Category Archives: Philosophy

BACK UP!

backwards-clock

As I deliver this bit of shocking news, I hope that you are not sitting down.  Frankly, you need to be standing at attention.  Here goes:  if you are over 40, only about 60% of you have even thought about getting old.  However, one third of you prefer, ‘not to think about aging at all.’  Now consider this:  If you are over 65, 70% of you will be needing long-term care either from a relative, home health aide, assisted living or a nursing home.

Great! Some of you may think to yourselves, “That gives me 25 more years to think about it.”  Fine.  Have it your way.  Stay in denial.  You won’t be alone.  If you’re like many, you’ll be botoxing, bleaching and bonding whatever it is about you that seems like it’s getting old.  If that doesn’t work, you’ll tighten and sew up the rest.  Trouble is, when you really DO get old, you’ll actually look older, if not kinda weird.

There is only one way to stay young:  stay involved.  Meet new people.  Take an interest in young people.  Take an interest in old people.  Plant a different kind of flower in the front hedge.  Teach your dog a new trick.  Read up on something different in the news and share it with a complete stranger.  Don’t just walk across the crosswalk, skip.  Ride your shopping cart if the lanes are clear.  Wave to that cop in your rear-view mirror.  Put on some music and dance while you make dinner.  Trust me NOBODY is watching.

Shake it up.  Nothing deadlier than a rut.  Once you’re in one, that tire just doesn’t want to move from the groove.  Recently, I started running backwards in the pool.  Figured if I’m gonna go back and forth and get nowhere, might as well do it backwards.  Get out the scrapbook and find that picture of you graduating from college.  Remember how you felt that day?  Life was ahead of you?  You were gonna make things happen?  Nothing could stop you?  Well what’s stopping you now?  

 

CAN’T STOP

Boston Marathon Finish Line.1910. Author: Unknown.

Boston Marathon Finish Line.1910. Author: Unknown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I need to get this down before we get to the bottom of the Boston Marathon tragedy yesterday.  While media crews swarm and investigators forage for the perpetrators of this horror, I am making myself focus on that 78 year-old man who was running his 4th marathon.  You know, the one who was blown to the asphalt just yards from the finish line; the guy who emerged from the chaos with only a scraped knee?  How many guys do you know who are actually running marathons at his age?  Imagine the fortitude and will it takes to run mile after mile in a body that science has proven to be in decline.  Now that’s heart and it is just what we all need in a crisis like this.

Everyone has heart when they’re young, even if it’s just for romance.  Few seem capable of sustaining it, though, as the years pass.  One glance in the parlor of a nursing home is evidence of that; a dozen, blank-eyed faces with gaping mouths greet you as if someone just knocked the wind out of them.

There’s a bench on the way into my gym.  Almost every morning a 95 year-old woman is sitting on it, bent intently over a floor-length, knitted coverlet.  Oh, she’s not just staying warm under it.  She’s knitting it!  Her bony, arthritic hands move the needles over and under with the precision of a conductor’s baton.  She has done this so long she doesn’t even have to look at the work unfolding beneath her.  It’s a good thing, too.  Yesterday she told me she was almost completely blind.

‘What if you drop a stitch?” I ask. 

She just smiled.  “I can feel it.  So, I just pick it back up and keep going.  At my age, you know, you can’t stop.  You can’t stop or. . ..” 

That’s what the marathon man will do:  get back up and keep going.  And that’s also what the city of Boston will do.  There’s only one real finish line in life.  It’s unlikely that crowds will roar or flashbulbs pop when we finally cross it.  But till then stay in the race.  If someone knocks you down, keep your eyes on the one lifting you up and don’t stop.

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes.”

“LOVE ALL, TRUST A FEW”

William Shakespeare sure understood a thing or two about people.  In the 500 years since he wrote those words, we have not really changed all that much.  “Trust,” as Granny always said, “has to be earned.” And since it April 1st, a day which ‘fools’ us all, I am contemplating what that word really means.

 Recently, I had the opportunity to listen in on a group of 20 something women describing what love and relationships are like in the world of iPhones and all things Internet.  Some complained that they actually “don’t talk” to their boyfriends, but “text instead.”  Others said that they felt their ‘real life’ romances were a bit of a letdown considering what both parties see and experience online.

 But here was the kicker for me:  almost ALL of them confided that they either had their boyfriend’s passwords, or secretly looked at their phones and checked their computers when they weren’t around.  Granted, women have checked up on their men since the old, ‘lipstick on the collar’ days.  But it was one thing to wonder.  Now if you’re lucky, you can get a video of him inflagrante delicto, sent straight to your phone. 

