is slipping away, unattended and unappreciated. And sadly, it can never be replaced.....ever. Trite, obvious, but seemingly an ignored concept by so many people. Maybe until we gain some years and realize what we're losing.

I used to be one of them. In one of my professional roles over the years, I taught middle school social studies. To say the kids were uninterested would be a gross understatement, but that fact wasn't unique to my class. Students today, especially if they are 13, have more pressing matters to concern themselves with, like hormonal surges that make them literally crazy for a few years. Or parental pressure to WIN at all costs, at everything they attempt, leaving no room for failure while learning something new. These children begin to see learning as dangerous to their well-being at home and to be avoided at all costs. Or on the flip side, they have parents who are MIA, either in body or spirit or both.

"Why don't I have my homework? Well, my mom picked me up for the weekend, then on Sunday night got into a fist fight with my dad when he came late to get me. My homework is still at her house, left behind when I had to sneak out the window in a hurry to get away. My clothes for PE are still there in her washing machine, too." Paul Revere and his midnight ride aren't of much interest to this child stuck in the middle of his parents' war.

I enjoyed teaching in spite of all this for about 11 years. Then the pressures began to wear me down, day by day, hour by hour, minute by crawling minute. As I rounded the curved driveway leading to the school every morning, the pressure turned to dread and then to near panic, a fist curled in my stomach just waiting to punch its way out. I figured out how many years I would have to endure before I could retire with whatever benefits would be left by that time. My stomach roiled. My heart pounded as I unlocked my classroom door each morning.

I watched other people around me--not all, but many--look at their watches dozens of times each day, like they had it all calculated until they could pack it in and leave for the last time. I commiserated with them in the faculty lounge: Only 10 days until spring break. Only 3 months until summer. Only 2 days until Friday. 3 hours until I can go home. There were others who made it to 3 weeks until full retirement and then dropped dead, the "prize" there in sight. Others finally got to pack up the new RV and begin all the traveling they had worked 30 years for but were stilled by a stroke on the way down the driveway. All those years of counting the hours and it was all for nothing anyway.

One day I had to face myself in the mirror and admit what I was doing to my life: I was wishing it away. Literally. I was missing my own life while I was merely enduring a job I no longer wanted. For what? A paycheck? Benefits? Couldn't I get those somewhere else, somewhere I enjoyed going every day, or at least had a sense of peace about? How much is a life worth, anyway? Just ask the ones cut down after mucking through all those wasted years.

Today I am a self-employed educator who got up and watched the fog slip across my garden in the morning stillness. I still teach and I write, thus fulfilling a life-long passion to express myself. I experience every moment as it arrives, and I watch it go on its unique way, never to be experienced again. I don't wrestle with my moments, one by one, until I can get somewhere else. Yes, my life has uncertainty. But it's of my making and within my control.

Teaching is no different than working in a factory or selling shoes. When you start marking time to get away from it, you need to do just that. And you don't have to wait until you're 50 or 60, like I did.

The clock is marking every precious second of your life.

Tick tock, tick tock.

What do YOU have on your feet?

2011-05-14T14:25:00.000-04:00

My daughter has her instructions.

If I ever show up anywhere wearing vinyl shoes purchased from somewhere like the Sunday insert magazine, she has my permission to track me down and rip them from my feet.

What is it with the old lady shoes, anyway? It seems that women over 60 or so, especially those no longer working in the professional world, believe they don't have to pay attention to their footwear. They might sport a chic outfit when they meet their book club, yet wear clunky plastic shoes, as if they think their feet are suddenly invisible.

Oh, I know that feet take a beating over the years. And since our years are adding up, our feet often scream for mercy. But, come on, women! Many of us spend good money for Joe at the salon to hide the gray with color and highlights, a manicurist to shape and polish all 20 of our nails, and a skin care expert to nourish our sagging epidermis. Why, then, don't we spend a few dollars more to buy some stylish comfortable shoes? They're out there, I know.

The economy is bad, yes. But I'm guessing that most women reading this willingly spend money on items or services deemed important for other members of your family. Why do we always come last? It's time we diverted some of those resources for ourselves. Including shoes.

Go ahead. Look at your feet right now.

Do I have to send my daughter over?

I like Cinderella, I really do. She has a good work ethic. I appreciate a good, hard-working gal. And she likes shoes. The fairy tale is all about the shoe at the end......

Amy Adams

Time as cash.....

2011-05-10T13:09:00.004-04:00

My dance instructor keeps me talking as we dance. Of course, anyone who knows me also knows that I have no problem talking--to anyone. Anywhere. About anything.

But he does it to keep me from overthinking where my feet are supposed to be going. I am not a naturally rhythmic person and this is hard work for me. And don't expect my arms and my feet to go in two different directions......PLEASE. He knows this, so we talk.

One of our conversations the other day led me to reflect on the concept of how much our time is worth. My instructor and I both facilitate group sessions with people, albeit in totally diverse topics, and occasionally all our prep work to plan a session is fruitless. No one shows up. Or a session is on a Saturday or other generally unscheduled day and as the presentor I HOPE that no one shows up. (I can't speak for him on that one, but I'll ask him the next time we're waltzing.)

When no one shows, we probably don't get paid. But if I'm all set up for folks to gather and I'm hoping merely to pack back up and go home, that means something: There are other significant ways to place value on my time.

And as I get older, I'm finding the alternate price tags we assign some blocks of our time are just as valuable, if not more so. Do I really need to schedule six trainings this week when it will leave me exhausted and depleted, unable to enjoy the seventh unencumbered day? There's barely time to catch up with normal things like laundry as it is. (I started to add cleaning, too, but all my friends and family would shriek with laughter at that reference....better I just not mention it.) Plus, my current car runs fine, even if it is five years old. Do I really need a new one?

I value time to do nothing if I choose. And please don't interpret that to mean that someone else pays my bills while I'm cloud-watching. No one does, and no one has for the majority of my adult life. I have simply learned that if I'm hoping no one attends one of my seminars, even if that means my income is lower, then my time has taken on a richer, more meaningful texture. I have matured to the point that I recognize and accept that.

Now...shall we dance?

Indulge me, it's Mother's Day.....

2011-05-08T08:56:00.001-04:00

She is bright and talented. She is energetic and resourceful, at least once she stops worrying about everything. She is beautiful and strong.

She is my 27 year old daughter, the child I had when I was 35, after proclaiming for years that I never wanted children at all. My first husband and I both wished to be childless. He still is. But at age 30, a different beat began in my soul, starting as a soft wordless chant that became louder as the years passed, until my body fell into step and I knew it was time. There was no denying it.

I married again to follow that need. I know that now. I didn't want to admit then that my desire for a child was the reason for that second walk down the aisle. Today, women routinely forgo the walk while still fulfilling their need for children. I'm sometimes a rebel today, but not so much in the '80s. The marriage lasted four years. I got what I wanted.

So there I was, chasing a toddler around as I turned 40. And she ran as soon as she could walk. Everywhere. I took her to the mall often, not because I had any money to shop (I didn't), but she could run there without curbs or potholes to trip her up. I could follow along without losing sight of her, at least not often. She ran through T-Ball and soccer, basketball and softball. She ultimately ran on to college still chasing a ball tied to the strings of a scholarship. She fell often, jumped up and dusted herself off.....and ran some more. She wore me out.

It wasn't easy having a teenager in the house when I was in my 50s, one that entered puberty at the same time I hit menopause. Too bad we couldn't exchange hormones. I was destined to wait, though, to honor my earlier commitment to be childless when most women are happily pregnant in their 20s. My child needed me to be older for some reason. And it has filled my spirit beyond belief.

Today I am careful to respect her natural need to be an adult with a life set by boundaries between us. Painful, yes....but necessary for her. It thrills me when my phone rings each day and she chats me up about her day, all the good and the bad and the mundane. She listens to my advice. I know she does. Sometimes she even follows it. And she knows that I am always here for her. As the teenagers I once taught put it, "I have her back." She knows she can rely on me for whatever she needs, as much as I can provide it, without question. And if I can't provide it, I offer ways she can get it herself.

It is Mother's Day today. I've often said that being a mother has been the most delightful, rewarding role in my life.

But that's a lie, I have to admit.

The truth is that being the mother of this child is why I was brought into existence myself. It's that simple and that exquisite.

Do you need a writer? A workshop presenter? A trainer? You need ME! Visit http://www.deborahhansen.com/

Oh, sleep, knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.....

2011-05-05T08:10:00.003-04:00

The little things we enjoy in life transform themselves into epic events when we lose them.

Like sleep. I understand all about hormone imbalances that occur as we age, along with increased levels of stress over getting older in a society that offers no honor or value to the “elderly.” None of that matters, though, when my eyes pop open at 1 AM and I realize at 2 that I’m going to struggle with regaining that elusive state of sleep I fell out of without warning. Falling asleep is normal. Falling awake, and staying awake, when your eyes are still gritty and sore with exhaustion….that’s something else indeed.

