AGEFULLY AGING

Inspirational reflections on this and that.

Recent Posts

  • A STITCH IN TIME!!

    Well, it’s been a whole week since 2011 lurched into view.  The gym is already less crowded.  For the record, I cannot ever remember making a New Year’s Resolution.  As a kid I must have watched too many grownups make—and not keep–them.  I have always tried to make daily ones; the kind that I could actually keep.  You know, like, ‘I will NOT eat one of those Hershey Kisses sitting in that bowl today!’  Or, ‘I will listen with real interest when old Mrs. So and So tells me the same story for the umpteenth time today.’

    A resolution is ultimate and firm.  It transcends time—or rather it’s supposed to.  Ultimately, it is the resolutions we make which build our true character.  Trouble is we put so much emphasis on the BIG things, like Health Care, that we ignore the little ones, like taking care of the health of our loved ones.  We rush to put our elderly in nursing homes when a little reconfiguration of their own homes would help them stay independent longer.

    Right now I am potty training our new puppy.  This is my first dog, ever.  It’s a bit more work than I had anticipated.  For one thing, she likes to pee in one spot and do something else in a completely different spot.  Because I have praised her so much when she actually sets foot on the litter pad, she now goes there often—NOT to pee—but to let me know she would like a treat just for setting foot on it.

    So, I am taking it day by day, just like my resolutions.  2011 will find me knitting my life like a sweater; stitch by stitch and row by row.  I know full well that I can’t start the sleeves until the body is finished.  Just like I know this ten week-old pup will not be house trained overnight.  So today, my Resolution is to anticipate her signals better.  Meanwhile, I have the 409 and paper towels handy!  (Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a non-fiction memoir of her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s.  http://www.helen-hudson.com).


  • 2010 in review

    Stats folks at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

    Healthy blog!

    The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

    Crunchy numbers

    Featured image

    A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

    A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,900 times in 2010. That’s about 14 full 747s.

    In 2010, there were 50 new posts, not bad for the first year! 

    The busiest day of the year was June 26th with 160 views. The most popular post that day was KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN.

    Where did they come from?

    The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, helen-hudson.com, digg.com, healthfitnesstherapy.com, and mail.yahoo.com.

    Some visitors came searching, mostly for helen hudson here, helen hudson, helen hudson here wordpress, helen hudson blog, and helen hudson author.

    Attractions in 2010

    These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

    1

    KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN June 2010
    1 comment

    2

    “KISSING TOMATOES” March 2010
    1 comment

    3

    AARP (An Age Richly Producing) May 2010
    1 comment and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

    4

    SIX YEAR-OLD SHARES SECRET OF LIFE April 2010
    1 comment

    5

    FACE OFF ALZHEIMER’S WITH FACEBOOK June 2010

  • NEVER SAY NEVER

    ‘We’ just got a puppy for Christmas.  In the last two days I have bent over with a paper towel and wiped or picked up at least 12 different ‘gifts.’  According to my research, I will be doing this for the next 3 months—if I’m lucky.

    Now I am not particularly wild about dogs, never have been.  Like ‘em from a distance.  Up until yesterday, I have never owned a dog AND NEVER BEEN TEMPTED.  Nope.  Never.  Never walked a dog.  Never picked up after one.  Never took care of a friend’s dog.  Over the years, I have actually plugged my ears in the presence of a barking dog, even when the sound was coming from a movie screen.

    I was bit by a dog once.  Still have the scar.  Did I mention that besides their bark, I also loathe their smell, particularly when they are wet?  Oh, and I REALLY can’t stand it when they jump up on me and sniff everywhere.  Not my idea of a good time.

    Broke up with a guy once because I couldn’t stand his dog.  Walked away from several apartments over the years because they allowed dogs.  Won’t stay in hotels that allow pets.  Have moved twice because a neighbor’s dog would not stop barking.  Had to sit next to a dog on a plane once and asked to be moved.

    Not long ago, I pulled up to a friend’s house and was greeted by their very, loudly barking, BIG dog.  I did not get out of the car.  Too terrified.  So, rolled up the windows. . .and waited. Finally, my friend heard the racket and came to rescue me.