 Jody Arias took naked, cell phone photos of her intended just before she stabbed him to death in the shower.  Even running her camera through the washing machine couldn’t erase the evidence.  She, too, had snooped around his computer and didn’t like who he was ‘friends’ with.  Yikes.  Once the mirror is cracked, you really can’t look at it the same again.   

 Which brings me to the real reason for this post.  Tomorrow is my 33rd anniversary.  Neither of us have bought the other a card yet, but we don’t need to.  We have something untouched by poetry, flowers, chocolate, diamonds or any trip you could take to anywhere:  trust.  In 33 years, I have never searched his pockets, listened in on his conversations, checked up on his whereabouts, looked through his computer or even opened up his phone.  Not once.  Not ever.

 Now I have loved and love many, many people in my life.  Some make me laugh.  Others make me think.  Most bring me joy and a joie de vivre for this amazing and ever-changing world.  But do I trust them all?  Well, I’m with Will on this one.  Happy Anniversary, my love.  Consider this your card.    

Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of the years she and her husband cared for her grandmother with Alzheimer’s.Image

DON’T SIT THIS ONE OUT!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

No, he’s not my husband.  Five minutes before this photo was shot, I had never laid eyes on the man.  But let me explain.  It all began in 1968, as I was leaving for my first high school dance.  As I headed for the door, Granny called out:  “Now remember, Dear, dance with EVERY boy who asks you.”  Her feeling was that to ever say, “No, thank you,” would be crushing to a fellow who had worked his courage up to ask in the first place.  So, I did and in the years since, not only have I never ‘sat one out,’ I have even taken to doing the asking myself. 

 Such was the case last week as I shopped for produce at Whole Foods.  Somewhere between the flowers and the blueberries, music began to play; lovely, danceable music.  As I turned towards the musicians, I noticed an older gentleman standing off to the side keeping time with his foot.  I walked up and asked him to dance.  He said, “No, thank you.  I’m just here to listen to the band.” 

 Frankly, he took a bit of coaxing but within minutes we were moving to a song whose name I can’t remember.  By then, I had dropped my coat and shopping bag to the floor.  His shy smile began to beam as others stopped to watch us.  Emboldened, we began to widen our circle and grasped hands.  Neither of us had a clue as to what we were doing, nor did we follow any kind of actual step like the waltz or foxtrot.  We just danced, this complete stranger and I.  From the corner of my eye, shoppers stopped to smile, a grinning cashier paused at his register, and a little girl pointed us out to her mother in wonder. 

 Why does she ‘wonder’?  I ask myself.  Our brief lives should be filled with moments like these; times we simply drop what we are doing and move to the music.  Moments don’t just happen.  We make them come alive by risking and yes, dancing.  These moments become our memories.  If we don’t make them joyful, we are doomed to a bitter old age.  Besides, the music doesn’t play forever.  So, to Granny, ‘Thank you for that advice.’  And to Vernon, ‘Thank you for the dance!’

 Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of the 13 years her ‘advice-giving’ Granny descended into Alzheimer’s.

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW

 

TOSS A COIN

I’m always on the lookout for pennies in the street.  Once I picked up several dollars along with some cigarette butts and candy wrappers at a drive-thru.  The young cashier actually thanked me for ‘cleaning the place up.’  She had no interest in retrieving those coins  from the mucky street.  None.  That’s the problem with the young; they forget that stuff adds up.  All of it.  Choice by choice, coin by coin, year by year, it just accumulates. 

Until one day you wake up and crazy as it sounds, you are actually sixty.  That would be:  Six Zero.  Take 10 six year-olds, tie them together and there you are. . .only not so cute anymore.  Of course by now, you have finally figured out that how you look is fairly irrelevant.  How you have lived is not.  You cannot help but pause and reflect, simply because there are thousands and thousands of days filled with choices you did and didn’t make to recall.

So, indulge me on my birthday as I share my 5-word philosophy:  life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you want but you can only use it once.  Now some folks will hold onto that coin and consider their options carefully before they put it to prudent use.  Others will just stick it in their pocket for that proverbial rainy day, which everyone knows never comes.  Some will spend it right away and have nothing left.  But the saddest part?  Some will look at that coin smack in the face and declare it just ‘isn’t enough.’

 Funny thing is, they are both given to us and neither one lasts forever.  Extending time is like stretching your pennies. . . at some point there just isn’t anymore.  On that happy note, I am headed out to make THIS day, like ALL days as rich with life as I can.  

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/helenhudson2

 

 

HAPPY ‘OLD’ YEAR

A gray-haired old woman from the United Kingdom

Faces like this beauty are becoming gloriously ever-present.

