MIRROR, MIRROR!

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mirror mirror

While Christmas shopping, I stopped into Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up a larger oven mitt for my husband. Lately, he’s been cooking up a storm and mine is much too small for his hands. While there, I noticed a woman my age staring at herself in the above mirror. Now I don’t know about you but the last thing I want for Christmas is a $200 mirror that lights up AND magnifies my face up to 5 times its’ size!

 But apparently this woman did. Her husband, however, was not such an easy sell. He was astounded by the price tag and kept staring hard into the mirror, as if trying to figure out just what the heck she saw in that thing. Maybe it was like the magic mirror in Snow White and was telling her that she was the, ‘fairest of all,’ but somehow I didn’t think so.

 At one point, he even raised his voice and said, “Jesus, Lorraine. No one should have to spend that kind of money just to look at their own face. You already know what it looks like by now. Besides, it’s beautiful to me. That’s all that matters.” I was impressed by the way he finessed his way out of that one, cuz moments later, they both left happy.

 As soon as they did, I hustled over and stared hard into that mirror. Fortunately, I wasn’t wearing my glasses, for even without the lights on, it was a startling sight. My face was about the size of a cantaloupe, my pores looked like the surface of the moon after multiple Apollo landings and my nose clearly resembled the big dipper. Yikes!!

 This afternoon my husband came home from the ophthalmologist who just prescribed him, ‘blue light blocking’ glasses to wear when driving at night. Apparently, removing this band from the visible spectrum enables us to see better in the dark and also protects our eyes. Gosh, if they can do that, surely they can make those, ‘rose colored’ glasses for real, right? Until then, I shall muddle along happily seeing through my ‘glass darkly,’ without spending one, single, solitary cent.   

 

 

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DANCING IN THE DARK?

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hiking w: Herb

An older friend of mine recently asked me to hike with him. He said it would be easy on my knees and I’d love the view so I said, ‘Sure.’ He arrived with his walking stick, water bottle and a grand sense of confidence. As I looked up at the trail he had chosen for us, I remarked, “Gosh! This looks pretty steep!” “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “It’s really easy. I’ve done this hike many, many times.”

 What he had forgotten was that he had not done this particular hike in more than 15 years. For less than 5 minutes later, after slipping on gravel and struggling to get our footholds, we both had to turn around. It was hard for him to give up and I could see the disappointment in his face. In his mind, this exact hike had once been truly easy for him.

 Funny how we remember things, isn’t it? Science says that our memories are often faint and altered recollections of what actually transpired. They have now discovered that each time we recall one, it actually takes on a slightly, different tenor. A recent article in Science Digest says, “Your memory of an event can grow less precise even to the point of being totally false with each retrieval.” We have 86 billion neurons in our brains to keep them humming and yet? Apparently that’s not enough to keep our memories both exact and intact.

 Not long ago I said to my husband: “Remember when we used to go dancing?” His reply? “Honey, we only danced when we were dating, not once we got married. I think you’re confused.” I was dumbfounded. Apparently, dancing with him was SO memorable that 37 years has not extinguished my memory of it. Then again, his memory may not be accurate and maybe we’ve been dancing all along.

 

 

REALITY CHECK

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ssa

This is where I found myself last week, registering for Medicare. Yes, that program for OLD people; the one my grandmother was on for as long as I can remember. The whole process felt like a dream that someone—anyone–else should be doing but me. And yet? Here is where I find myself: almost 65. It’s not that I don’t own the years. I just can’t quite come to grips with the fact that now they own me.

 If you look at the statistics—and I do—they are sobering: 63% of folks over 65 are in need of long-term care. The probability of my becoming disabled or cognitively impaired is 68%. Finally there is this: 69% of us will develop disabilities before we die and 35% of us will enter a nursing home! ‘Not me,’ I can hear you saying. Well, I’m saying it, too, but talk is cheap.