    You get the gist.  But, did I mention how my daughter’s face lights up whenever she sees this (as of yet unnamed) pup?  Or how she rushes to play with it and doesn’t seem to mind cleaning up the messes?  Right now I can hear her saying to her little mutt, “Wanna go on an adventure?’  She has put it on a teeny, tiny leash and they are, ‘Going for a walk.’

    Granny always told me to, “Never say ‘never.’”  That was 40 years ago.  If she could see me now running after this four-legged rascal with yet another paper towel in hand, she would just smile that knowing smile.  (Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of her grandmother’s descent into Alzheimer’s.   http://www.helen-hudson.com).

     

     

     

  • SINGIN’ SWINGIN’ SENIOR

    What a thrill I had at the supermarket this morning!!  As I was coming through the checkout line with a single bottle of CHEER, the cutest little teenage checker gave me a huge smile and said, “Are you a singer?”  “Why, yes, I am,” I said, perfectly delighted that she may have recognized me.  “Okay, then, you get 5% off today!”  Suddenly, I wished I had bought more.  “How nice,” I said, do you give all singers a discount?”  “Oh, no,” she replied.  “Just Seniors cuz it’s Wednesday.”

     

    I thanked her politely and semi-staggered to my car trying to mentally calculate that my vain stupidity had just saved me about forty cents.  I blamed my poor hearing on the fact that I had just finished swimming and probably still had water in my ears.

     

    While I am fully aware that I have seen more than five decades pass, for some odd reason I am still stuck in my 20’s in my head.  When my grandmother was in her sixties I asked her, ‘What does it feel like to be so old.”  ‘Well, Dear, it’s only when other people talk to me like I’m old that I realize that I am.”  I get it now.

     

    But here is the real beauty of aging if you’re lucky enough to keep at it.  A few hours later I was filling my car with gas when a pickup truck with two, cute teenage boys pulled up on the other side of the pump.  Suddenly, one yelled out, “Hi, Mermaid!”  I turned around to find one of the YMCA lifeguards grinning at me.  As we talked, he seemed so proud to know me that by the time I pulled away I wasn’t feeling so old anymore.

     

    However, next Wednesday I plan to take my bruised ego and gray hair straight back to that supermarket.  I am loading my cart to the brim and just guess whose aisle I’m going to?   (Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir detailing the 13 years she cared for her grandmother who had Alzheimer’s.  http://www.helen-hudson.com).

  • JOIE DE JOIE

    A few minutes ago, my seventeen year-old actually said these very words to me:  ACT YOUR AGE!!  (Yes, the very title of my last blog, which she apparently did NOT read).  She was horrified to discover that I have been taking  Zumba classes.  When I pressed her as to exactly what she meant by her statement, she had no (at least repeatable here) reply.

    But I do.  So please drop whatever you are doing and click on the link below.  No word I  write can say as much as what you are about to see.

    May your day hold at least a fraction of this joyfulness. Ordinarily, I would give you my personal permission to punch the next person who tells your to ‘act your age.’  Instead, however, I will simply say, “Keep up the Good Work!!”  (Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes.”)

  • ACT YOUR AGE

    This one’s been around awhile and I still don’t get it.  Heard it a few times as a kid.  Never liked hearing it though because it usually meant I was doing something wrong-—like the kid at Kroger’s yesterday.  He was tossing grapes into the silver pan of the produce weighing scale from his perch in a shopping cart about four feet away.  They made a little clunking sound when they hit just right.  Pretty nifty trick actually and for a five year-old, he had pretty good aim.  His mom wasn’t too happy though.  “Act your age!” she scolded as I passed by.  “He is,” I  smiled.

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

    I was too, this morning, when the girl at Starbucks told ME to act MY age at the Drive-Thru.  Granted, when she said, “What can I get for you today?” I did reply as fast as I could, “New knees, a winning lottery ticket, and two happy, well-behaved kids.”  Then, I waited for what I knew would be a very long pause.  “Excuse me?” she began again.  “My speaker doesn’t seem to be working very well.  I didn’t quite understand your order.”  “A venti non-fat latte, please,” I said as succinctly as I could without giggling.