At 3 I decide to read for a half hour and then try again. Nope. At 4 I decide I might as well get something done so I fold laundry or empty the dishwasher or some other mundane task that makes me sleepy during the day….but not in the tiny hours of the morning when I want that to be so. At 5, it’s almost time to get up anyway, so I just drop into my day and off I go. Of course, at 6 my eyes won’t stay open, and that’s the joke my body is playing on me. Not funny.

I’ve slept in my recliner, at the other end of the bed, on the floor, even outside on my patio. I’ve sampled enough herbal tea to float an ocean liner. I have tried over the counter sleep concoctions that make my heart pound and my body go on overdrive. I've soaked in my hot tub until sleep is just there within my reach, my consciousness drifting a bit in the heat....until I climb back into bed.

I started experiencing insomnia to various degrees in my 40s when I was still teaching. Try managing, much less teaching, a roomful of 13 year olds on 2 hours of sleep. Add to that the fact that my own child was born when I was 35 years old, so I was chasing a toddler around……as a divorced single parent. I get tired thinking about it now, coming up on 20 years later.

One would think that I would have fallen into bed at night and pass out. And some nights I did, I’m sure. But there were more and more occasions when I would wake up for no apparent reason and stay awake until it was time to start all over again. Talk about stress.

Today, my life has become purposefully less stressful. Some of the changes were the results of the natural progression of things: My daughter is an adult and on her own. Other changes were made to reconfigure my life into something more workable for me: I made the difficult decision to walk away from a tenured position as a teacher with benefits. I started my own business, still educating others in topics I think are critical. Most importantly, though, I am doing what I should have been doing since I was a young adult: I’m writing. The stresses (and there will always be some) are manageable and of my own choosing. That’s important. We can handle the difficulties in our lives when we feel we have control over them.

Physically, I’m probably in the best shape of my life. (Well, maybe not when I was 25, but I can hardly remember that far back so it doesn’t count.) I exercise often and strenuously, and I’m adding some new types of movement to my repertoire. Emotionally, I think I’m healthy, too. I love my life the way it is and I am better at expressing myself honestly to those who matter around me.

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can. (Cary Grant)

The trick is in occupying yourself the BEST you can, no matter your age. Perhaps, then, sleep can return as a "simple" thing in our lives.

Do you need a writer? You need ME! Visit http://www.deborahhansen.com/ for more information.

Dancing fool....

2011-05-01T08:34:00.000-04:00

I was nervous and edgy. I almost talked myself out of going. Here it was, my fourth month of “doing something I’ve never done before” and I was thinking of ditching it at the last minute. But, I pushed through those feelings and drove to the dance studio anyway.

My hands were sweaty as I walked into the chilled studio and I was glad to see there were only a few other people there. That had been my plan, after all, when I scheduled the lesson for the dead of an afternoon during the week. I arrived and watched a woman who obviously was a competitive dancer go through some intricate moves with a partner, while an older woman shuffled along with an instructor on the far side of the dance floor. And, yes, there was actually a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling, ready to cast its jeweled reflections over the room.

I took ballet and tap lessons when I was about 5. I still have the black and white photos to prove it, complete with the tutu and daisy headpiece sliding over one eye. But I had never taken any kind of ballroom or contemporary lessons, and had never had much occasion to dance anyway. (I did go to my senior prom on a blind date...that's a story for another day.....and for the life of me cannot remember dancing.) But inside my head, I was a fantastic dancer, gliding down the staircase on the set of “Dancing with the Stars” to wow the judges with a spicy rumba or tango. In the real world, though, my experiences have not quite matched my mental images. Not quite....

It had gotten so bad that I had taken to refusing to dance with the (few) men who asked me over the years. It was just too embarrassing to walk out onto the floor, not having any idea what was in store for me, and have the guy start gyrating his body, hands flapping around his head, eyes closed, while I stood there clueless about what I was supposed to do.

My father did teach me the two-step during the years that he and my mother were dancing their way through retirement. And I could follow someone who boxed-stepped me around the floor, and sometimes I would encounter someone who led me enough that I felt like I was “dancing.” But they were the exceptions. I usually stepped on a lot of toes and had mine routinely crushed. Or I stood there and watched the gyrations, anxious to sit down so people would stop looking at me. There might as well have been a large black arrow pointing at my head as The One Who Doesn’t Know How to Dance. At least, that's how I imagined it.

And here I was, ready to take my first real dance lesson. Imagine my surprise when it only took my instructor, James, 40 minutes to prove something to me: I CAN dance, just like I experience it in my head.

What is required is a partner who knows how to lead.

Before we were finished, I was waltzing around the entire mirrored dance floor, head tilted just right, music flowing around us, with only a misstep here and there on the turns. We cha-cha’ed, his hand on my back gently telling me where to go as I flowed into the steps he had shown me. We finished with the swing, something I had seen other couples do but thought it must be too complicated for me to learn. It wasn’t. But it was a lot of fun.

This year-long journey is proving many things to me. One is that we are never too old to walk to the edge of the cliff of a new experience and take a leap, even when we’re unsure of what awaits us at the bottom. It might take a little push to go over the side or maybe just someone who can gently lead us.

Thanks, James! I can’t wait for lesson number two next week.

Absolute Dance Studio/Jacksonville

Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health - it rusts your spirit and your hips. ~Terri Guillemets

Blubbering.....

2011-04-27T09:31:00.000-04:00

I surrender.

I toss in the towel, send up the white flag, bow my head in defeat. Pick the cliche you like the best, but I give up.

The layer of blubber that resides over my navel laughs and points at me every time I enter my gym, snickering as I do sit ups until the room starts to spin. I do so many sits up of various kinds (and there are many) that I can't stand up until I put my head between my legs for a few minutes. And the belly fat just hangs on, thrilled that I'm adding some hard muscle underneath its resting place, which only takes up more room in my clothes. Instead of my pant size going down, a logical assumption as I sweat at the gym four or five days a week, the waistbands are getting tighter. All that work mastering the stair machine only made it worse. I have a nice, firm butt and a muscled abdomen with a layer of feisty fat over it.

I Googled "Why can't I lose my belly fat?" this morning and found out that my sit ups are making things worse. It seems that I need to do some hard aerobic work. It even mentioned the age factor....that there isn't one. Darn. I dug out the class schedule for my gym, which was, of course, buried under a mound of paperwork on my desk.

So, I'm not giving in. I'm only giving up my resistance to organized exercise classes, the kind where everyone dances or cycles or steps together at designated times each week. I can choose from cycling, which I tried a month or so ago, and it taught me how not to fall off a bike that is nailed to the floor. Or I can try to the Zumba dance classes where everyone salsas to the beat and looks like they should have fruit on their heads a la Carmen Miranda. I've looked through the door at that one and they do seem to sweat a lot. (But no one has their head between their legs.) A new one is TRX where folks end up hanging from the ceiling on straps, doing push ups and other fun activities with the blood rushing to their heads. Not sure about that one. At all.

All of this goes against my personality as someone who makes her own way in everything from relationships to career to.......well, exercise. But, I'm nothing if not stubborn, and have committed to myself to try something different for a month. I'll work my body until sweat drips in my eyes, if I have to.

I will prevail. Or at least learn how to salsa.

A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.

St. Jerome

HOT CHICK, you said?

2011-04-21T08:57:00.000-04:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve been called a HOT CHICK.

And why would it matter to me, anyway? Aren’t I past all that?

Well, no. It seems not. I heard through a friend that those words were used by a stranger to describe me a few days ago when I had occasion to be in their workplace. My spirit was lifted for several hours. Well, maybe a little longer than that, if I’m being honest.

And to make it even better, the person who knows me told this stranger that the HOT CHICK is over 60, which didn’t seem to matter to either of them. I was still a HOT CHICK.

Which wasn’t the case a few years ago. My gym membership card had a thick layer of dust on the plastic cover, if I could find it at all. My closet had a dual personality, too. The larger sizes were in the front where the good light was, while the smaller ones cowered in the dark in the back. It was like two women lived in my house. And the smaller one didn’t appear to be coming back.

Full length mirrors had become my enemy. The pressure of my life pulled the corners of my mouth down into a perpetual grimace. I had weight everywhere, body and soul. No hot chick lived in my house, that’s for sure.

Then I attended a party one evening, a wonderful gathering with friends. One of them had a camera. Not only were photos taken, they were posted on Facebook. I truly didn’t recognize myself. How does that happen, our bodies taking one fork in the road, while our minds refuse to follow?

I had my butt kicked by a picture. It was that simple

And today, I’m a HOT CHICK. Forgive me as I gloat a bit.

If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people.

Jim Eason

Slumdog seniors....

2011-04-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

I went to a birthday party the other night. Actually, it was three birthday celebrations rolled into one. As we age, we have to multi-task more, not less, as you younger folks might think. The theory is, I guess, that there is less time left to us so we'd better make the most of it. Or something like that.