Well, now that the super rich are going to keep the rest of us from falling off the fiscal cliff, consider this:  our elderly are going back into the workplace faster than you can shake a cane.  Today alone, I was helped by more gray hairs than young folk.

 Walking into the supermarket, the stock ‘boy’ was putting up a case of ketchup.  Granted, he did it bottle by bottle, unlike the young bucks who hold the case in one arm and fill the shelves with the other.  But considering he was in his 70’s, I was impressed nonetheless.  Same with the bent-over, bald guy who was gathering up wayward carts in the parking lot.

 Several of my ‘over 60’ acquaintances have hired on at Starbucks over the last few years,  just “for the benefits.”  The janitor at the YMCA is a grandmother in her 60’s who never seems to take a break.  The younger janitor, I notice, however, is often sitting on various stairwells sipping coffee or munching candy bars.

 However, one further surprise awaited me on this first day of January, 2013.  When I reached the end of my first lap in the pool and looked up at the lifeguard chair, I had to remove my goggles to believe my eyes.  There, 4 feet up, with a red buoy strung over her chest was a gray-haired woman who looked at least 75.  Her bare legs, while fit, had sagging skin dotted with old age spots and her ankles appeared swollen. 

 I kept swimming.  A few minutes later, she climbed down from the chair and a young, buff guy took her place.  I stopped to watch her move to her next location.  Her posture was erect but in the kind of way that takes effort.  And while I had the sense that I might not exactly like to drown on her watch, I also had tremendous respect for her resolve.  Frankly, it won’t be the super rich or the President or anyone else that keeps this country from going down on its’ knees.  It will be our elderly who continue to stand tall in the face of Time’s demise.   

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” now on Amazon/Kindle.  

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW

VERY THANKFUL

Everybody has a hard luck story.  At my age, I don’t even pause to hear most of them anymore.  I hang up mid-sentence on telephone salesmen, ignore the homeless waving at my windshield and no longer drop bills in the boxes of those who’s signs say:  “Lost My Job.”  I’ve just seen too many of them at the liquor store later.    

They’re just the same old words out of different mouths.  Today, though, was different.  As I was leaving the pool this morning, an elderly woman wheeled herself up to the end of the ramp in a motorized wheelchair.  The lifeguard helped her maneuver her large, awkward body into the water.  She wore a snug wetsuit, that given her limited mobility must have taken her perhaps an hour to get into. 

 Feeling strangely transfixed, I waited for her to enter the water.  As our eyes met, she beamed the most warm and radiant smile.  It was only then that I realized just how pretty she was.  Her eerily, young face seemed out of place on her crippled body.  We began walking together as if we had done this for years. 

 Over the next 20 minutes, she told me that she has osteoporosis, and both knees and one hip were replaced.  The second hip needs replacement, but it cannot be done due both to her fragility and an underlying auto-immune disease.  Her eyesight is also failing partly because her eyes cannot tolerate the medicinal drops they need. 

 She fears her husband is in the throes of Alzheimer’s but does not know what to do.  In the last month, “He has dented all four sides of his car.’  At the market last week, he forgot to purchase the items she needed and returned to get them a second time.  When he still came home without them, she suggested he not go out again and reached to pick up his car keys.  When she did, he grabbed her so hard, “I was scared for my life.” 

 She has two sons:  one is severely diabetic and the other, a former minister with a wife and 3 children was just diagnosed as bipolar.  His wife has taken a job as a part-time cashier, but my aging friend is sending them money from her dwindling retirement to keep them afloat.

 “Well,” I said, “your plate is full this Thanksgiving, but certainly not of things that you are thankful for.”    “Oh, my dear!” she beamed.  “I am VERY thankful.  I just had YOU to share all of this with!” 

BE HERE NOW

It’s funny how the sheer passage of time changes your outlook.  40 years ago I was driven, ambitious and had the energy to scale miles of New York City sidewalks in high heels, no less.  Now, a good cup of coffee in my recliner with the dog in my lap as I read the morning news is bliss itself.

The dichotomy of those two pictures makes me shake my head.  It’s not that I wonder, ‘When did I get so old?’  What amazes me is that I was perfectly content then and just as content now.  It is as if my mind has reorganized itself to embrace this slowed-down, creakier version of my younger self.  Now other than the fact that I have many less years ahead of me than behind me, I am pretty much okay being exactly where I am.  Of course some days I am not exactly certain ‘where’ that is, but wherever it is, I am there.  And so are you.

