ACT YOUR AGE-NOT YOUR IQ

Look closely, and you’ll see that my friend, Raven, is shoeless, even while playing pickleball in 100-degree heat! He says it keeps him grounded and it must work because he’s a phenom on the court. His reckless abandon reminds me of the kid I saw at the grocery store who tossed grapes into the produce weighing scale from his moms’ shopping cart. “Act your age!” she scolded. “He is,” I assured her.

At six, Mozart was giving piano concerts, and Shirley Temple was making movies. Pocahontas saved Captain James Smith when she was only 12. Anne Frank began her famous diary at 13. Ralph Waldo Emerson enrolled at Harvard when he was 14. At 17, Joan of Arc led her troops against the English and Marco Polo began his exploration of Asia. Were they acting their age?

Growing up doesn’t mean we have to stop having fun and not much stops me from creating my own. At the Starbucks window, when the intercom voice asks, “What can I get you today?” I say weird stuff as fast as I can like, “a kumquat cafe with flipped fleas.” There’s often a pause. “I’m sorry,” the voice says, “I didn’t understand you.” “A non-fat latte, with whip please,” I reply succinctly, trying not to giggle. (Sometimes I simply meow or do bird calls.)

When my girls were little, we once visited a fancy gift store. There were signs posted everywhere indicating: NO DOGS! The sour, old woman at the register looked mean and scary. As we neared the rear of the store, I couldn’t resist any longer and barked twice. (Mine can stir up an entire dog park.) Suddenly the woman appeared at the end of our aisle, then the next and the next looking for the non-existent dog! Still makes me smile.

If everyone acted their age, life would be dull. So save your stiff upper lip for your prison mug shot and get in touch with your inner child. Take off your shoes. Pitch grapes into the weighing scale. Bark like a dog. Shake up the status quo. When my grandmother was 83, she was still doing yoga on the front lawn in her orange tights. She never once told me to act my age just as I would never tell the barefoot boy to put on his shoes. Joy is fleeting as it is. Why stifle someone else’s?

“Happiness depends more on the internal frame of a person’s mind—than on the externals of the world.”—George Washington