The party was for three men who are all within 5 or 6 years of each other, hovering in their low to mid-60s. We gathered at someone's home, BYOB in hand, and enough cash to contribute to a couple of pizzas. We also don't like to cook or do dishes once our kids are grown. Let them sweat in kitchens for their families. We're done. It explains the predominance of grey hair in restaurants between 4 and 6 PM. Also, Wheel of Fortune comes on at 7.

Naturally, the conversation meandered around the topic of age for a while. The usual jokes about increased forgetfulness (how many times can I lose my keys in a 24 hour span, anyway?) and stereotypical topics for "seniors," meaning us instead of high schoolers. I have found, by the way, that men are no less coy about their age than are women, just louder and more obscure in their smokescreens of deflection. Add up the years for men and then start subtracting levels of testosterone, I guess. The next step is to pull out all the little blue pill jokes, the ones that all OTHER guys have to use, never the teller of the joke. And WHY do the advertisements show a couple sitting in two different bathtubs, holding hands across the divide? No wonder they're having trouble connecting. Get in the same tub, folks, that might help! Sheesh.....

A woman will at least tell you flat out she isn't going to reveal her age, if it's important to her. In my case, I made the decision at age 61 that my hands were going to give me away anyway, so I might as well put it out there. I think I'm young in other ways, and I want women to see and hear what to expect as we head into our personal sunsets. Not that it's the same for everyone, but that's the point: Younger women need honesty from those of us who are a bit ahead of them on this path. We need to give each other as much information as possible, instead of ducking the digits on our personal calendars.

Oh, yes, how the rest of the conversation went at the birthday party the other night (see, I forgot what we were talking about). As we sat around the party pool watching the plastic shark with sunglasses ride the current, the topic quckly turned to filing for social security. Should you file as soon as you can or wait? If you wait, will it still be there at all? Will you? What to do, what to do.

Retire? Stop working? Do we even have such a choice any more? Medical care. The VA-style of care vs. private pay? This hospital or that one?

Somehow outhouses came up. Don't ask me how that happened. I truly don't know. Most people reading this right now have never seen an outhouse, much less used one. Portapotties are the closest thing matching an outhouse today, but they are CHOICES in most cases. Not so with the outhouses OUR grandparents used, and maybe a few of us depending on how far we grew up from an interstate highway. It was the outhouse or.....well, we don't want to take that thought any farther.

There was continued discussion about one hole houses or two (WHY would anyone want a two seater outhouse??), how often they were moved, the types of "toilet paper" that was used, and practical jokes with these quaint facilities, of course. (And, yes, Slumdog Millionaire did come up.) How does one "lock" an outhouse door? Did you have to paint the thing?

There were one or two others topics dicsussed that I won't even mention here. I wish they hadn't been mentioned then, either. Let's just say that we did not discuss the state of the nation or its budget, Japan and nuclear power plants, green cars, or anything else remotely topical, not even "paper or plastic." I'm amazed to recall that the weather never even came up, usually the number one thing on seniors' lists of critical information. I'd have even settled for that instead of the outhouses. As a result, I drank one too many beers to deaden the pain and then couldn't sleep later.

We did play a simple dice game, using quarters as booty, and I won both games. Couple that with this column, I don't think I'll have to worry about being invited back. Darn.....

Tug of war.....

2011-04-09T21:39:00.001-04:00

     Her voice was plaintive, worry dripping from her tone like sap oozing from a slow tap. This friend of mine, one I've known for over 15 years, is about 10 years younger than me. We've stayed in touch as she moved from our neighborhood to another across the river, and then on to Idaho and back. I'm the rooted one, remaining in one place now for over 20 years, the military brat finally at home.

     But the other day she was thinking there must be something physically wrong with her. "I just want to come home and enjoy my house after work. I don't want to go out. What's wrong with me?" she wondered aloud as we talked on the phone.

     I remember those feelings. I've already gone through my 50s, the decade that pulls from both sides, so I can fill her in and assure her that she is in a totally recognizable place. On one side, our 40s were a time of excitement, as we finally came into our own. Lots of activity as our kids grew up and left and our income had worked its way up a bit so we actually have some discretionary income. On the other side lie the 60s, a time of sheer relaxation outside of work commitments. I have become more introspective, pondering where I have been and what remains for me as I am half way through my 62nd year. Life no longer marches; it meanders.

     That tug from the 40s side of the timeline still has her in its grip, but the opposite magnetic pull as she approaches 60 is becoming equally strong, the one that lets it hair down and doesn't feel like it has to impress anyone with constant movement. She wants to come home to her beloved dogs, pour a glass of wine, and sink into her easy chair and be......easy. Quiet. Still. Much like I savor the freedom to do absolutely nothing if I choose. I don't allow anyone else's expectations of what my life should be like to cajole me into anything. Oh, that I had learned it much sooner.

     I assured her this tug of war with the competing years on either side is natural. The relief in her voice was palpable, I could hear it.

     So, I hope she breathed a sigh of relief, and then sipped a glass of wine as she watched the sunset paint in watercolor across the sky. I know I did.

Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett

Life ain't no country song.....

2011-04-05T10:17:00.000-04:00

I went through a period in my life when I believed country music songs, especially the ones twanging on about love. Lost love, found love, misplaced love, angry love, miraculous love, love that makes you want to rip your clothes off and ......well, whatever. I felt so left out. At one point, I would have even settled for lost love since you've got to have it first before you misplace it.

The surprising part of all this is that I did all this yearning not very long ago in the scheme of my life. I guess I was so busy working myself to death during the time my daughter was growing up that my dreams were filled with exhausted sleep instead of all those lyrics in love songs. I remember having nightmares about all my teeth falling out because any dental care in my house was going to my daughter's braces. I certainly wasn't dreaming about dancing half-naked in the sand with a tall, muscled man offering me a glass of champagne and a lifetime of being taken care of. Sigh......

But I went through a few years in my 40s and early 50s when I asked, Where the heck is that beach, anyway? If I could only find it, all would be well, right? Well, I won't go into details about how that image was finally laid to rest, but suffice it to say that I dug a huge hole when I was slapped silly back into reality and I buried the darn thing.

I guess the lesson here is that we each take our own paths through life. There isn't a one size fits all template about where, and when, love fits. All I know is that when my eyes start to glaze over these days, I turn the radio off.

To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone.

Reba McEntire

Me and the Z......

2011-03-30T14:53:00.001-04:00

Some loves burn bright and quick, flaring up and consuming everything in its path before there is nothing left but ashes. I had one of those once.

Others build over time, friendships slowly turning into familiarity touched with gentle intimacy. There was one of those for me once, too.

And then there is me and the Z. We comfort each other just by knowing we exist. We don't have to be together all the time, or even every day. Such neediness is never attractive.

I have wanted to own one of these cars since they first were introduced, probably 40 years ago. They were Datsuns then, and I almost had one once. It was black and sleek and purred in my ear. Life intervened, as it often does, and my chance slipped away. I see them on the road all the time, today's models still sleek, making a statement merely by being on the road. "I'm here, and always will be. People may be surprised at our relationship, me all sporty and hot, and you looking so conservative and.....sane."

Monday was the third installment of doing something I have never done before every month for a year. So, I drove a Z for the first time since that near miss years ago. I realize I'll probably never be able to own one, but we've had that experience now, together again. We were hot together, me and that gun metal gray Z.

Some may think it's silly to get enjoyment out of such a materialistic adventure, but hey.....this is MY year of enjoying life in a bit different way each month. Go get your own.

Nissan 360 Z

The scary guy...the one with the black hoodie and scythe.

2011-03-27T08:42:00.000-04:00

You knew I would get to it eventually, didn't you?

The topic that has built (and destroyed) kingdoms, both earthly and spiritual. The one that is sure to clear a room if you bring it up over cocktails, except Catholics who bring the wine right into the social hall along with the bingo cards. But they don't really want to talk about it, either, whether they're drinking or not. And especially not during bingo or a reverse draw, let's get our priorities straight here, OK?

I'm talking about the guy with the scythe who peers out at us from the depths of his hoodie, scaring the bejeezus out of folks. Well, some of us. There are people walking around who refuse....absolutely REFUSE.....to acknowledge his presence at all, so they dance through life ignoring the fact that in order to dance THROUGH life implies you come out the other end somewhere. Don't bother them with reality, it's messy and makes them hyperventilate or call you ugly names like infidel.

But I can handle it. That's one great thing about aging. We don't care what you think about us, a totally freeing experience with boundaries falling left and right. The ones about what is "polite" or "proper" or "I don't want to say that because they may not let me in." Wherever "in" is, I'm not interested any more, so here goes.

