I'm going to a tea party today. I am noticing, as my friends and I get older, that we like to do again the things we did when young: the zoo, art play, games, singing, gluing (collages are big) and tea parties. There is an appreciation for the simple activities that once brought us together with friends when we were children, without the corkage fee or potluck burden. There is nothing to prove any more. If you can't remember when I used to cook, oh well, think what you will of me. Yes, the symphony is always nice, but it might be even better to sit in the back yard and giggle. I feel I've shored up all these wonderful operas, plays and recitals, but I'm slightly bored with my role as the audience, and want to be active in my entertainment again. Let's face it, I've seen Madama Butterfly and listened to Vivaldi many times, and I can sit in a plumpy chair and recall the experience while saving money at the same time.
Tea is a celebration. And if I often don't approach it with the delicacy of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, I love "doing it right". Real china cups and saucers, cream, sugar cubes or crystals, the tiny sandwiches and sweets. Tea is served, and forges a connection between the participants. My friend wants to offer me something, and I want to accept it with graciousness and attention. This is always a good lesson for me, as I am one of those people who loves to give but is uncomfortable accepting gifts. I've taken all of the equations out of my mind by now I hope, and no longer worry about who did what for whom last. You can "do for me" anytime now, and I can thank you with dignity and gratitude.
So are little children practicing something secretly profound? My tiny granddaughter and I play tea and have since she was under a year old. She took the tea set I bought her with her to her new home. She likes to serve me, and for me to exclaim how "delicious" it is. We are perhaps practicing a rite that will mark us as connected in our hearts and souls. And you can never practice too much.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Old Age Day by Day April 8, 2010
I love a garden, but have a black thumb, you might even say a goth thumb, a Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi appendage. I possess an underworldly ability to bring death to living plants by my gaze. My husband, being a biologist, is in charge of the house plants, yet he, too, is cursed in the plant arena. Rivulets of water run across our floors and under rugs after he's made his rounds. Death by drowning. Or rather, there is drought, then flood. Very biblical, but counter productive. He also operates the automatic watering system, which constantly needs tweaking, and seems to be almost, how shall I say it? Emotional. If the system is in a good mood, it gets most plants, but there are those out-of-favor bushes and flowers that must fend for themselves. It's a dog eat dog world after all.
I have enthusiasms accompanied by amnesia, during which times I buy dozens of primroses and a baby tree or camellia bush, enchanted by the picture of the flowers it will produce, plant them too shallowly and without enough potting soil surrounding them, and then forget about them until I notice they've transformed into dried flower arrangements. I can't keep my focus.
Do we have a gardener? Of course we do. But I live where my gardener earns more than I do, so I only can afford him a few hours a month. He does his best, and probably weeps at night when he thinks about our yard. We have so many trees, each not well pruned and dumping debris all over his blowing and raking. We're a jungle out there, and he does his best to hack away at the wilderness. Wisely, we do not have any grass, due to the utter destruction our two dogs inflict upon the back yard. We have a rule never to plant anything new in the back. We have a few planters with azaleas and rhrododenrons, but they are only safe as long as our female dog condescends to allow them life. If she's in a bad mood, she rips out a plant and tears it to shreds. It seems to calm her down and make her temporarily happy. We've tried reasoning with her, but, well, she's just not reasonable.
So all the hope for the garden rests with the small front yard, with is modicum of sun, and there definitely has been progress, because the gardener is now proactive and plants flowers on his own and then bills us, or maybe neighbors secretly water and drain when we're not around, to keep up property values. Or it could be it's just spring. But things are looking good, real good, if my husband and I can just keep a hands-off attitude, and we continue receiving occasional rains. As for the inside plants, pray for them. After all, at this point, we're too old to change our ways.
I have enthusiasms accompanied by amnesia, during which times I buy dozens of primroses and a baby tree or camellia bush, enchanted by the picture of the flowers it will produce, plant them too shallowly and without enough potting soil surrounding them, and then forget about them until I notice they've transformed into dried flower arrangements. I can't keep my focus.
