Old Age Day by Day November 16, 2013

I was so tired from the dogs barking at various times last night that I found myself yawning occasionally in study group this morning.  I am exhausted.  Our teacher had also gotten very little sleep and this resulted in a meandering discussion after meditation, but, nevertheless, many fruitful threads were grabbed and I can think about them later.  One was memorizing, and what it can do for the brain.  We all remembered having to memorize poems, facts, multiplication tables in school.  We could all still recite poems.  I can do a lot of the Gettysburg Address.  What does it mean to give that up?  What about memorizing pieces of music, or song, or other performance presentations?  We had to know our pieces by heart and sing songs without music.  I love that I can just pop up with nursery rhymes.  The other day my foster granddaughter's mom brought their dog Lucy and I recited:  Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it, nothing in it nothing on it but the binding round it.  My grandaughter was delighted.

We also discussed remembering faces or not, the ethics of assisted suicide, and other broad, hopelessly complicated topics.  Alas, there was no resolution to any of these convoluted subjects, but after all, maybe the most important thing to remember is that they are complicated, and people are passionate about them, and it all comes down to looking inside oneself and seeing what seems true to oneself.

I will never forget how in the film "12 Years as a Slave" Patsy asks Solomon to take her life and he refuses, and later we see she has made peace with her horrible lot in life, not given up her humanity, compassion or love, and in that way triumphed over the brutality inflicted upon her.  And we, as the viewers, know that in less than ten years, the Emancipation Proclamation will be activated, and the amendment to end slavery forever passed.  An irony that reminds us we can never know the future nor should we despair of it.  Actions have consequences, and change is the truth of life.  What a powerful film.