I read somewhere that John Lennon felt that death was kind of like getting in a taxi and then getting out the other side at the end of your trip. I think he was saying that the trip doesn't end just because you got out the other door. You'll still be SOMEWHERE, it just may not be where you expected to be or where you can even imagine (pun intended for Lennon fans). And it may be a bit strange at first, kind of like going to Albania. I don't understand Albanian (and like most Americans, I don't understand much of any other language at all, so it wouldn't really matter where the taxi stopped, would it?), the customs will probably look a little weird, and it might take some time getting used to the food. Or the fact that all portions aren't SUPERSIZED.......I'm going to starve here in this crazy place! But, if we open ourselves up to new possibilities, we can learn a new way of seeing and being. I promise.

Energy never dissipates, and the essence of who we are is made of energy. Just try following a two year old at the mall or a bunch of texting teenagers. So, I believe that the energy that is me (and you can call it "soul" if you like) will continue when this body eventually screams "I GIVE! I'M DONE!"

Where that will be is the mystery. And millions of people simply cannot handle the not knowing. Some evade, they hide, they get ugly when you aren't afraid of it yourself or want to take a different taxi than they do.

But I'm OK with the whole thing. I know my ride is getting closer every day and I also know that I will exit that taxi somewhere. And wouldn't it be great if John was there to help me step out on the other side? Imagine that.

“For death begins with life's first breath. And life begins at touch of death.”

John Oxenham

For sale: Mountain property in Florida.....MUST SEE!

2011-03-18T21:59:00.001-04:00

Getting older allows us to act younger, maybe even childish. And we can do it knowing that we will be given tacit permission by the world: "Well, you know she's a senior citizen, after all," tsk, tsk, rolled eyes and slightly raised eyebrows. Maybe they even reach over and pat my hand.

All the while, we are acting out what they all wish they could. We have experienced the swing of the pendulum from one extreme to the other dozens of time, with the result that we know if we wait long enough, all the things that are bad for us will eventually regain their solid footing and be good for us again. So, we begin to ignore the latest studies, the most current edicts "they" engineer for the public. We learn to carry on, vowing that no university or research facility can ever dupe us again. Like chilren we ignore those in "authority."

We have also seen the arc of that same pendulum get stuck, a result of society's brokenness at times. Those who follow this column know how I feel about the upcoming elections in my city. (http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/03/beast-breathes.html) Over the decades I have moved from being an impassioned participant in the democratic process to being a jaded nonbeliever in that same process. I believe that the political machine, fueled by huge amounts of money, consumes anyone "lucky" enough to run for and win elected office. Candidates routinely lie, evade, deceive, and engage in vicious politicking, all of them desperate to win the keys to the kingdom of power and greed. If you actually believe either party holds the answers to our many ills, I have some mountain property in Florida to sell you. Come on over and take a look.

I value our freedom to vote, though. So I signed in the other day at one of the early voting sites, and was pointed toward a voting booth. Instead I made straight for the ballot box. The nice poll worker there thought I had misunderstood.

"No," I said. "No one on this ballot deserves my vote." And I slid the ballot into the box. "But I showed up."

Illegal political signs outside polling place, Jacksonville, Florida

You may call that foolish....maybe even childish. I call it acting on years of experience and really not having to care what anybody thinks any longer.

Body blows....and no necks

2011-03-13T14:27:00.000-04:00

I used to have a neck. When I was in college, admittedly a long time ago, I sported lots of turtlenecks. Even then, my neck still had a bit of skin showing above the folded turtle, if that’s what it's called.

A few years ago, I began to notice that same fold was pushed up against my jaw, making me squirm with the touch of claustrophobia that runs in my family. But mine seems to be completely gone now.

I now wear lower necklines, if only to breathe easily.

My massage therapist spent 15 minutes yesterday stretching my neck muscles. Not a pleasant experience, as it turns out. I know all about bone loss in the spine and realize that most of us do begin to lose a few inches as we age. That’s one of the reasons I’m so faithful about my weight-bearing exercises at the gym. But I think there is more to this neck shrinking issue for me, and maybe for lots of other women, especially.

We’re waiting for the next blow to hit.

I was divorced when my daughter was barely four, and for the next fifteen years, the two of us made our way alone. I taught school during the day, worked the counter at a dry cleaner after that job, and then tutored kids after that one. If something broke in my house, it either stayed broken or I had to find someone to fix it for free. And there aren’t a lot of handy people in our family. I drive cars until the wheels fall off, sometimes literally.

If I ran out of money before my next paycheck, well, too bad. There was no one at home to pick up the slack and write a check to cover the bills or buy food. When the school district I worked for “forgot” to tell me until May that I wouldn’t be paid over the summer due to some bureaucratic snafu, oh, well, suck it up and work two more jobs to keep the lights on and the roof over our heads. You do what you gotta do.

When a hobby shop refused to refund $20 hard earned dollars for a duplicate birthday present for my daughter, I had to pitch such a fit in the store they threatened to call the cops. But I NEEDED that $20, and I didn’t care that the darn box had gotten thrown away. (Not one of my finer moments, I admit.)

No one at home to help me, no one there to pat me on the back and console me. And every time something happened, I felt my shoulders hunch up near my ears, waiting for the next body blow to hit. I might as well have put my arms up to protect my head…it was such a visceral reaction.

And I don’t think I am unusual. There are many women, and dads, too, who literally have to fight their way through life. There are millions of other people warding off body blows now as the economy beats us all up, with threats of losing our homes and transportation, food and gasoline prices skyrocketing out of sight.

I'm 62 years old and still have to worry about just holding on to what I have. My work could disappear at any moment, poof! I have enough to last maybe two months without work. Retirement? Are you kidding me?

No wonder we have no necks.

The beast breathes.....

2011-03-07T07:30:00.001-05:00

I used to teach my students that their reality was not automatically anyone else's. Our movement through life is curiously individual, and to assume that everyone makes exactly the same imprint on life's magnificent soul is a dangerous one. Human, perhaps, but dangerous nonetheless.

As the years spiral by for me, something strange has made itself clear to me. Maybe only to me, I don't know; you'll have to tell me what you think.

Elections are coming up here in our area and maybe yours, too. Glossy political flyers stuff my mailbox, my phone rings at odd hours accompanied by disembodied robotic voices extolling the virtues of one candidate or another, illegal political signs litter the roads. (Why would I vote for someone who breaks the law to get my vote?) On election day, people will be holding those illegal signs at every intersection, waving at me when I should be concentrating on the oncoming traffic, most of whom don't know how to turn properly, thus endangering everyone else. But I digress....

And my reality has come to tell me that none of it will make any difference in the scheme of the huge problems we face as a country and even as a society that seems bent on self-destruction. The campaign madness, the voting day hysteria spewed out by the media, the platforms of any of the candidates. None of it will make a whit of difference in what happens AFTER the election. Because once an organization, including a country and its bureaucracy, attains a certain gargantuan size, it becomes a moving, breathing machine of its own, with only one goal: To survive with all its machinations intact. It breathes like a beast with a mind of its own and it simply will not be contained. It apparently can't be contained.

I have seen this play out in numerous scenarios during my lifetime. And I don't think it will change based on my vote or yours. Or theirs, either. I can't explain how this happens, since the machine was created by us and it is maintained by us. But at some point in building organizations of any kind, size begins to matter. A lot. And the beast soon takes its first unassisted breath. When that happens, any attempt to change it by sending different people into the cage is futile. No matter how empassioned they appear during their campaigns, or what their so-called "party," these (perhaps) good-hearted folks are eaten alive by the beast. They become sustenance instead of masters of change as they promised. As maybe they really believed they could be.

As I taught my students, I cannot assume this reality is anyone else's. However, based on what has happened in this country alone during my lifetime, I have seen nothing to alter this reality for me.

A spinning virgin no more....

2011-03-01T08:09:00.002-05:00

I don't sweat.

A friend and I went to a gym together once and after about two minutes on the treadmill, she had sweat dripping in her eyes. Thirty minutes later I was still dry as a bone. Go figure.

Until yesterday. As the second installment of "doing things I've never done before" I signed up for a spinning class at my gym. A stationary bike in a separate room of the facility among about 50 others that go nowhere. Maybe it's the fact that these folks go into a room all their own and turn out the lights that has intimidated me a bit. I'm not sure, but in any case I've been a bit hesitant about sticking my head in to find out what the heck they're doing in there, much less joining them. I'm more comfortable doing my exercise routine alone, out in the main, well-lit room where no one can sneak up on me in the dark.

But I conquered my fear and did it yesterday as a celebration of ME, like I told you I would every month for one year. Yesterday was installment #2. (For my first adventure, see http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/01/have-you-hookahed.html)

I arrived early so I could make sure no gremlins hid in the corners when all the lights WERE on in the room, chose a bike, and hopped on as others dribbled in over the next 15 minutes or so. All ages, I noticed, but I also noted that none was extremely overweight. (I now know why.) These folks came in, chose a bike and adjusted the seat, the handlebars, chatted with one another, and then jumped on and slowly started pedaling. I guessed they were warming up, so I pedaled along with them. I've never been much of a chatterer with people I don't know, but maybe that will come if I spin with this group more often. I have heard shouting come from this room, too, once the lights go out, but I guessed I'd discover why soon. I would love to be that uninhibited around strangers, much like I'd love to be able to dance somewhere other than in my head. Maybe that can be another month's journey.