 It’s hard enough to face one’s own mortality without having to sign on the dotted line about it. I also have to, “Choose a plan from A to N.” What that really means is: do I pick the Pollyanna plan which says that I’m healthy, will live forever and nothing bad will ever happen to me? Or, do I pick the plan that has me covered if I break every bone in my body, contract cancer and have only 6 weeks to live?

 In times like these, I often refer to the wisdom of noted neurologist and philosopher, Viktor Frankl, who wrote, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” It is a book that I read in my youth and one which speaks to me still.       

 “The pessimist observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. The optimist removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it carefully away. He reflects with pride and joy on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What does it matter to him that he is growing old? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has? ‘No, thank you,’ he will think. ‘Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered.”

 Ah, clearly I should face this new reality with the spirit of possibility and carry on.   N’est-ce-pas?

GETTING DUMBER BY THE SECOND?

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bruised hand

 Aging causes us to lose our brain-processing speed. Typically, we lose a tenth of a second of brain speed per decade from age 20 on. This minute change is very difficult to notice, even for the most tuned-in individuals, because aging occurs at a constant rate.

Well, I may have lost 45 milliseconds of brain speed in the last 45 years, but I am NOT as slow-brained as the 20-something woman who parked at Trader Joe’s this morning. Not by a long shot. I ask you, who parks a brand new SUV and leaves BOTH the driver’s door and the passenger door WIDE OPEN??

Unfortunately, after circling around, the only spot available was next to this car. So, carefully I pulled in, hugging the right line of my parking spot. I kept looking for the driver but there was no one in sight. As I squeezed myself out, a voice behind me suddenly shrieked: “Oh My God! You parked so close to my car!!!”

I turned to see a young woman holding a, single, grocery bag in her hand. For a moment I was flummoxed. Finally I replied: “Well, unlike you, Dear, I’m parked well within my spot. Intelligent people don’t leave their cars unattended with both doors wide open in a crowded, parking lot.” You’d have thought she might have apologized for her thoughtlessness. Nope. She merely deposited her bag onto the passenger seat, shut the door and huffed her way around to the driver’s side. As she closed that door, the poor man idling next to her, who’d been waiting to pull out, finally did.

What I should have said was: “Darlin,’ it’s obvious from the way you parked that your pre frontal cortex hasn’t fully formed yet. Lucky for you, time has slowed my brain’s processing speed so that I was actually able to avoid hitting your car as I pulled in. Otherwise, you’d be missing the passenger door right now.”

However, when I returned home I actually did something even dumber. Picking up my hand weights, which I use every day; I began swinging them in big, wide, circles over my head. Just as I came down from the first circle, I misjudged the distance (by a millimeter or millisecond?) and the left weight went slamming into the back of my right hand. The hematoma is huge and the pain immense. Apparently, stupidity has no age barrier. None.

 

 

 

 

BLOCK SENDER!!

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sleepy sky

           Last night, I met a man whose daughter was at the Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas. She had gone with a girlfriend for an evening of fun and celebration. During the melee, her girlfriend was struck by two bullets in the hip and knee. As they tried to flee, she called her dad, and after listening to shots ring out and people scream, the line went dead. He later learned that his daughter was OK but her friend will likely lose her leg.

            We live in a time of terror and instantaneous replay of that terror. The stress it generates in both us and our children can be immense and overwhelming. During World War II, for example, thyroid issues in Americans (mostly stress-induced) more than quadrupled. At the end of the war, those statistics returned to where they had been before the war broke out. 

            But here’s the thing, it isn’t just World Wars or terrorism that cause stress. Living itself can do the job whether it’s anxiety over exams, job performance, marital issues, or merely one’s health. Life, by definition, means destruction ultimately. Aging only adds one more wrinkle to that demise for a blooming rose does not last forever.

            So, while we are here we must learn to keep ourselves peaceful and still in the midst of what is often sheer madness. Yes, we can eat calcium-rich foods, exercise daily, not drink caffeine after 4 PM, go to bed at the same time every night, sprinkle lavender on our pillows and turn off the Internet an hour before bed. But it goes deeper. It means surrounding yourself with people who are joyful and uplifting and avoiding the bitter, negative naysayers. It means ‘unfriending’ those who aren’t really ‘friends,’ or fill their posts with only vengeance and venom. Perhaps true bliss is simply knowing when to, “block sender.” Peace to you, dear readers.    