    Look at it this way:  if everyone acted their age, cities wouldn’t be conquered, symphonies composed or challenges created.  There would also be a lot less laughter.  Funny thing, though, Grandmother never told me to act my age.  Maybe that’s because she never acted hers.  I well remember the afternoon she strapped on her old tap shoes.  She was 83 and had just discovered them in the garage.   What a sight she was in that red-checkered shirt and baggy shorts, her white hair flying as she tried to demonstrate a ‘time step.”  For the record, when Jonathan Swift was my age, he had just published, “Gulliver’s Travels.”  Lilliputians?  Seriously.  Talk about acting your age.  Ha! (Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” and speaks around the country about caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s).  http://www.helen-hudson.com).

  • BE HERE WHILE YOU’RE HERE

    She was only five foot two, but you couldn’t miss her at the Southwest boarding gate.  Her bright, pink, plastic raincoat just screamed, ‘Here I am!’ from the long line of dark, business suits and drab jackets.  And there she was: a tiny woman with a pixie hair cut, dressed in slim jeans, a snappy pullover and sporting a very, loud pair of black and white checkered Keds.

    “I dress for my grand-kids,” she fairly shouted at me when I complimented her on the Keds. ( Hard of hearing I figured.)  “They love to see me coming,” she boasted.  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ I thought to myself.  She was all heart and pizzazz, wrapped in a bright, pink package.  “I’m eighty-four,” she volunteered before I could even ask, “and I look every DAY of it!”

    Now there’s a conversation starter—but our lines split off and we went our separate ways. . .not for long.  A few minutes later, that booming voice asked, “Anyone sitting here?”  She plunked herself down in the window seat like any eight year old would; deliberately, just like Lily Tomlin in that big rocking chair on Laugh In.  Her checkered Keds didn’t quite touch the ground.

    Had someone not been between us, I am sure we’d have talked away the time.  As it was, I caught bits and pieces from a distance.  “You know I figure while you’re here you might as well be here.  Know what I mean?  A lot of people are here but you’d just never know it.”  For the rest of the ride I just closed my eyes, listening to the almost childlike exuberance in her voice.

    Wish I could introduce her to my friend Walter at the Y.  One day, after discovering that I liked opera, he suddenly burst into an aria from Tosca right there in the sauna.  We were even surrounded by a bunch of young guys “sweating out the beer” from their previous night’s binge at the football game.  Didn’t bother Walter.  Didn’t bother me.  Wouldn’t have bothered that gal in the pink raincoat.

    Today Walt was wearing brand new, bold, black & white paisley trunks.  I’d say they were a size too big, but I think maybe he ‘s shrunk.  I finally asked him how old he was.  “Eighty-eight” he bellowed.  (Walt’s hard of hearing, too.)  “Really?” I asked.  “Well, almost,” he said in that Jimmy Durante voice of his.  “I’ll be 88 in two months. . .but I’m already anticipating!!”  So am I, my friend.  So am I.  (Helen Hudson is an author and appreciator of all things aged.  http://www.helen-hudson.com).

     

     

     

     

  • FACE OR FACADE?

            In the last four days, I drove my daughter through four different states to look at eight separate colleges.  Since she had already seen schools on the west coast, the middle of the country and several “safety schools,” it was time to complete the picture.  We saw mostly those private institutions used as magical backdrops for movies like, “Love Story,” and “Mona Lisa Smile.”  You know, the ones with vast, green lawns, ivy climbing up the brick walls, and scullers rowing through the pristine lakes; the ones to which many apply but few are chosen.

            Frankly, the experience made me want to go back to college myself.  It’s amazing what you miss the first time around.  But this is her time not mine.  And while she may have been assessing the ‘cute boy factor’ as I marveled at the landscape, what we both noticed most were not the buildings, private art collections, dormitory food or even course selections—it was the people. 

            So it did not surprise me afterwards when she told me what her favorite had been.  It was the one where the cop motioned us to Admissions with a big smile after we got lost; the one where we were offered a steaming cup of orange spice tea as we waited for the tour; and the one where every student we passed was happy to stop and talk to us about their experience.  It was the one, of course, where I hope she will apply and be accepted.

            But life being what it is, she may well end up at a school she has not even seen yet.  Truth is, that’s okay, too.  Because wherever she lands, I am counting on the fact that she will be that friendly face others want to be around, too.