The instructor arrived, fiddled with all the sound equipment at the front, put on a headband (yes, she did), and then shouted out, "Is anyone here for the first time? Anyone need help?" I'm not keen on having attention called to me, especially with about 100 eyes in the room, and no one else was raising their hand, either. So, I just kept slowly spinning away on my bike, head ducked in hope that no one would identify me as the lone "spinning virgin." She jumped on her bike, someone turned out the overhead lights, and suddenly all the white shirts and reflective materials on shoes glowed in the dark. I felt like I was back in college, with lava lamps and eerie lips glowing in black light splendor, Jimi Hendrix music throbbing in the dark, and other things going on we don't even want to discuss.

But she cranked up what sounded to me like current dance tracks (not waltzing, folks, get with the times here), and started shouting out instructions everyone understood but me. "Up to 2! About a minute, stay with me!" "Go to 3! Hold it there!" Everyone was up on their feet, pedaling to the music, up, down, up again, sit (today my butt is sore in places I don't even want to consider,) drinking water while the music slows down for a whole 3 seconds, then they're all up again, cycling to nowhere as they increase the tension on the bike when she yells "One turn to the right, folks!" The music never stopped.

This non-sweating person was sweating within about 5 minutes. Yes, dripping in my eyes sweat.

After the second song I was just hoping not to fall off the bike and embarrass myself. I was told the class lasted 45 minutes, but I couldn't see the clock at the front of the room once we started. All I know is that I don't like to be conquered by anything, ever. This pesky trait has caused me great distress in life, and I realized this might be one of those times. But, I would not give up.

In fairness to the instructor and the gym folks, they did emphasize that we should take this at our own pace. We should slow down or even stop when we felt the need, no matter what everyone else was doing. I adjusted, I slowed, I DID NOT stop, and soon I began to get into a rhythm. I was able to stand up and pedal for longer periods of time (we're talking longer SECONDS at a time), then I had to sit down and focus on my breathing until I was ready to follow the instructions again. But I still couldn't see the clock.

I started estimating how many songs had played and about how long each lasted. My calculations added up to nearly 40 minutes, give or take a missed song or two. Several other people had gathered their things and left already, which was a great comfort to me. (If I DID leave, I wouldn't be the first!) Finally, I couldn't stand not knowing any longer, so I hopped off the bike and peered around about 10 people between me and the clock.

I had been pedaling for 51 minutes.

I didn't fall off, and I didn't embarrass myself. I loved the music. And I might just do it again!

You can't go through life quitting everything. If you're going to achieve anything, you've got to stick with something. ~From the television show Family Matters

Mind toots.....

2011-02-27T08:29:00.000-05:00

Which will go first: My mind or my body?

My morning sittin' spot offered no clues to this question. In fact, it only complicated things as I remembered (there's the mind thing) that tomorrow is the 28th of the month. My "do something I've never done before" day, the self-imposed Year of Renewal I shared with all of you a couple of months ago. Wish I hadn't done that.

Two weeks ago I was all set to go rock climbing at one of those indoor adventure places tomorrow, where I could belay up a beginner's wall. Well, actually, the machinery would belay me up. From what I understand there wasn't much I would need to do, just hang there all clipped in, sticking a toe here and there to make it look like I was climbing that rock. A perfect photo op, and I could post the pictures on Facebook and everything. I'm sure the helmet is spiffy, too.

So what happened out there by my little fire in the rising dew this morning? The best way I can describe it is that my mind is tooting. Not my body. My mind.

Follow me here: Tomorrow I have to teach a class of 4th and 5th grade peer mediators in the morning. It's only an hour but travel time is another hour and the actual teaching time is intense. Once I get back to my office, I have a writing assignment to complete, one that is giving me a bit of a problem. All of this is mind stuff, right? My body just follows along, following the mind's instructions: "Hey! Over here! Next stop!"

By the time all of that is done, my mind begins grumbling about being overworked, where's the union when you need it, mumbling, groaning, looking for a soft spot to land, maybe with a beer in hand. Sigh.....

You want to do WHAT? Get up out of this chair, drive across town, and climb a wall? Are you kidding me, woman?

My body retorts, "I haven't had any fun today, bucko....you controlling *&%^*! It's time to get movin' here, achy bones and all. It's good for you! GET UP!"

I'll let you know who wins tomorrow.

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Jack Benny

Valentine's Day reviewed.....

2011-02-21T11:09:00.000-05:00

I chose to wait a week or so to review Valentines Day, figuring most of you would be addled with an overdose of chocolate, delectable food, and wine. Hopefully you can focus again, now that it has all leached from your system.

For newer readers, a reminder: I'm a 62-year old professional, single woman, trying desperately to make sense of my life. I don't really know how I got here, either. Thus, I write about it, and take you along with me. Maybe it will help all of us, who knows.

Over the years, I've enjoyed some very traditional Valentine's Day celebrations with "the man in my life" at the time. Hearts, candy, beautiful cards, dinners over candlelight, the complete package. However, I also lived alone for long stretches of time, raising my daughter and attempting to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. February 14th during those times was often marked with cards that we gave each other before we rushed out the door to daycare or basketball practice or one of my multiple jobs. And a jab of regret that I was alone.

And I'm alone again. My daughter is even grown now, celebrating with her own Valentine.

Last year I still longed for the red hearts and other flotsam of Valentine's Day, specifically from A MAN. Someone pledging his undying love, just for me. Without it, the day was empty and incredibly sad. At those times, all you can see is what everyone seems to have, except you. Hearts can literally break into pieces, I learned first hand, jagged edges scraping your soul raw with pain.

It was different for me this year, though. At some point over the past year, I had a chat with myself. I reflected on the love I've given and received over the years, some of it with great passion, all of it a gift in itself. There are people walking around who have never experienced great love, have never had any red hearts shared with them at all. I have also come to accept me, the person who looks back at me in the mirror in the morning, bedhead, puffy eyes and all.

So, what did I do this year? I made sure, in concrete ways, that important people in my life know they are loved, no matter how far away they are. As I worked that day, I reflected on my many accomplishments, my past relationships, all of them hard won and teachers in themselves. My 85-year old mother lives with me now, her Valentine of nearly 70 years recently gone. Her first year without him. I can't even imagine.

We had a wonderful, candlelit dinner anyway, complete with delectable food and drink. We celebrated with crimson hearts and silky ribbons, mouth-watering candy, and fragrant flowers. There was no sibilant whisper lurking in the shadows, attemping to convince me that I am somehow not enough.

And I had no regret.

Rules be damned....

2011-02-17T08:13:00.000-05:00

It took me a long time to get to this point. Decades, in fact.

I grew up in a military family. Rules were king. Authority was to be followed. Period.

Questioning authority and rules, or convention of any kind, was taboo in my house. And then I discovered that the edges of rules could be pushed outward, and if done with a smile and good grace, those edges didn't crack. Convention can be questioned, if for no other reason than to learn why something is done one way when it no longer makes any sense to do so.

My predicament is that I come into contact with a lot of children. I stand in front of them and teach them things like how to get your best friend to stop gossiping about you in the locker room without simply punching her out. Or how to get adults to JUST LISTEN to you. (That's a tough one when so many parents and teachers act like they don't even LIKE kids. Go figure....) So, it's a very thin line between respecting the rules, understanding that some of them are rigid, yet knowing how to stretch the rest of them with good judgment.

But as I matured into my own skin I learned how to do it. I discovered how to speak up. And I began to tap on the sides of the rule and other precepts, all with a smile. I discovered that I didn't have to actually BREAK it; I sometimes could simply ask for what I wanted. Imagine my surprise when I learned that most people are more than willing to oblige me.

My 85-year old mother looks at me with horror when I do this in public. She has spent her entire life following the rules, and then I break out with a "But I would rather have it THIS way" statement in a business or other public venue. "It's not on the menu but I would like......" totally flumoxed her in a fine dining establishment one evening. Such simple requests. So easy to do, especially after experiencing success a few times.

It can't be a bad thing to teach kids, can it? I've done it with my own daughter since she was old enough to understand that Mom isn't really crazy. And my reward has come as I see her speak up for what she wants, rule be damned. We don't always get what we want but we are heard. Such things have changed the world, haven't they?

"The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives."

Anthony Robbins

Gracefully gliding....

2011-02-12T08:38:00.000-05:00

I refuse to shuffle. I just do.

No matter that when I get up in the morning my feet want to stick to the floor. They don't cooperate as I make my way in the gloom of morning to my first cup of coffee, the luscious smell teasing me out of my stupor.

A friend of mine mentioned this last year. I don't even remember what we were talking about, when she suddenly inserted, "I shuffle in the morning!" And she's ten years younger than me. Oh oh....