 

           

PRESERVE YOUR MEMORIES

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Scrapbooks! 

More than 40 years ago, Simon & Garfunkel recorded a song on their album, “Bookends.” It was a minute and a half piece about a photograph that said, “Preserve your memories. They’re all that’s left you.” How were they so wise at only 27?

I am a hoarder of memories. For 50 some years, I have lugged boxes full of photos and memorabilia from as far back as 1880 when my Great Granny was born. I have newspaper clippings from the 1920’s, all the way through to my youngest’s recent 21st birthday. Right now, I figure that there are 140 years on my dining room table. I even found the receipt from my first dinner date with my husband! That’s a lot of ‘baggage’ to carry around and yet? Mostly, it’s a treasure trove of lives fully lived over many generations.

 For the last several weeks, I have culled through the photos, letters, articles and cards of those many years. I am making scrapbooks so that my children might enjoy looking at them one day. Yes, they’re old fashioned but there is something about holding a moment in your hand: the tiny tooth my child first lost, a sketch my grandmother drew of her horse at 16, the letter my great grandmother wrote to her daughter when she married.

 Of course, there are many pictures of people that I do not recognize at all. There are even pictures of ME that I don’t recognize as me. There are also cards and letters from people whose names I don’t recall either. But I’ve decided that it really does not matter what you can’t remember. It is what you cannot forget that is important. So, capture and hold your memories for the generations behind you yet to come.

 Don’t wait until dementia sets in to tell your story. These days, there are many ways to preserve your past from homemade videos to personal historians who can capture your life stories for generations to come. Here is one site from a friend of mine: https://www.perfectmemoirs.com. Bob Dylan once said, “Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.” Well actually, if you make a scrapbook, you almost can!

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

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tarantula

This cute, furry-legged fellow ambled across our deck a few weeks back. Any rock climber would envy his ability to ascend a vertical face. What? You don’t think he’s cute? That’s the funny thing about the mind, isn’t it? One persons’ fascination can be anothers’ terror.

 This morning at Trader Joe’s, I met a charming, very talkative, older man. We discussed our interest in healthy foods, scorn for Big Pharma and concern over the opioid epidemic. As we spoke, a woman with wrinkly skin, hideously, tattooed legs and dyed, pinkish, red hair stood listening nearby. She smiled at me a few times to reveal a mouthful of missing, broken and discolored teeth. Suddenly, he noticed the woman and his eyes lit up so brightly you’d have thought he was seeing his firstborn for the first time.

 “Oh! I want you to meet Janet, my beautiful wife of 49 years!” he exclaimed beaming with pride.

His exuberance must have rubbed off on me, for at that moment, I found her as beautiful as he did! As we spoke, she even seemed to radiate. Mindset is everything, isn’t it? How we ‘see’ a thing makes it what it is. And that initial perception affects our choices, decisions, moods and ultimately, even our futures. Aging is like that. For some it is a feared reality. For others, it is merely the next adventure.

Recently, I read an article that said that, ‘being mature’ and ‘being old,’ are two, very separate things. These were listed as, ‘signs of maturity’:

  1. Understanding that aging is a natural part of life and accepting it.
  2. Being alive to the wonder you experienced as a child.
  3. Paying attention and learning from others who are aging well.
  4. Not trying to ‘be young,’ but wearing your age with pride.
  5. Appreciating how little you know.
  6. Accepting that others’ faults are no worse than your own.
  7. Realizing that few of your beliefs/ideas originated with you.
  8. Being at ease with your imperfect life.
  9. Making a will, arranging for death and then getting on with life.

 When I first read the list I thought that I was pretty ‘mature.’ However, after meeting that couple this morning, I have decided that I need to add another sign of maturity to that list: 

  1. Finding beauty in ALL creatures, eight-legged and otherwise.