There was a time where the thought of leaving this earth horrified me.  My stomach sank and the longer I thought about it the more distraught I became.  ‘Where will I go when I’m gone?’ I used to ask my grandmother.  ‘How will I be able to hug you if I’m not here!?’  Lately, I find myself warming up to the idea.  After all, there is only so much one can do with a life, and only so much time in which to do it.      

A man next to me in the pool today told me he took early retirement in his 50’s.  “I’m 82 now,” he said with resignation.  “At the time, my wife and I thought we would travel but we never really did.  I had a lot of plans when I was younger but somehow, the older I got the less important they seemed.  Now, I’m just happy to wake up in the morning.”

Clearly, he’s a few ‘acceptance stages’ ahead of me.  But I take comfort in his point of view.  I have now decided that we are wired to, ‘Be Here Now.’  That said, I wish you all a warm, contented morning.  May you be so blessed as I to have a dog curled up in your lap and a hot cup of coffee to get you going!!

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes.” 

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW

DON’T WORRY

Do you know that they’ve done studies which PROVE over 90% of what we worry about NEVER happens!  I’ve even READ the studies, so I ask you, why did I wake up at 5 AM this morning worried about my teenagers?  Because I figure, MY worries are in that 10%.  Go figure.

Now, I admit, I have a rather uncanny ability to find everyone else’s flaws and weak points.  Seriously, my head is like a magnifying glass. It can fix on the most minute crack in someone’s façade and enlarge it to earthquakian proportions.  Give me ten minutes with anyone and I assure you that I could tell you where they’re going wrong, what they’re doing right and if so inspired, even offer my advice to let them know both of the above. 

Plus, it does not take a GPS to find my mouth.  Just walk by and it locates.  If only that inner guide steered me as well raising kids, I might have a whole lot less worry and a heck of a lot more sleep.  In hindsight, I spent the first 10 years loving, nurturing, teaching, and helping them find their way.  Frankly, they have spent the last 10 undoing all my good work.  

Children learn by example.  (At least they used to before the computer opened it’s top and swallowed them whole).  In prehistoric times, kids had no choice.  When Mom said, “Run!” they ran.  Otherwise, they’d have been flattened by a buffalo.  But they’re extinct like “Thank You” notes, long distance phone calls and helping little, old ladies across the street.  When’s the last time you laid eyes on a Boy Scout?  Or held the door for someone older? 

Fortunately, my oldest, has had a part-time job the last two years.  She knows what’s it’s like to do something that involves mindless repetition, receives no praise and garners little money.  It has prepared her for parenting.  Of course, by the time she has kids, you can probably just download an App.  It’ll save you the hassle AND the worry. On that note, I think I’ll hit the sack.

HELEN HUDSON HERE: GET REAL

Remember the days when you had to get your courage up to tell that special person how you felt?  Or had to break off a relationship in PERSON?  Not anymore.  Now you just type what’s on your mind, click “SEND,” and you never even have to look them in the eye.  Communication these days is more simulation than sensation.  You see and hear it but you don’t really feel it.

Back in the day, gossip took weeks to get around.  You either had to witness the dirty deed yourself or hear about it through the grapevine.  Now, in mere seconds, you can send/receive pictures, live videos or access heretofore ‘private’ stuff from thousands of folks without moving from your chair.  And while such supersonic speed saves lives, it also destroys them. 

Now I’m not suggesting a return to the days when the stagecoach brought the mail.  (Although I do imagine the thrill of hearing the approach of pounding hoof beats stirred the heart more than a mere cell phone ‘ding.’)  But our generation of kids operates in a sea of instant gratification.  If they make a mistake, they hit, “DELETE.”  With impulse at the helm, there’s no steering clear of the rocks. Disaster is always imminent.  Just ask the survivors from the Costa Concordia.   

Last year, I spoke at a parent’s meeting at my daughter’s school.  Afterwards, I drove straight home.  It’s a five-minute trip.  The second I walked in, my daughter yelled:  “Hey.  I just heard what you said in the meeting.”  How?  Some Mom told her kid what I said, who then texted my daughter.  So much for a ‘Parent’s’ meeting. 

I do wish my kids knew what it was like to have to wait weeks just to get a letter from someone special; something they could hold, cherish and rediscover years later in some forgotten box.  But there’s no going back.  Like an Olympian, I have to focus on the challenge ahead, not the guy behind me.

Right now, mine is teaching my teen how to drive.  She has mastered acceleration.  If I hold my breath just right, she can even park between two cars without removing their side mirrors.  Frankly, I’d like to put an egg between her foot and the brake.  What’s her REAL challenge besides scouring the road ahead for bicyclists, bolting dogs or bumpy potholes?  Anticipating the impending light change. . . then watching for the car that might run it.  You can’t simulate that.  It’s real.