Is this something that happens to everyone? Watch older people in public sometime. Don't they kind of slide across the floor, looking like they might totter over if they dare to pick up their feet, even just a tad? Maybe they're so cautious about falling they figure if they don't actually lift their feet off the ground they can't fall. Not possible if they don't really walk.

We should come up with a new name for it. The senior shamble. Geriatric gait. The rusty ramble.

Once I get going in the morning, my feet work the way they're supposed to. My fear is that I won't even know it when the shuffle lasts well into the day.

Oh, I know! I'll glide........

I am not feeling any better because I cannot stay in bed, having constant cause for walking.

Camille Claudell

Listening to the voices in my head....

2011-02-06T12:45:00.001-05:00

The voices have gotten louder as I've gotten older. You know, the ones that whisper into our ears, hissing instructions like, "Oh, that doesn't look like a good decision, that one there you have your mind cemented around, maybe you should rethink it, YESSSSSS," reminiscent of a mother's voice guiding, advising, counseling....meddling.

There are times now when I am literally stopped in mid-step by such a voice, and I've learned that I'd better pay attention to that inner counsel. I realize now if I given it more consideration over the years, just a tiny bit, it would have prevented me from taking some unfortunate paths, paths that hurt me as well as other unsuspecting people along the way.

Like saying "yes" to a marriage proposal in a casino. What was I thinking? I seemed to believe at the time that I might not get another offer, so I pushed that voice down hard. Smashed it to bits and stowed it in my suitcase in a hotel room in Reno. It kept trying to crawl out, gasping as it tried desperately to grab my attention again. "Hey! Over here! LISTEN to me!" But I was intent on ignoring it, and did, and lived to regret it.

Or even my course of study in college. I went off to Tallahassee a budding, anxious novelist who wanted nothing more than to write forever, even if I did have wrong-headed visions of what writers did, creating mythical worlds in attic eaves and reaping a fortune in the process. Somehow, I veered off that path into the world of French, until I thought, dreamt, and read fluently in French. But couldn't speak a word out loud or write my novels in the language. Withdrawn, socially inept me, unable to make a mistake in front of others, because they MIGHT NOT LIKE ME. That inner voice knew all of that, tried to warn me, but I turned away, until I changed my major...to education, teaching kids history and geography. Literature, you thought? Not even then. The inner counsel lost out again. After all, I could always get a job teaching, right, so best to do something safe. Boring. Until nearly 40 years had gone by, so many years wasted not doing what I love.

Or the time I got in a car with a driver who was a novice to the Colorado roads, especially the one-lane, gravel track along the side of a mountain with a sheer drop off on one side. The voice insisted that I might want to get out before he started up that mountain, but I didn't want to appear silly, now did I? Soon, all I could see out the back window was....nothing. Space, open air, between me and the ground down there....way down there. Luckily, and probably only through luck, we made it down in one piece. But things could have turned out quite differently, just like the voice had been warning.

I took a job a few years ago, one that I wanted in order to escape from another bad work situation, and I knew as soon as I walked into the second interview that something was not right. I could feel it. I knew and admired the supervisor, and thought we would work well together. But my inner voice was frantic, insisting that I wait a while longer for a job, an untainted one, to come along. I didn't listen. I succumbed to expediency, the immediate need for relief from another uncomfortable spot. And the whole situation turned out to be so wrong. Just like I had been warned.

How many times a day does a voice whisper in your ear? Do you listen to it or do you tamp it down due to society's expectations, your family's desires for you (or for them), or just because you don't want people to think you're crazy?

Act crazy. Do what you love instead of what everyone else loves for you. And listen to that tiny, or sometimes very loud, cry in your soul that is trying to guide you. I now take different roads if something inside is telling me to take a detour and I avoid some people for no reason other than that inner sense telling me that it will turn out badly.

The voices are getting louder all the time. And I'm spending more time listening.

“Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.”

Michael Burke

Trains running us down.....

2011-02-02T12:34:00.001-05:00

Remember when we were in school and we had to learn to read timelines in some really interesting class, like history or geography? Time meanders along that line from left to right, the years and centuries passing easily, no bloodshed or angst along the way. Just like real life, right?

Oh, I don't think so. Hold up there a minute, OK? Our perspective changes daily anyway, but as we age we find that we're viewing our personal timelines from right to left, looking back along that line of bad decisions, joyous occasions, and just plain stupidity that have played out in our lives. The individual events on our personal timelines are different, of course, but I bet most of us over the age of 50 can look back along our histories and pinpoint places where we wish we had exercised a bit of good judgment or intelligence instead of...well, what we did.

I've become so aware of this, especially as my daughter matures and makes her own way. We see our kids headed like trains toward a stop on their timeline that looks a lot like ours did, and we want to throw ourselves on the tracks, stopping that engine any way we can in order to save them the heartbreak and trouble we experienced. We might have even tried once or twice, and sometimes they listen. More often not, though.

There is this human learning curve that seems to dictate that we tote around our own timelines, absolutely sure that WE won't fall into that trap, you know, the one that older people warned us about? Get out of the way, Mom, I love you but you didn't know what you were doing. THAT won't happen to ME, so thanks, but I'm staying on this track and I'll call you when I get there.

Unfortunately, THERE usually ends up looking exactly like a station I got stuck in once, too. And when they call, they need help to get the heck out of there. The locomotive ran them over and chugged on ahead without them.

In our culture, older people are not seen as having anything worthwhile to add to our lives. They're used up and worn out, sitting in corners, tolerated, or worse yet, ignored. When they talk, we nod and smile and discount them.

You notice I'm suddenly including myself in the WE. Because we were no different, were we? We refused to accept that someone else, and certainly not an aging parent or mentor, might have been able to save us from hurt and pain and expense. Intelligence skipped your generation, Dad, so thanks but I'll be on my way.

Until our perspective shifts to viewing that timeline from the far end of the darn thing, backwards through time already passed. Then, we find ourselves beginning a lot of sentences with, "If only I'd listened........" And the train moves on down the tracks.

I never expected that. I didn't aim for that. All I wanted was to get some nice pictures of trains at night.

O. Winston Link

Have you hookahed?

2011-01-29T12:11:00.001-05:00

The place filled quickly, smoke hanging in the air from the hookahs sitting on the floor next to nearly every table. Sweetness instead of stench, that's one thing I noticed about this smoke, the thing that made it tolerable to even be there. We ate stuffed grape leaves and meat pies while a belly dancer, no wait, an EXOTIC belly dancer according to the menu, shimmered and shimmied around us accompanied by strange, unusual, wonderful music. And something I had never done before.

That was the point, the first of my 12 adventures into the unknown in 2011. For new readers of this blog, I learned of this oral tradition out of the Pyrennes from a book I'm reading called The Second Half of Life by Angeles Arrien. The point is to reivigorate as we age instead of getting old, stagnating, dying to life before our lives even end.

Here's what I learned leading up to the evening at the hookah lounge: It IS hard to find new things to put on my calendar. But that requires mental effort, one of the very points of this exercise. And it demands that I get out of the house! I love my home, where I am enveloped in softness and music and flowers, so I tend to get stuck there, not wanting to leave it for much of anything. Getting OLD.

I also enjoyed anticipating something again, a feeling that has become foreign, remote, as I've aged. It's why time flies for us, whirling faster and faster as the years tick by for us. I remember what it was like waiting for Santa to come when I was a kid. Would the weeks NEVER pass, I thought as I stood in front of the calendar, tapping my foot impatiently, waiting and waiting for the days to disappear? This week I revisited a bit of that joyous anticipation.

Next month....rock climbing?

The second half of life is the ultimate initiation.

Angeles Arrien

Cosmic comics at work....

2011-01-25T08:06:00.000-05:00

The cosmic comics play their little jokes with great glee, I'm sure. I can just see them now. They sneak up on us as we get older and then, with much mischief, kick sand in our faces as we try our best to keep up with our lives. Then, little devils that they are, they scamper away and hide behind corners, giggling, as they watch us wipe the grit from our eyes.

There's a Greek word, a-kedos, that means sour. And that's what seems to happen as we age, isn't it? Boredom and apathy set in if we're not careful, which manifests itself as "crotchity." You know.....the old man or woman who gripes and grouses about everything, beginning most sentences with some form of "When I was young....." Sometimes they even use words like "whippersnapper," or "wood shed" as everyone smiles politely and moves one foot closer to the door. Accepting all these new fangled communication devices, for example, is just not going to happen. Acedia sets in, the lack of energy to even look at new things, much less use the darn things. Maybe this is why, as a society, we shun our seniors instead of learning from their experiences. They don't make it easy, with all the complaining and grumbling.

But, what I've learned with my own aging is that my desire is tempered by a physical lack of energy. Yes, I know, I know. I can generate more energy by just moving. (See http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/01/jiggles-and-wobbles.html). I get that. It's that cosmic comic playing tricks on me, though, the one who teases me with a world with much still to be experienced while I am struggling with less energy to get there.