Do we have a gardener? Of course we do. But I live where my gardener earns more than I do, so I only can afford him a few hours a month. He does his best, and probably weeps at night when he thinks about our yard. We have so many trees, each not well pruned and dumping debris all over his blowing and raking. We're a jungle out there, and he does his best to hack away at the wilderness. Wisely, we do not have any grass, due to the utter destruction our two dogs inflict upon the back yard. We have a rule never to plant anything new in the back. We have a few planters with azaleas and rhrododenrons, but they are only safe as long as our female dog condescends to allow them life. If she's in a bad mood, she rips out a plant and tears it to shreds. It seems to calm her down and make her temporarily happy. We've tried reasoning with her, but, well, she's just not reasonable.
So all the hope for the garden rests with the small front yard, with is modicum of sun, and there definitely has been progress, because the gardener is now proactive and plants flowers on his own and then bills us, or maybe neighbors secretly water and drain when we're not around, to keep up property values. Or it could be it's just spring. But things are looking good, real good, if my husband and I can just keep a hands-off attitude, and we continue receiving occasional rains. As for the inside plants, pray for them. After all, at this point, we're too old to change our ways.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Old Age Day by Day April 8, 2010
I'm going to a small art museum today with my younger daughter. There is an artist we both love - Hung Liu - and we're going to get an art fix. Liu takes things that are old, like photographs from long ago China, and makes something new and revealing out of the images. Art is forever synthesizing the old and the new, and thus my twenty something daughter and my sixty something self can share a moment of complete atunement. Both the old and the new have equivalent value. We're both seers, and united beyond difference.
This experience is far removed from the art market, where generally older is more valuable, though you can snag a Rembrandt more cheaply than a Van Gogh, and all the veneration in the world won't necessarily fly on a mug or scarf.
Art teaches us something about the attitude towards age in different times and cultures. You can see, in an art museum, that old age may be viewed as the receptacle for wisdom, or for character. Rembrandt's self portraits are more gorgeous as he ages, not less. Because more truth seems to be available through his face, more history. Artists find that appealing, and I wish people in our culture right now, could see past the botox urge to the allowance that something profound may have transpired in the face we decide needs fixing. Maybe it's the viewer who needs tweaking. The viewer is missing the view.
This experience is far removed from the art market, where generally older is more valuable, though you can snag a Rembrandt more cheaply than a Van Gogh, and all the veneration in the world won't necessarily fly on a mug or scarf.
Art teaches us something about the attitude towards age in different times and cultures. You can see, in an art museum, that old age may be viewed as the receptacle for wisdom, or for character. Rembrandt's self portraits are more gorgeous as he ages, not less. Because more truth seems to be available through his face, more history. Artists find that appealing, and I wish people in our culture right now, could see past the botox urge to the allowance that something profound may have transpired in the face we decide needs fixing. Maybe it's the viewer who needs tweaking. The viewer is missing the view.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Old Age Day by Day April 7, 2010
My brother sent three boxes yesterday. Sounds innocuous, I know, but my brother's gifts send fear racing through our veins. He thinks it's amusing to send tasteless things: tee shirts with sexist messages, movies that are beyond B, they're about a U, and books nobody has ever heard of for good reason. Some of this has to do with having lived in Texas for so many years, but actually, from childhood, his taste was hideous. He was the kid who picked the dried snake or the fake dog poop. This time it was sculptured armadillo beer can holders (a must for every household), a three foot plaster painted fox, and a plaster little girl in pigtails who is supposed to be hung by on a tree upside down. You know the Chuckie horror movie ads - well, she's way scarier, with creepy blue eyes. I accidentally (really, I was trying to figure out whether she was hung upside down or right side up) broke one of her ponytails while getting her out of the box, and when my husband got home I made him put the creature in the garage. Normally we put stuff we don't want out on the curb, but I cannot be identified with this thing in any way. I cannot imagine a human being (other than my brother) who would want this. It's very twilight zone, which was my brother's favorite TV show as a kid, though he forced me to watch with him because he was terrified.
What is the message? Well, obviously, that he wins for most tasteless gifts of the century. He's tricky, though, because once in a while he sends beautiful books. This forces me to open every box, instead of tossing it whole into the garbage. The Tweety Bird pink and black fake leather jacket seven sizes too big for me still hangs in the coat closet in case I need a quick costume, and I have real Ed Wood movies and books that might be good if I dared begin reading. My brother dreamed of being Red Skelton or Red Buttons when he was a kid, and in his old age he has decided to test out his comic abilities. I just wish it was for an audience at a Texas steakhouse instead of me. But that might prove dangerous, even where he lives, and he has his reputation to consider. So I'm the recipient of the abundance of his humor, and there is no way to get him back, as even in the catalogs that come with the gifts, I can see he has already picked the most hideous selection available. Oh, well, I might hide the fox outside in the bushes, and the beer holders might be amusing to my younger son. But the swinging Chuckie, she needs to be buried, fast.