            When I was 12, my grandmother gave me a Brownie camera when I went to New York City for the first time.  I took hundreds of pictures of skyscrapers, bridges, and traffic.  Upon my return, I proudly showed her my efforts.  She flipped through the black and white snapshots, paused, and then handed them back to me.  “Darling,” she said kindly, “the next time you take a picture, always be certain there are people in it.  Those will be the ones that mean the most to you when you are older.”   Some things are just so true they are truth itself.  (Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of the years before and after her grandmother’s descent into Alzheimer’s.  http://www.helen-hudson.com.      

           

     

             

  • THE ROAD TAKEN. . .OR NOT

         Roads are like people.  You just never know where they will lead.  Some take you on long, wonderful journeys with splendid views.  Others are just dead ends.  But until you explore them, you just never know.

         In my youth I was determined to follow, “The Road Not Taken.”  I figured Frost had the right idea.  My grandmother must have agreed, because she impressed on me early on, NOT to, “follow the crowd.”  If I ever said, “Well, everyone else is doing such and such,” it was the best way NOT to get my way.   So, taking ‘the road not taken’ inadvertently made me a leader in my peers’ eyes.  It also made for a few harrowing experiences.

          On a hiking trip with friends we came to a fork in the road.  Everyone else opted for the marked route towards the river.  I insisted on forging alone a smaller, windy route upwards.  Though my path was steeper, and certainly less travelled, I figured that I would beat the others to the waters’ edge.   

         The path began simply enough but after a few minutes became so narrow and grown with branches and tree roots that I had to get on my knees and crawl upwards a few feet at a time.  Finally, towards the top, the trail suddenly widened and was welcoming!  In my excitement I quickened my pace on the slippery dirt and slid backwards just a few inches.  Had that not happened, my next full step would have been over the abrupt edge of a cliff that dropped several hundred feet into the rushing river.

         Instantly, my body went limp, yet my heartbeat raced wildly in my chest.  I was so close to the edge that I could not even turn and retreat.  There wasn’t enough ground.  A dizzying fear kept me from looking down again.  Any lean forward would veer me over the edge.  Barely breathing, I backed up  inch by agonizing inch.

         Now don’t get me wrong.  I still find myself off the beaten path most days.  But ever since that particular afternoon, I’ve always kind of figured it’s not really the road you take that matters; it’s what you do while you’re on it.  And, knowing how “way leads on to  way,” you’re not likely to get a second shot at your journey.  Sometimes, that’s a good thing.  (Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes.”  http://www.helen-hudson.com).        

  • LOVE’S ‘LABOR’ NOT LOST

         Someone I never knew died today and I am sad.  A few hours ago he simply took his last breath.  His children will never hear him laugh again.  His wife, a friend of mine, will never see him sip his morning coffee or put on his jacket.  Gone.  He is just gone.

          This EXIT door on the wall of all of our lives has bothered me my whole life.  It first hit me hard at the age of six while looking at the stars.  ‘Someday,’ I thought, ‘I will NOT be here but the stars WILL!’  Last week, I bought a leather chair and as I arranged it in the living room, realized that it will be around longer than I will.

          I don’t like the fact that chairs last longer than people.  I don’t like that we labor to become somebody only to end up as no one at all; merely a name on a headstone over bone and dust.  I don’t like knowing that I can’t present Granny with a ripe lemon off my newly planted tree.  She isn’t here to enjoy it anymore.

          What keeps me going is Love; love for the people in my life who really matter.  But I don’t just mean my husband and children.  I mean the people, living and dead, whose books inspire me, whose music moves me.  I am talking about complete and utter strangers whom I will never meet; the impoverished woman in Africa who has started a school for young girls; the men who lie in agonizing wait under the rock of that Chilean mine.  I mean that father; the one I’ve never met. 

          I am not writing a will.  No possession I own will mean near as much to my children as the time that I spent with them.  Things don’t make memories.  People do.  When I’m gone, they may take my degrees off the wall and trash them.  (Save the frames!)  And whatever can be of use, may they USE IT.  What I hope they carry away with them always, though, are the songs* they inspired in me; the ones I sang for them and all those strangers I never met.  Then my labors of love will not be lost and the stars can shine on.  (*You can listen to Helen’s songs at  http://www.facebook.com/pages/HELEN-HUDSON/34587010457 .) 

     

     

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