I work hard at bodyslamming that trickster out of my way, but it's still hard work. I know that stagnation and stasis are creators of crotchity, though, and I refuse to have sand thrown in my face. You know, the sour old lady with no goals, no dreams, and no future. AGED does not have to mean OLD.

Two days from now is the 28th, my birth date, and I vowed to experience something new each month on that date during 2011. Acedia won't catch me laying on the beach (although that does sound good, doesn't it?) instead of seeking out new ways to live life to the very end.

Wonder what I'll find to do?

And then the knowledge comes to me that I have space within me for a second, timeless, larger life.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Jiggles and wobbles....

2011-01-21T11:40:00.001-05:00

I exercise. A lot. This isn't something new to me, either. I think I started when I was in my 20s and lived in Denver, at least that's my recollection. (I do remember living in Denver...I'm not THAT far gone yet.) I do think that's when I started going to a gym nearly every day, though.

They had a jacuzzi and a steam room, which are wonderful things to have access to when you live in a really cold climate, I can tell you that. So much so that I eventually bought my own hot tub, which now sits on my screened-in porch. My favorite time to get in that bubbly, steaming water is when it's as cold as it's going to get here in Florida, a throwback to my days in the Rockies. In any case, it's a great treat after a work out.

But to get back to the exercise thing. Someone gives me a workout routine and I go through the paces about 4 times a week amidst other really sweaty people, all trying not to get caught watching one another. I have attacked and mastered that torture machine that makes you climb steps until you know you MUST have reached heaven by the time it stops. I have worked up to over 150 sit-ups in various contortions, can lift more weight than any 62-year old woman has a right to lift, and my arms are toned and buff to prove it (even though the chicken skin thing spoils the buffness a bit). The whole thing has become an addiction for me, not that I'm complaining. There are far worse things I could be addicted to by this time. Believe me.

So, could someone please tell me why my thighs still jiggle and ripple with....well, whatever makes them jiggle and ripple? I don't overeat, either, so don't even go there. (I changed doctors once over a remark about "pushing back from the table" without even asking about my diet. He just assumed I must be eating too much, the idiot with one less patient now.)

Ask anyone who knows me. I don't eat a lot! And I follow the program of a leading weight management company, one that helped me lose 30 pounds two years ago....and 4 years ago...and 6 years ago. That peskly 30 pounds that started tracking me down shortly after I turned 40 and is determined to hang out on my hips and thighs.

It's gone now, though, and I continue to work out. So, what it is about aging that insists on defying the torture we put our bodies through? Here I am with great arms, shoulders, and back...ripped, even....with this jello on my belly and thighs. Am I doomed to wobble on the bottom?

Well, I'll go to the gym and think about it as I climb those stairs....forever.

Where will you wake up today?

2011-01-17T10:47:00.002-05:00

Getting "older" in our society isn't all bad. Really. There are some great insights that come with age, especially if we are paying attention to our lives.

Let's see....

A few years ago I looked around and decided that what I was doing for a living probably wasn't making much difference to the teenagers I was teaching. In fact, I wasn't sure I WAS teaching most days, considering the silliness that those in power have decided to insert into education. And for a teacher to face herself in the mirror and grapple with that demon is heart wrenching.

I had no one at home who could pat me on the back and say, "Honey, if you want to quit and take some time to find something else, it will be OK. I'll take care of everything for us." And since teaching was my second career, I didn't have enough years to walk away with those great retirement benefits many folks hold out for as they spend every waking minute counting the minutes until their company gives them a party and waves good-bye.

I own a small house, a car, I need to eat and stay warm/cool depending on the season. I'm a basic kind of person, but the basics sure do feel good, don't they?

When I was younger, I would not have had the courage to walk out the door of that school with no benefits, no salary, and no back-up person at home to carry the slack. When I was younger, my self-image was so weak that I couldn't handle anyone thinking I was a bit crazy for taking an action that had so many negatives. But I did it at age 55, and the feeling of strength in myself was incredible. I walked out without any job and I went home to regroup. I did get advice from someone important to me on a way to provide some income until I found out what I wanted to do when I grew up. ( Houses provide more than a roof when some extra cash is needed, I learned.)

I think that comes with age for many of us. Especially women, perhaps. (I can't speak for men and won't even try. We'll go there another day, I promise.) We have enough experience at life to know our limits and those limits grow as we age. Today I am self-employed, doing what I love, and make a living for myself in the midst of the worse recession in years.

There are other things, of course. I now dare to leave the house without make-up and sometimes my socks don't match. I've taught my daughter if someone judges us on those kinds of things, that person needs to get a life. I've also taught her to trust herself a bit more than I ever did at her age, and to take chances sometimes. Doing what everyone else thinks you should do should be of no concern to you. Listen to advice, yes. Then chart your course, call forth your reserves of strength, and follow the yearnings of your heart.

The only life you have is the one you woke up with today. Age has taught me to cherish the days I have left and I vow to follow my own advice.

.

Losing it.....

2011-01-14T10:37:00.000-05:00

Hair and music. I'll wait.

OK....do you give up? I admit the connection isn't apparent. In fact, maybe there isn't any relationship at all, it's just that both things have been on my mind this week.

Getting older does that to you, it seems. Kind of like, you think of something you need to retrieve from another room, but when you get there you can't remember why you're there, standing in the middle of the room muttering to yourself. I drive a lot for my work, and have suddenly found myself (and it often DOES feel like I've been found when this happens) "waking up" on a major road wondering WHERE THE HECK AM I GOING?? Not, oh, I forgot how to get there....I don't even remember where I was headed to begin with.

That has to be dangerous. (Note to DMV....I drive very carefully wherever it is that I'm headed. Honest.)

And whatever you do, don't interrupt me in the middle of a sentence. Break that chain of thought and it might be GONE. To be honest, as I've gotten older I sometimes lose that tenuous tether to my ideation without any interruption when I'm talking...the next thought simply floats away, out of reach, playing tag with my sanity. At least that's how it feels. My brain just leaks things out before I can finish with them. I hate it when that happens. Especially in a business meeting and I'm the one talking. Not impressive.

Oh....hair and music. I got sidetracked again, didn't I? (No, I did NOT forget what I was saying!) Hair grows where you don't want it and never HAD hair before, and stops growing where it's always been at home before. And have all restaurants conspired to drive us insane with the volume of the music in their establishments? Shouldn't the goal be to keep customers in the place as long as possible, spending money so your employees can keep their jobs? Why are you driving us out the door to find a place where......

What was I saying?

What were we talking about?

2011-01-09T16:15:00.001-05:00

The weather.

Doctor's visits, complete with an itemized description of all medications.

The weather.

Surgeries. Often accompanied by unveiling of the incision(s).

The weather.

Oh, my. The topics of conversation around me are dwindling, it seems. Maybe it has something to do with that shrinking experience thing we talked about before. As many people move along the time continuum, their activities shrink as their age grows. Just think about all the events you have attended in your own lifetime, events that you will never experience for the first time again. It takes dedicated thought and intention to keep finding new things to do (see http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2010/12/time-passeswith-or-without-you.html), something that is just too much work for lots of people.

The result? Many people talk about the two things they DO see on a regular basis: The weather, which is always new no matter how many days we hang around, and all the strange goings-on in/on their bodies. And it doesn't seem to occur to them that maybe we don't want to hear the minutia of their body's gurgling, itching, or groaning.

Upon being asked how my day was recently, I talked about the topic I am currently researching for a writing project, going to the gym to work out, and then running errands before going home for the day. Without responding to anything I just said, the "listener" responded with, "They say it's supposed to be foggy in the morning."

Foggy? What part of my response referred to, or even HINTED, at the weather? Somebody please tell me. Am I missing something here? (And I'm still trying to find out who THEY are, because THEY are always wrong anyway.) And how was I to answer that without sounding snippy, anyway? "Uh, OK. Foggy. So what?" What I actually said, nice person that I am, was, "Uh, OK. I haven't seen any fog here today." And just like that, I become part of the problem.

I've given my daughter license to slap me silly if I start wandering along this path, lost in the murkiness of boring everyone with a commentary about rain, sleet or snow and what medications make me gassy or incoherent. She assures me she stands ready to assist.

Now, what we were talking about?

Dealing the cards and moving on...

2011-01-04T11:33:00.001-05:00

I've been avoiding this topic. It is a landmine, one that I have stepped in several times myself, and have recently decided to tiptoe around. Meaning avoid at all costs.

Relationships as an "older" woman.......I'm sitting here with my fingers on the keyboard and can't even finish that sentence. Someone told a group recently that he had been married for 25 years. If you add them all together. Me, too.

I won't go into the 40+ years of my relationship history, because that's not my point here. The landmine I'm tippy toeing around at 62 is dating. It even sounds silly, doesn't it? Yes, I tried the on-line dating thing, starting when I was around 50. And I have to say that I met some very nice men and went out on lots of dates. I observed the rules of safety inherent in this scene, and can only remember one time that my evening got a bit dicey, but it was because I broke one of those rules. The whole process led to an 8 year relationship that ended two years ago. Another 8 to add to the total number of years "joke."

