Looking for trouble......

You know that quirky finger move that expands your cell phone screen, the one that uses the thumb/forefinger action on the diagonal? I hear even some four-year olds have it down, no problem.

Me? Haven't mastered it yet for some reason.

Come to think of it, why would I want to make some of the images in my life bigger, anyway? Don't I have enough to grapple with, even on a good day?

Like last Friday. My accountant swore a couple of months ago that the IRS would repay me the $1500+ overpayment from the first quarter of this year. She even recounted a conversation she had with the nice person she spoke to about that money, the dollars and cents I desperately need right about now. It would only take about eight weeks, they promised.  (Stop laughing....I can hear you through my computer screen, and it isn't comical.)

I opened my mailbox and was ecstatic to get that envelope on Friday, and almost got in my car to take it to the bank right there on the spot. Wait, I thought.....I'd better open it first.

$1.35.   

Yep. Just a tad short, and it probably cost them more than that to mail the darn thing.

Then there are the two cats in my house (out of the three that grace us with their presence) who need either drops in the eye or an antibiotic down the throat a few times a day. Each. The one with the eye problem has proven to be cooperative--for the most part--but the other one? Oh, my.

Picture a baby who doesn't want that yucky orangish-yellow squash that you airplaned into his mouth, no matter what funny noises you make as you stick that spoon in his mouth. He's not falling for it. So, what does he do? He takes that tongue and pushes it right out onto the floor (and you if you sit too close), none of it reaching its destination.

I have had cats let it ooze out of the side of their mouth, or jump down and throw it up as they walk away with great dignity. But never have I seen this. I swear he morphs into a human baby as that tongue starts pushing the food out of his mouth, along with the expensive antibiotic. Fun on a Friday, I can tell you.

Oh, there was more last week, but you get the picture. We all have these days, right? Nothing even remotely looks sane for a 24 hour period, and we wonder what we did to upset the universe. All we want is for it to stop. And, at my age, I know that it has happened before, and it will certainly happen again.

So, you all go ahead and make those images in your life BIGGER. I'd like some movement like that one that diminishes the trouble that seems to find me every once in a while, so if you have any cute devices that accomplish that, let me know.

The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts.”

Bertrand Russell



Gracefully gliding....

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



Have you hookahed?

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

Jiggles and wobbles....

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?

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.....

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?

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...

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

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......

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

Meet Grumpy.....

I used to wonder why old people were so persistently grumpy. Every minor glitch in the day became an overblown ordeal, from being shorted 3 cents at the grocery store to scrutinizing a bill at the restaurant as everyone else at the table squirmed in their chairs.

"C'mon, Mom/Dad....I'll give you the 3 cents," I said once. Well, probably more than once.

These people appeared to be looking for trouble. Much like little kids at the other end of the age spectrum. Almost like they knew it would be lurking around every corner, scrunched behind half-closed doors, just waiting to jump out and scare the bejesus out of them.  

But, no, they didn't want my pennies or my interference while they spent 20 excruciating minutes going over every item on the check with the waiter (and it is a WAITER to them, not a SERVER, none of that PC nonsense welcome here) in an attempt to prove....what?

About 3 years ago, as I was knocking on the door to 60, I began to get it. I figured out what they (now, WE) are trying to prove.

THAT WE'RE NOT IDIOTS! 

I find myself sighing in the face of the 16 year old cashier who can't count back change and just shorted me a nickel, trying to decide if it's worth it to even go there. And after being shorted all my adult life, I reached a point in time, and in line, when I had simply had enough. It became time to take a stand. That child behind the counter, the one who was hired to take money and GIVE CHANGE, needs to know that I know she/he is doing it wrong and that, although it was only a nickel, it might have been $5 for all she knew....literally.

Much like the person in the cell phone superstore who sighs dramatically in my face, trying to make it sound like I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.  So, they keep repeating the same words, over and over, as people behind me mutter and grouse, all hoping that I will simply give up and slink away. With my problem still unresolved. Which means I would have to go home and get on the "customer service" line on the phone, and that is an entirely different sad story.

I'm a very fit 60+ person. But I have also learned through those many years of dwelling here that faster is not necessarily better. In fact, speeding through life is exactly that, and we miss a great deal of beauty and nuance that way. Translation: I walk slower than I used to. On purpose. Including at the mall. Where teenagers and overaged teenagers insist on walking on my heels in their haste to find more things to buy that they don't need. Just walk around me, OK, and you can save the dirty looks for the cashier who will short you on your change. If you even notice.

I guess we have more patience with incompetence when we're younger. We simply haven't had time to get swallowed up by it yet. YET. And then we snap, sometime around 50 or 60.

See? Grumpy.                                               

Man cannot live by incompetence alone. Charlotte Whitton 

We don't want your job....

Age discrimination exists. I know you've heard that before, but until it personally slaps you in the face, it is only hearsay.

When I turned 50, I had had enough of entertaining (or not) middle schoolers all day. Fifteen years was my limit for people ignoring me and parents telling their kids they didn't have to do anything I told them to do. (The kids, not the parents. And yes, a parent told their child that at a conference I had requested to find a way to control their darling in class so I could actually TEACH.)

So, I decided to find another way to make a living. I reasoned, "I have a decade of experience in the business world, then 15 years in a classroom. Surely, those are marketable skills....somewhere." And off I went, sending out resumes and answering classified ads. Of course, like any sane person, I kept teaching in the meantime, anxiously opening my mailbox each evening as my patience wore thinner and thinner, hoping to find a positive response happily jumping around in there until I came home to find it.

Sometimes I actually got a chance to meet in person about a job posted somewhere. Have you ever had the experience of being interviewed by someone who is at least 3 decades younger than you? (They actually look like they're in the teens, but everyone looks younger as we get older, so we do have to factor THAT into the equation, too.) To say it is challenging is being polite, as they chew their gum and twirl their hair and ask "Like, tell me about yourself, 'k?"

The result of all those resumes and interviews was another year in the classroom, watching the months tick by and my sanity become even more compromised. This was before the economy took a slide into oblivion, so it wasn't that I was joining millions of folks doing the same thing. I just wanted to make a living doing something else, I had good experience and a college degree, and my work ethic is daunting.

The result? No job offers. I was "overqualified" or they decided to "go a different way in their job search." Or, even worse (I think), no response at all to my contact with their company. I came to the conclusion that I scared these youngsters. They probably thought that I wanted their job and had the ability to jerk it away from them fairly quickly. If they let me in the door. Which they were quick to slam in my face, collectively, about 5 or 6 times a week.

Little did they know that their jobs were safe from the likes of me. Every job I've ever had morphed into a supervisory position once those in the upper offices realized who they had. Someone who could do it. Whatever "it" turned out to be. But, with that responsibility came the headaches, the long days and nights of backbreaking work, and the lack of appreciation for all of the above. 

All I wanted at 50 was to show up on time, do my job to the absolute best of my ability (well, OK, maybe 110%, I can't change my personality THAT much), go home on time, pay my bills, and enjoy my quiet life. They would still get more for their money than what they had, I was sure, but I just wasn't into climbing the corporate ladder any more. That ladder was now stowed in my dark garage closet, gathering dust and cobwebs. I wasn't going to pull it out suddenly to tell them how to improve what they were doing.

Believe me.......'K?

The years teach much which the days never knew.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson