Category Archives: Aging

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Morning Pages

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With the time change, morning daylight becomes precious.  It’s dark by 5pm now, so I like to get up and get going early.  My partner, however, stays up working late into the wee hours and sleeps in.  I woke up at 7, but decided to stay in bed.  Early morning brain work is often my most productive, so I just lay there and thought about my Memoirs assignment.  How would I describe my late husband in detail?  As I pictured him from toe to head, each part brought back associations and memories spanning the 30 years we were together.  Doing this in the quiet, safe, wordless place where I sleep was a great indulgence.  I didn’t feel the need to come up with verbiage or sentence structure or decide what might be better left unsaid.  My brain wandered through different decades and moments without the need to assign chronology.  In this floating place, I felt more connected with his entire person, without delineation.  When Steve rolled over, I put a hand on his shoulder and suddenly began to weep.  Why just then?  Perhaps the absence of tangibility in my relationship with Jim just would not be denied at the moment I became aware of touch.

We are still one.

He sat at the edge of the bed, his naked back to me.  He was working up to rising, about to stand on his unsteady, swollen, deadened feet and shuffle off to the bathroom.  Something prompted me to scoot forward and wrap my legs around his waist and lay my cheek between his shoulder blades.  “You will always be the love of my life,” I whispered.  “You know that, don’t you?”

He did.  He does.

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Living Heroically

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Discipline without coercion.  Is it possible for individuals?  For communities?  Dare we believe that without obligation, people will make efforts to do their best and work toward the common good?  Are people who do that “heroes”?

We dangle punitive measures and capitalistic rewards in front of the masses and hope that will encourage us to be model citizens, and then we have to deal with the greedy monsters that evolve wondering “What’s in it for me?”  If I am of the 1% and super-wealthy, what incentive do I have to share?  And what is the percentage of the 99% who hope that one day, they will become super-wealthy also and so feel no inclination to put restrictions on the rich?  How many people are likely to come to a sense that they have “enough” all on their own and turn their surplus over to others?  And when will that sense of “enough” kick in?  What standard of living do we feel entitled to?  What would it feel like to say, “This is all I need.  I am not afraid to trust that I have enough”?  Would it feel like freedom?

How do you discipline yourself without feeling a sense of obligation?  Do you eat healthy foods because you want to?  Or because some outside influence is holding up a consequence or reward?  Do you make music because some authority is telling you to practice or for the sheer joy of it?  Do you do what you do out of passion or fear?

On our first date, Steve played a kind of “twenty questions” game with me.  I was trying to guess his three heroes in order to get to know him better.  He maintains that each of these inspirational figures have a passion for something and demonstrate it joyfully.  The first one is David Attenborough of the BBC Natural History Unit, groundbreaking writer and presenter of nature programs.  The second is Julia Child, The French Chef.  I was in total accord to this point, and also loved that they are easy to imitate in voice and mannerism to add levity to any undertaking (and we do this frequently).  The third one was rather tough to guess, mostly because he wasn’t human.  “An athlete” was about as close as I got.  Finally, Steve led me to thinking about equestrian athletes, and I immediately thought of Secretariat.  I found that rather a head-scratcher, though.  How could a horse be a hero?  And then he showed me the youtube clip of the final race in the1973 Triple Crown.  It still makes him cry.

A horse cannot be coerced by the promise of fame and fortune, can it?  There was no whipping, no carrot on a stick.  Secretariat ran for the pure joy of running, it would seem.  Feeling the power of his legs, the wind in his mane, the freedom of doing what he was born and bred and loved to do that day.  Did he have a reward afterward?  Did he develop a taste for winning?  I suppose you could debate the emotions of a horse forever and never learn anything conclusive.  You could also debate whether or not his race was something that created “good”.  Many people were undoubtedly uplifted; just listen to the audio on the tape.  His grace and beauty are captivating.  And maybe a bunch of people were making money off of it, but the horse wasn’t.  For that reason, it seems rather pure to me.

So what would it mean for you and me to be the heroes of our own lives?  To be the best we could be not out of obligation or fear of reprisal or for monetary gain, but just for the joy of living out our own passion and interest, for the love of it?  What would it be like to allow that to be our reward, our life work, and not ask fame or fortune from it?  Would we share any surplus of our efforts?  What if we all lived like that?  Would we be able to balance the table top, enjoy sustainability and equality, as a community and perhaps as a planet?  Is this a utopian ideal and totally unrealistic?

Probably.  But I would love to feel the wind in my hair, too…

...like her. (My daughter, in France, living her passion.)

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All Saints and Scorpios

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Today is All Saints’ Day, a major feast in the Christian tradition.  It’s also Dia de los Muertos.  And it’s also the birthday of two of my favorite people in the world: Steve and my sister.  It’s a fitting festival for fall, colorful and reeking with death and ghosts.  I think that Steve and DKK also have a marvelous blend of color and passion and darkness in them.  And to tell the truth, this scared me about them.  I am a sunny Leo, all bright smiles and pleasing, if a bit manipulative and ego-driven.  Their seething power is something that I can not control or influence, and that used to bug me.

As a kid, I shared a room with my older sister for 9 years.  I used to be frightened of her insistent non-compliance under our very strict father, and so I would nag her and repeat his instructions and try to get her to do what would keep her out of trouble.  I don’t know why I thought my two cents would make an impact when my father’s words were disobeyed.  What do you do with a pestering younger sister?  You beat her up occasionally.  That kept me afraid and convinced that she really hated me.  I did not understand her at all.  She was power and mystery and goddamn smart to boot.  Then we moved and finally got separate rooms.  And we went to the same High School and had some friends in common.  Still, there was a kind of power struggle and competition going on.  She dated older guys I was crushing on.  She was better than me at Italian and spent a summer in Italy — and that was supposed to be MY language.  She was supposed to stick to Latin!  She did me the favor of passing my first love note to a boy in her Senior English class…who became my husband for 24 years until his death.  And I tattled on her and brought the wrath of my father down upon her.  I didn’t see her much for a long time, but I wrote to her, and I prayed for her.

I remember one All Saint’s Day sitting in a church in southern California, thinking about her birthday.  I decided that she was a saint, too, and that I would write to her again.  It was a holy moment, one that I knew might change me, and I was willing.  I think the thing that made me see how much we have in common, how much we really care about each other, was motherhood.  When we both had babies, I had three to her one, and we had lots to talk about.  I began to see her hopes and values and fierce love writ large on her parenting style, and her dynamic became more understandable to me.  She had the same parenting model to work with as I, and we were both fashioning our response to it in our individual styles.  I began to recognize her and appreciate her in a way I never had.  I wish we could spend more time together as we grow older.  We keep growing closer, even though we live half a continent apart.

So that’s today’s version of Favorite Memories of (My Sister), my family’s traditional birthday game.

And now, favorite memories of the birthday boy, still dozing beside me.

I’ve known Steve for 3 years.  Three very important, reformative years.  When we met, I had been a widow for only 7.5 months.  Although sane, I was rather raw and fragile.  So was my family of 4 children.  He’s never been married and has no children.  In the pool of dating possibilities, he was advised against choosing the widow.  But he loves a dark, complex, engaging challenge.  And apparently, he loves me.  So when my youngest daughter, grieving the loss of her father, contemplated the presence of this new man in my life, she became passionately angry.  It terrified me, and I ran away.  My new friend wasn’t scared of her at all.  In fact, he stood up for her saying that her emotions were completely justified.  He cared about her and understood her in a way I hadn’t.  He sat down with both of us and listened as we struggled to repair our relationship.  He offered his observations calmly and honestly and maintained a safe place for both of us.  He made a huge difference in a very critical time, and for that, I will always be grateful…and a bit awed.

Passion is a marvelous hallmark of life.  It is scary in many ways, but adds so much.  I am learning to be open to it more and more.  And I thank DKK and Steve for helping me learn how.  Happy Birthdays, youse guys!

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Happy Halloween!

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Steve and I enjoy an ongoing game of “arcane book ideas”.   Yesterday, it was The History of Halloween.  I wonder if that book’s ever been written?  In our neighborhood, trick or treating was commuted to Sunday.  There was a block party followed by an hour and a half of trick or treating at certain houses designated by orange and black balloons tied outside.  It was a very organized affair.  An informative flier went out a week ago with a tear-off response section on the bottom.  There was even a neighborhood bank account set up to receive contributions.  As far as I could tell, the block party was moved indoors because of rain.  The barricades remain on the parkway and never went up.  But we could hear the children, teens, and parents slogging through the drizzle in the dark.

Halloween is a big thing here in the Midwest.  I lived in California for 15 years and never saw more than a dozen trick-or-treaters.  (Okay, spell check didn’t like that term and offered me an alternative: trick-or-anteaters.  Can you imagine?  Love the visual on that idea!)  Maybe people there are just way too suspicious of their neighbors and scared to let their children roam.  We were.  My husband used to reminisce about trick-or-treating in his cul de sac with the parents following doing their own trick-or-drinking.  Candy for the kiddies, cocktails for their parents.  Very Californian.  My mother was the most unpopular Halloween hostess on the block.  She kept trying to think of low-sugar alternative treats.  Most years, it was little boxes of raisins.  One year, it was balloons.  Deflated ones.  This was before choking hazards got much press.  Another year, it was nuts in the shell.  Again, before nut allergies got much press.  I was always so embarrassed (and disappointed) by our “candy bowl”.  She was adamant about limiting sugar for the sake of our teeth long before healthy choices were fashionable.  She was also a stickler for sunscreen before SPF was displayed on every bottle.  Now that I’m almost 50, I should thank her every time I look in the mirror and a full set of teeth and a smooth pair of cheeks smile back.

In my day, Halloween had very few rules.  You went to school in costume, partied all day, and then trick-or-treated all night (or for as long as your mom would let you).  When my kids were young, that was the initial routine.  Then the village posted trick-or-treat hours, usually from 4-7pm.  Then there was the year that parents and teachers decided that too much instruction time was being lost on this dress up holiday with occult overtones.  So they had each grade level run a study-themed costume and activity day.  The third graders were doing a prairie unit, so they all dressed in pioneer outfits and made corn-husk dolls and bobbed for apples and that kind of thing.  The fifth graders were doing a Native American unit, so they wove tiny patches of yarn onto looms, deciphered symbols, and ate popcorn.  I really liked the idea.  They got to dress up and have treats and play games, but they were very creatively centered on specific social studies units.  I was rather a serious mom myself.  But my kids got candy.  Sacks of it.  And I raided their stash every year.  One year, when my oldest was just a toddler and we were living in California, I bought some Halloween candy (Mounds, my favorite) and ended up dipping into it myself before the big night.  I figured we wouldn’t get many visitors anyhow.  Well, we got a few more than I expected, and I ran out of candy.   So when the doorbell rang, my darling daughter ran to the door to see the costumes.  “We don’t have any more candy because my mom ate it all,” she explained.  Well, at least I taught her honesty.

I enjoyed my part at the Nature Center as the witch.  I’m glad we did it two weeks ago when the weather was a bit drier and warmer.  The prosthetic nose and chin were rather a pain.  My pointy toed boots were even worse, though, after three hours on my feet.  But the wide-eyed little tykes in fairy wings and hockey gear were just as adorable as ever.  I will never get tired of playing dress up…or eating chocolate.

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My Biology, My Self

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There’s one question that keeps coming up, begging for my attention.  “Who am I?”  Perhaps this is a Socrates Cafe revolving door.

How much do you identify with your body?  Or your gender?  Or your ego?  How much do you identify with your Big ‘S’ Self?

What’s a Big ‘S’ Self as opposed to a small ‘s’ self (or what I call the Big Ass self)?  Steve describes it like the tip of a pyramid.  It has a base, but sits on top of a much, much bigger base –  The Big ‘S’ Self  – which is all about simply recognizing the world as it is without trying to impose any ego imprints on it.  My question today is “Where does my biology fit in?”  At almost 50 years of age, I certainly recognize how my biology has impacted life as I experience it.  It seems intrinsic to my being.  I couldn’t possibly imagine being a man.  My reproductive cycles, my hormonal moods, my childbirth experiences, my posture of surrender, my physical life and psychological attitudes that arise from that seem to be very much “me”.  And yet, all of that is in flux, changing all the time, even while The Change is looming in my not-too-distant future.  So maybe there’s a Big ‘S’ Self that isn’t affected by all that.  Would that be my soul?

How do I bring my Self and my self into a relationship?  How do I interact with someone else’s Self and self?

Sometimes it seems like it would be so much simpler just to have a body without such a brain dominating it.  Eat, sleep, have sex, die.  Nothing to philosophize about.  Sometimes it seems like I’m trying too hard to live well.  Morally.  Conscientiously.

Sigh.

Steve surprised me.  He bought me a picture book about a baby elephant.  It came in the mail today.  Sometimes the simplest thing is just to accept a gift….like life.

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Wisconsin!

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Despite it’s governor, Wisconsin is a great state.  There’s biological diversity, geographical diversity, seasonal diversity, National Forests, and culture (and I don’t mean just cheese!).  It’s really a great place to live and explore.   Today, we climbed up to the top of the shrine at Holy Hill.  We had been there before, one January when there was a wedding going on.  The steeple tower was closed and the stairs were covered with ice, so we peeked into the chapel only and didn’t get the full view.  I’m glad we went back because this is worth the 178-plus steps!

Not far from the Hill is a county park with trails for hiking, cross country skiing, and snowmobiling.

I really love the seasons here – yes, even winter.  It’s not like people in Wisconsin stay indoors for 6 months.  They go out anyway.  I just wish that fewer of them used gas-powered toys as part of their recreation.  These fall days, though, are almost too precious to bear.  The sun is still warming us enough to make hours out in the chilly air pleasant, and I hesitate to come inside at all.  Nights are coming on sooner and colder, though.  We go to bed earlier; we eat more.  We muse about hibernating like bats in their caves.  And we love the whole thing.  Change.  The Earth.  Being alive.  I am grateful for it all.

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Suffering Attachment

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Today was a cottage industry day.  Mondays are good days to get all the book orders from the weekend off to the Post Office.  It’s always interesting to peruse the stack and see who’s buying what and where it’s going.  Today there was a book on mourning going out.  I couldn’t help myself, I had to look into the table of contents and see what helpful and insightful pearls of grief I may have missed.  Philosophical or practical nuggets on this subject still pertain, right?  So there I was, reading about identity and widowhood, and it still struck a chord.  How am I almost 50 years old and still not sure who I am?  I have been working really hard on this for 3 and a half years now.  I am working on updating relationships, working on being as honest as I possibly can in order to face myself and my changes directly.  I am working on my memories a bit more slowly, I suspect, because I don’t live with my kids who share those memories, and I don’t mention all the ones that occur to me when I’m with Steve (not that he’d object in any way).  What do I mean by “working on my memories” anyway?  Well, I guess I mean identifying the emotions associated with them.  Maybe the primary work is the identification of attachment and expectation and the acknowledgement of the suffering that produces.

Jim was my first love, my high school sweetheart, my only husband, and my best friend for 30 years.  I expected to be reminded of that head-over-heels falling in love stage on a daily basis for the rest of my life.  It’s starting to fade.  I see my daughter and her boyfriend together, and I am reminded of that youthful, giddy feeling…and I realize that I don’t feel it anymore.  It’s an attachment I developed.  It’s not necessary in any way.  Many people don’t feel that way and never did.  Why can’t I just get over it already?  Jim was a singer.  He sang to me frequently.  I expected to be serenaded throughout my life, I suppose.  It’s not happening.  I miss it.  The fourth finger of my left hand feels occasionally naked, and I will twirl the phantom ring that is no longer there with the surrounding fingers every once in a while.  I wish I could just stop doing that.  In brainstorming with my kids about possible homestead arrangements, it feels weird that Jim isn’t part of that family meeting.  I suspect that I have a million small expectations and maybe a couple of dozen rather large ones that I have not been able to exorcize.

Grief seems to be the gift that just keeps on giving.  My identity was very much associated with being Jim’s wife, and I am working on getting to know myself as just myself.  And I keep on working.  Here are a few things I know about me:  I am a visual person; I like pictures.  I like figuring out how to do stuff.  How do you treat deer skin after you’ve field dressed your kill, and turn it into leather? (I wake up in the middle of the night wondering about stuff like that.  No kidding.)  I am an introvert.  I managed to live without “partying” and “dating” for my entire life so far.  I am a “natural woman”.  What do you mean by that?  I liked getting pregnant and having babies.  I like taking care of people.  I like preparing food.  I also like being silly and childlike and entertaining.  I like sensual experiences: fragrance, textures, tastes, sounds, sights, juxtapositions.  I like enjoying them unhurried.  I have a million insecurities and anxieties and a huge desire to be a good person.  I have fantasies of being really good at something and recognized for it.  I am a bit on the “dreamy” side and rather afraid of meeting the world head on, but I work hard at being practical.  Relationships are really important to me.  I want to be loved, and I want to be loving.

I like camping and building fires.

And all of this might change.  What happens if I get to know me and get attached to me and then develop Alzheimer’s like my dad did?  Best to stay light on my feet and light in my thinking, not get dogmatic about it.

Life is suffering and life is wonderful.  And sometimes I just feel sad about the attachments I’ve developed.  And that’s the truth.

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Functional family time

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I love my family.  I love hanging out with my kids and doing stuff together.  I visited my “twins” (they’re 2 years apart, but they are best friends) in their new location for the first time this weekend.  My youngest was there as well.  We played in the dirt and planted trees, we played on the roof and planted an antenna, we sang, we brainstormed, we drew pumpkin decorating designs, we walked the dog, we ate pizza and drank wine, we watched a Bears game.  And we talked.  About dreams, about their dead dad, about relationships, about farting, about how children learn to talk, and how growing up is an organic and holistic process.  My favorite thing was that my youngest daughter remarked that she is so happy that she doesn’t feel the need to hide anything from me anymore.  We’ve been through a lot together, my kids and I.  Can I say that they are my best friends?  For someone who thought she had no friends, this is a happy epiphany.

Girls play in the dirt, too

I invested a lot in my relationships with my kids.  My youngest was in junior high when I started my first full-time job.  Ever.  I am forever grateful to my husband for making it possible for me to be at home all those years.  The world my kids will inherit will be a different place.  Things are changing, protests are raging, systems will fail and fall.  And that’s all good.  In order to feel “safe”, it seems like options spread out between building a fortress of security and being light on your feet.  Maybe the best of that spectrum is having an inner fortress that includes confidence in being loved and an outer flexibility of skills and adaptability to change.  We are each of us working on building those things, and we support each other in our growth.  The dream we have is to live together somewhere, on some land, in some place and work on that in community.  Right now, we are all renters in 4 different places in two states.  Some day, we’d like to be on a multiple-family homestead supporting  ourselves (and perhaps others) sustainably.

“Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow.  All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground.”  And hard work.  And a dream.  And love.  I am grateful for inspiration and pioneers like the Dervaes family and for reminders to stay open in the process.  We are pointing our canoe and paddling.  We’ll see where we get to.

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Autumn Sentiments

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The autumn years of life.  The harvest of a lifetime.  Gathering together the products of work and character.  There’s something nostalgic and lonesome about autumn, sweet and melancholic.  Glossy photos of food and family and warm colors seem so appetizing.  I am planning to host Thanksgiving dinner for Steve’s family, and I keep daydreaming about how the table will look.  I want my home to be filled with warmth and love, good smells, earthy colors, sparkles of glass, silver, and candlelight.  Of course, this will be on a modest scale.  Martha Stewart does not live anywhere near here.  I have song lyrics stuck in my head from Barry Manilow’s “Paradise Cafe 2:00am” CD… “Oh, how I hate to see October go.”  How will I get my Thanksgiving vegetables now that the farmer’s market is closed?  The acorn squash and broccoli we had last night were delicious, dressed only in butter, salt & pepper.  The earth is so good to us and autumn is the applause before a winter curtain.  How do you feel when you’re giving a standing ovation, damp-faced and shining, heart bursting, swallowing hard, delaying your exodus into the next moment?  I feel that way about autumn.  I remember driving home from dropping one of my children off at preschool one cloudy November day and bursting into tears.  I tried to figure out what that was about and ended up writing this poem:

Change

In autumn, the trees start to sing once again

of the bittersweet mystery of change.

Is it beauty or pain now attached to my soul?

Is it grief…or relief…or nostalgia?

In the scarlet and gold,

the blood-red of life’s hold…on my heart

and the warmth of its love

mingles memories and years

into afternoon tears

falling softly…as leaves…to the ground.

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Cats and the Philosophy of Health Care

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At our Socrates Cafe meeting on Saturday, we discussed the ethics of rationing health care.  How are decisions made about administering medical care?  Should health care be awarded to the wealthiest, the most fit, the least at-risk or the most at-risk?  Is health care a commodity that can be administered according to social and economic guidelines?  Is health care distinct from “illness care”?  And so on.  Our group is rather small and not especially representative of any particular demographic.  I don’t think we’re “solving” anything, we’re just enjoying discussion and engagement and some brain activity.  I’m exploring the results of allowing other people to comment on the products of my own bizarre thinking.  Which is kind of what blogging is about as well.

As I put in my own perspective on this issue, I realize that I speak from experiences that have centered mostly around my husband’s illness and death and from observances of non-human beings.  Jim used to chalk up a lot of his medical interventions as “better living through technology”.  He was the recipient of some very technical and somewhat heroic (although now pretty standard) procedures.  It was a complicated arena of insurance issues, multiple specializing doctors, drug interactions and availability, and the donor list system.  There were layers of decision-making involved and a fabric of responsibility that was pretty nebulous.  When his pulmonologist found out that he’d died, he asked me, “What are you doing about it?”  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.  “I’m grieving!” I answered.  “I mean legally,” he explained.

Who is responsible for my health?

As for the observance of non-humans and their health, I look to the pets I have known.  Specifically cats.  I learned a lot from Pinkle, who somehow got injured up in the attic one day.  She simply stopped using her back legs until they had healed.  She slept.  She ate.  She tried out putting weight on them gradually, and eventually got back to doing all the things she had been doing.  She didn’t complain.  She didn’t seem miserable.  She didn’t worry or push herself or engage in any neurotic behavior that we could detect.  She took responsibility for herself, for the most part, and we provided food and shelter and quiet.  Phantom is another cat I have observed.  She is 16 years old now, and not living with me any more.  She had some urinary tract issues in the past when I did care for her.  I gave her antibiotics in pill and liquid form (which was an ordeal she did not welcome) and changed her food.  She had a bladder stone removed surgically as well.  That was maybe 10 years ago.  Her litter mate died of cancer a couple of years ago.  Cats don’t complain about pain much, and they don’t complain about death.  My kids tell me that Tabitha was purring as she died of the injection that ended her suffering.  Cats (and many other animals) have a tendency to seek out a quiet place to die.  They don’t make a big fuss.  We’re the ones who fuss.

Phantom del'Opera

Pinkle Purr (see poem by A.A. Milne)

What if we focused on healthy living and didn’t sweat so much about “illness care”?  What if we made it our social/economic/political responsibility to work hard to provide clean water, clean air, healthy food, shelter, education about health, and quiet (less stress) for as many of us as we can, and let illness play out as it would naturally?  What if we as a community took responsibility for supporting health but abstained from taking responsibility for preventing death?  It’s not like we’d be successful in that effort ultimately anyway, right?  We’d do our best to give you the basic needs, and the rest is up to you and nature.  That’s how human life went before technology kicked in, and plenty of people lived to reproduce (or we wouldn’t be here today).   Is there anything wrong with that model?

That’s my two cents for the health care debate.