What is the message? Well, obviously, that he wins for most tasteless gifts of the century. He's tricky, though, because once in a while he sends beautiful books. This forces me to open every box, instead of tossing it whole into the garbage. The Tweety Bird pink and black fake leather jacket seven sizes too big for me still hangs in the coat closet in case I need a quick costume, and I have real Ed Wood movies and books that might be good if I dared begin reading. My brother dreamed of being Red Skelton or Red Buttons when he was a kid, and in his old age he has decided to test out his comic abilities. I just wish it was for an audience at a Texas steakhouse instead of me. But that might prove dangerous, even where he lives, and he has his reputation to consider. So I'm the recipient of the abundance of his humor, and there is no way to get him back, as even in the catalogs that come with the gifts, I can see he has already picked the most hideous selection available. Oh, well, I might hide the fox outside in the bushes, and the beer holders might be amusing to my younger son. But the swinging Chuckie, she needs to be buried, fast.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Old Age Day by Day April 6, 2010
I was waiting in line yesterday to buy my ticket for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and a man was behind me with twin girls about six years old. One of the girls came up to me and said hi, then asked "Are you old?" I said I guessed I was as I was 64. She then said "Are you gonna die?" and I said "Eventually, but not yet." I was fighting feeling bristly, but attempting to be kind, and I figured my gray hair was a novelty to her. There are a lot of children with no grandparents around, or any real contact with their elders. She was just curious, but I wondered at that moment if I should dye my hair or have surgery or dress younger. Then I relaxed, and got comfortable with my hot dog, popcorn and diet coke. They were in the same theater, a few rows up from me, and every time the little girl went out and came back she gave me a look. I could tell I was having more fun than she, and she wanted some kind of connection. Had death hit her recently, but she didn't know what it was? Did she need a female, and all she had was a clueless dad? It could have been any story. But as I feel so often these days, kids want something from us older folks. What is it?
Kudos to the dad who took his girls not to a loud, violent film but something he thought his kids would like, and who didn't yank an arm or apologize to me. He figured I didn't need to be taken care of, I could handle it myself. A good dad. I had a dad who thought I could take care of myself. When I was seventeen and decided I wanted to check out different religions, he drove me to temples and churches and cathedrals, and never complained. He'd drop me off and pick me up after the service, and he acted as if it was natural to question what the world was about and my place in it. He never said a word about religion when I married a Muslim. He just thought I was too young (I was). He let me find out about the world without insisting he knew what was best for me.
When our older kids became conservative Christians for a while as teenagers, we drove them to church and back and let them feel their way around what they wanted and needed. We trusted them. We weren't so certain we knew what was right for them. It's better not to be certain, at least not certain about others' lives. Let them ask the questions, because the questions may be more important than the answers.
Kudos to the dad who took his girls not to a loud, violent film but something he thought his kids would like, and who didn't yank an arm or apologize to me. He figured I didn't need to be taken care of, I could handle it myself. A good dad. I had a dad who thought I could take care of myself. When I was seventeen and decided I wanted to check out different religions, he drove me to temples and churches and cathedrals, and never complained. He'd drop me off and pick me up after the service, and he acted as if it was natural to question what the world was about and my place in it. He never said a word about religion when I married a Muslim. He just thought I was too young (I was). He let me find out about the world without insisting he knew what was best for me.
When our older kids became conservative Christians for a while as teenagers, we drove them to church and back and let them feel their way around what they wanted and needed. We trusted them. We weren't so certain we knew what was right for them. It's better not to be certain, at least not certain about others' lives. Let them ask the questions, because the questions may be more important than the answers.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Old Age Day by Day April 5, 2010
Back to the real world. It was nice getting away, even with two rainy days and unseasonably cold weather. The morning we checked out we swam in the pool while the cold rain fell on us. In case you think we belong to the Polar Bear Club, I must confess that the water was around 110 degrees. They have to cool it down from the geyser or we'd all be poached dopes on floats. The steam rises from the pool and makes everything seem to be a Hollywood version of heaven, and you feel bouyant and twenty pounds slimmer. You drink cucumber water to cool off, made by the staff and looking so lovely in the elegant glass containers. I believe Martha Stewart designed the cucumbers. For me, who likes a really, really hot bath, the pool is the key to an altered consciousness. I other words, I forget to worry about the health of the dogs, whether Facebook is endangering my kids, or Dick Cheney.
We even had massages the day before, though I struggle with biting back apologies for my body, and thinking I need to tip twice as much because there is twice as much of me to massage. But I calmed down, and tried to be in the moment. But it's hard, with all those ocean waves crashing through the speakers, not to have an urge to pee, and after all, I don't meditate with my clothes off, so it's somewhat distracting. I found myself chattering a few times, but I realized it wasn't my job to make the masseuse feel comfortable. She was probably thinking of what slab of meat to barbeque for dinner, or her mother-in-law or something unrelated to me.
We tried to compensate for eating out by having toast and V8 in our cottage in the morning. We had salads for lunch a couple of days, and we didn't snack. So that meant only say 15,000 calories per day, and we did walk to the restaurants and swim, well, we moved our arms and legs to get around the pool as we flopped on the floats. I figured I'd only be up by a few pounds, but the goddess in her infinite mercy allowed me to lose a pound in three days. I didn't deserve it, but I consider it my most lovely (need I say only) anniversary gift.
We even had massages the day before, though I struggle with biting back apologies for my body, and thinking I need to tip twice as much because there is twice as much of me to massage. But I calmed down, and tried to be in the moment. But it's hard, with all those ocean waves crashing through the speakers, not to have an urge to pee, and after all, I don't meditate with my clothes off, so it's somewhat distracting. I found myself chattering a few times, but I realized it wasn't my job to make the masseuse feel comfortable. She was probably thinking of what slab of meat to barbeque for dinner, or her mother-in-law or something unrelated to me.
We tried to compensate for eating out by having toast and V8 in our cottage in the morning. We had salads for lunch a couple of days, and we didn't snack. So that meant only say 15,000 calories per day, and we did walk to the restaurants and swim, well, we moved our arms and legs to get around the pool as we flopped on the floats. I figured I'd only be up by a few pounds, but the goddess in her infinite mercy allowed me to lose a pound in three days. I didn't deserve it, but I consider it my most lovely (need I say only) anniversary gift.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Old Age Day by Day April 1, 2010
Yesteray was our anniversary so my husband surprised me with roses, dinner in the city and a diamond bracelet. April Fools!!
It really was our anniversary and we're going to a mineral springs this weekend,
but last night we watched double feature DVDs at home and ate shrimp salad, one bread roll and champagne. It's so romantic to lose weight together. Our movie selection was Toy Story II followed by The African Queen. Both great love stories. There's Woody and Boo and Humphrey and Katherine. First we were youths in love (and there were always a lot of toys around because I brought two toddlers to the marriage) and now we're "old girl" and "dear". Though Bogart was 52, and Hepburn 45 when the film was made, so they were still spring chickens compared to us. We were exhausted after the movies - it's so hard pulling the boat through the African everglades or whatever they were. Highly symbolic of the struggle of marriage, and also the rewards - you get to blow up a German ship - wait a minute, let me rethink this part.
So when we are in the pool this weekend, bobbing up and down like corks in a bucket, we can fantasize we're Bogie and Hep and ignore the extra poundage and age. That's what fantasies are for.
It really was our anniversary and we're going to a mineral springs this weekend,
but last night we watched double feature DVDs at home and ate shrimp salad, one bread roll and champagne. It's so romantic to lose weight together. Our movie selection was Toy Story II followed by The African Queen. Both great love stories. There's Woody and Boo and Humphrey and Katherine. First we were youths in love (and there were always a lot of toys around because I brought two toddlers to the marriage) and now we're "old girl" and "dear". Though Bogart was 52, and Hepburn 45 when the film was made, so they were still spring chickens compared to us. We were exhausted after the movies - it's so hard pulling the boat through the African everglades or whatever they were. Highly symbolic of the struggle of marriage, and also the rewards - you get to blow up a German ship - wait a minute, let me rethink this part.
So when we are in the pool this weekend, bobbing up and down like corks in a bucket, we can fantasize we're Bogie and Hep and ignore the extra poundage and age. That's what fantasies are for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)