All the advice about meeting people in ordinary, everyday places didn't work so much, either. I met a man in a video store once, and we went out for dinner. Where he proceeded to relate his history as a mercenary, and how he once bit off someone's toe. (I am NOT making this up! I called a cab.)

I joined a church, hoping to meet someone there. Couples, kids, picnics for couples and kids doing kids' things. Loud, noisy, reflective of my own years as the mother of a child involved in every sport imaginable. But not where I am today.

Then there was the Saturday a clown sat next to me on a bench and hit on me. No....a REAL clown. Honest.

So, here I am again. However, at this point, I have come to some hard-won conclusions. I'll explain it this way: My parents were married for 67 years, together since they were 15 or so. Just think of all the problems they faced together, most dealing with outside forces, but some within their relationship, too. It's just inevitable that two people will disagree over the span of all those years. They raised a family and built memories and shared experiences to clasp tightly to their joined hearts.....especially during the bad times.

They had a bond that secured them, in every meaning of that word. They were secure in their love and in their history together. And it probably didn't happen overnight or even always easily. But it eventually bound them together for life.

I will never have that. It just isn't possible that two people who meet when they are over 60 years old CAN have that foundation. They might be companions, people who can sit next to one another in a theater or at the dinner table to chase away the shadows of loneliness, the shadows that sometimes grow teeth and creep in close to those who are alone. But the tethers stretched over decades like my parents? Just not possible.

And for my purposes now as a single woman over 60, it is even more difficult to find someone who is willing to look at a "dating" site and see past the years etched on my face. Our youth-drenched culture makes it nearly impossible. My experience has been that most men over 60 themselves are simply not willing to match themselves with a woman their own age. We can't blame this on my unwillingness to look at THEIR photos and agree to meet for a drink, either. I think I have a bit more depth than to judge someone unworthy due to their appearance, especially when I'm squinting at a computer screen while trying to gauge someone's character.

Many women are terrifed of being alone as they grow older, and are thus willing to adapt (maybe I should say settle?) for any relationship, even a bad one. I had to make that decision a couple of years ago, and what I realized is that the statistics dictate that many women WILL be alone no matter what they do or don't do within the realm of being a couple. Men just die sooner than we do. My decision, then, was to reinforce the relationship I have with myself.

Do I wish I had strung all those years of broken relationships together? Taken more time and insight and effort to making it work, like my parents did? Of course. There are some lessons here for younger women, if they care to learn from my story.

But here I am and my belief is that I will run the rest of this race alone. I have worked my way around the landmines (and clowns) and left them behind.

And I've found that I'm pretty good company!

Sometimes the cards we are dealt are not always fair.

However you must keep smiling & moving on ~

Tom Jackson

Time passes....with or without you

2010-12-31T10:24:00.001-05:00

Well, here we are at the end of another one. They do tend to slip by faster and faster as we each get....well, older and older, don't they? I read somewhere that this unnerving fact is because we encounter fewer events that we have never experienced before as we get older. So, the minutes and hours of our lives begin to slip by unnoticed, spinning through the calendar from January to December, our heads spinning with the rapidity of it all. If we even notice at all.

One of the books I'm reading for a second time right now, when I build my fire outside and sit curled in my blanket before dawn each day, is called The Second Half of Life by Angeles Arrien. It's actually the third time, if you count the first one when I didn't understand what this woman was trying to say at all. I slid it back into my bookcase, thinking, "Now, that's a strange book!" A few years later, I tried again. Arrien envisions aging as a journey through eight gates of wisdom, including folklore and customs from around the world in her metaphorical trip through those gates.

One of the verbal customs she mentioned, and one I immediately identified with, was that of intentionally experiencing something new each month for one year on one's birthday. Last year, I had my daughter take me out on a surfboard, which she found entertaining beyond words. I never did stand up on that surfboard, but I had a blast, totally unexpected since I don't swim very well and can't see a thing once my glasses are taken away from me.

After that, though, it was taxing to find things that I had never done (taking into consideration that there are things I would NEVER do, even under penalty of death, like jump out of an airplane, or things I can't afford, like go to Paris). So, my year of that experiment lasted a month, when I walked out of the ocean with the surfboard in tow.

But I'm reading the book again now. And I think I'm going to attempt that year-long journey of new experiences again. Arrien mentioned that part of the value IS that we have to be creative to find new roads to follow, and that's the whole point.

Then maybe time will slow down enough to savor the moments again, recapturing some of the newness of life that we take so much for granted when we're younger, growing and learning every day.

I'll start a list tomorrow as we usher in a new year, a list of potential new experiences that can reopen my eyes to the world as a source of joy and challenge. I'll keep you posted. Maybe I'll even take pictures. Stay tuned!

The second half of life is the ultimate initiation.....we are a sacred mystery made manifest. If we truly understand what is required of us at this stage, we are blessed with an enormous opportunity to develop and embody wisdom and character.

Angeles Arrien

On your mark, get set......

2010-12-29T19:19:00.000-05:00

Wow....how did this happen? I was 62 years old yesterday, and even in my mind that sounds ancient! But inside this "ancient" body, I also know that my mind is active and still thirsty for knowledge. It's not quite as supple about things like remembering where I left my keys, but I've come to believe that has more to do with TOO much to remember than any age-related memory loss.

Yet, I am still amazed that so many years have slipped by, so many months torn off so many calendars, as I was raising a daughter and working hard, long hours to do it, and then building my own business, while trying desperately to publish (if anyone wants a great coffee table book on the bridges of Florida, I happen to have the concept for such a thing).

I'm always looking for the lessons in life and I've learned a ton of those, too. Without becoming maudlin, let's just say that the primary lesson is that I was wrong to consider myself OLD based on a number. That won't eliminate the occasional shock as I come upon a mirror unexpectedly and wonder, "Who IS that person" before grasping that it's really me...the 16 year old me merely covered in a different exterior. I do admit that my body, the physical shell, isn't quite as peppy these days, but my mind is certainly not a sucker for the number of years I've inhabited that shell.

So, to all of you younger people reading this: Get ready. Know that it will happen to you, too. (Yes, it will...stop shaking your heads.) But also know that it isn't what you think it will be. You simply can't imagine it now. That's part of the human learning curve that I have come to know and respect. We each think WE will somehow avoid [getting old, being pulled over after just a few drinks, contracting a life-threatening illness, etc], but the things that happen to people in general generally do happen to US.

And maybe, by understanding this before it happens, we all can manuever the front lines of maturity with a bit more common sense and dignity.

Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. ~Sophia Loren

Aged to Perfection

Getting comfortable.....

Get out the sledgehammer......

I can but I don't want to......

My name is Deborah and I'm an addict.....

Old dogs and new tricks.....

Disconnected......

And the genie dances again.....

A birthday tribute......

Dancing fool, part 5

Baggage claim.......

It'll turn up......

“The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to.”

A toast to broken boxes......

Conga lines and karaoke.....

Merry holidays, fa-la-la-la

Dazzling.....

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake...”

Fire on the keyboard......

Fool me once.....

“Trust is like a vase.. once it's broken, though you can fix it the vase will never be same again.”

What was that you dared to ask me?

Tell me the truth.....

Dancing fool: Exposed

Wait! Don't jump there......

There's water all over the floor......

Dancing fool, part 4

Elusive but attainable.....

Sometimes, it just isn't enough.....

Zipping it in time.....

Approved!

Wow! What a ride....

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”

A new day dawning.....

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...”

Should we tell her??

Remembering....

Dancing fool, part 4

That line in the sand...

A poetic experiment......

It's time for "something I've never done before".........

Driving into the sunset.....

After all, tomorrow is another day.....

No, I don't want to do that......

“Don't worry about growing older or pleasing others. Please yourself.”

Dancing fool, part 3

Don't ever call me a "senior citizen"..........

Lions and bees....oh my!

Don't laugh at...or lie to...a lover

A sweet thing, friendship.....

Paying respects.....

“If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.”

The teacher as learner......

Examining everything.....

Finding the way even when you think you're lost.....

Do you know this?

You will be us.....

Dancing fool, part 2.....

The devil made me do it.....

Saving face or saving money?

How did you DO that??

Tick, tock.....

What do YOU have on your feet?

Time as cash.....

Indulge me, it's Mother's Day.....

Oh, sleep, knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.....

Dancing fool....

Blubbering.....

HOT CHICK, you said?

Slumdog seniors....

Tug of war.....

Life ain't no country song.....

Me and the Z......

The scary guy...the one with the black hoodie and scythe.

“For death begins with life's first breath. And life begins at touch of death.”

For sale: Mountain property in Florida.....MUST SEE!

Body blows....and no necks

The beast breathes.....

A spinning virgin no more....

Mind toots.....