Old Age Day by Day February 27, 2010

Last night my husband and I watched Gone With the Wind. We hadn't even been born in 1939 when the film was released,and wouldn't be for a few more years, so I never saw it in the theater, and have only watched it four or five times in my life. I do distinctly remember stealing my mother's copy of the novel when I was twelve and racing through, looking for the juicy bits. I no longer have any idea what I thought of the book then, except Rhett Butler was sexy and Ashley was a wimp. I was living in the South, in Virginia, at the time, but my sympathies were all Yankee, as were my parents'. I doubt I was able to see myself in either Scarlett or Melanie. Neither character has much I can relate to in my life. But I understand them better now. I must say, if I identified with anyone, it was Rhett. He was the truth teller, and his bluntness was something I and my father shared. But the thing is, my husband and I were able to watch the whole long melodrama with the dogs, and then sit up until eleven pm discussing the merits of Scarlett or Melanie, the miscasting of Leslie Howard as Ashley, and the goofiness of having the male leads both older enough to be the fathers of the female leads. Olivia de Haviland was only 23 when the film was made, and Vivien Leigh 26. Ashley should have been a Brad Pitt type, not a veteran of the Scarlett Pimpernel. I see Scarlett as a teenager with raging hormones and no ability to choose wisely. Ashley needs to be a hunk. Otherwise no one can stand his moping. Feeling sorry for oneself is not a noble virtue.

We went to bed, then further chatted until almost one am, and it was fun. Now that kind of mind mannered activity wouldn't be interesting to our kids, but when you get to be our ages, a critique of a movie can have the fascination that clubs and djs do not. We analyzed how the perception of what is racist and what is not has changed, what we'd felt about the Civil War when we studied it in school, and who had the better career - Olivia de Haviland or her sister Joan Fontaine? It's old folks talk, but I like it. I enjoy a nice, comfortable relationship of enough decades that you can ramble off topic and your partner doesn't correct you. We bounce from tangent to tangent and it's a delightful ride all the way. And heh, we're still young enough to watch a four hour movie and stay up discussing it. We ain't dead yet!

Old Age Day by Day February 26,2010

This week my husband went to the eye doctor. It had only been nine years since his last checkup. Surprisingly, (to him), he needed new glasses. Also, he has tiny cataracts. I'm less than sympathetic, since I have almost all the known eye diseases and had cataract surgery in both eyes in my forties. I blame it on cheap sunglasses and living in Colorado for years. Every friend I have is also seeing through cataract blurred lenses. Unless you are driving at night and trying to read street signs, the murkiness of cataracts adds to the ambiance of our world. There is a kind of aura not seen since the sixties, and everything you view becomes a Luminist painting by Whistler. Or Monet. Nature becomes swirly and blended like a strawberry orange milkshake. Those nasty edges that bring us harsh reality are softened, and everyone looks younger and lovelier than you'd expect given their ages. My husband, for instance, is farsighted, so when he removes his glasses I am a vision of youthful beauty. No age spots, no sagging skin, my hair seductively tousled instead of in need of a major styling. At least I tell myself this is what he sees. It gives me confidence.

And what do you say when your eye doctor says it would be better if you were never in the sun again? Travel back and forth from the North to the South Pole? Live in a cave and come out at night? Light is good for the spirits, sun warms the cockles of my heart, and each year I breathe a sigh of relief when the days get longer in January. Whew! Made through the Fall again! As it is, you will recognize me in Trader Joe's as the woman with sunglasses on, though I'm inside. Those suckers are so glued to my face I forget that not everything has a greenish tinge. I wear hats whenever I'm outside, and as I am five feet tall, I look like an animated mushroom. Maybe Scarlett O'Hara could look good in a hat, but I resemble nothing remotely feminine. Maybe an extra in The Good Earth. I mean, what the heck, none of the other actors were Asian, I could have been hired. If I was even more ancient than I am. But I am old enough that in school we were required to read Pear S. Buck. Who reads her now? My grown kids have no idea who she was.

At least glasses give you an opportunity to make a statement. I had my James Joyce glasses, my granny/hippie glasses, my Buddy Holly glasses, my tortoiseshell teacher glasses. I've had red, purple, green and pink glasses. Big lenses and small. I've accumulated four pair I choose from depending on my mood - intelligent, rebel, pensive, and bug eyed. I know, bug eyed is not a mood, but the red lenses are huge, and I feel protected when I wear them. Why am I making a statement with glasses? My body is in no shape to be talking, and it's better if viewers are stuck at the eyes and travel down no further. See - I've thought this all out carefully.

My husband says he picked out new frames. He hasn't gotten them yet, and there is an undercurrent of terror in my imaginings of what he's chosen. His sense of style is no style. His current glasses, which I've been staring at for nine years, are crooked, tinted and the lenses keep falling out while he's sitting or talking. They never break. I can't tell you how many times I've prayed they'd break. But at least it will be a new him, like when he shaved his beard off and I didn't recognize him. Even a long marriage can use an occasional shake up.

Aging Day by Day February 25, 2010

My voice teacher suggested that I give a retirement party for my husband in a few months and sing my repetoire then. I was stunned, first because it had not occurred to me to do such a thing - give a party for him - and I felt immediately very guilty. What kind of wife am I, anyway? Well, I know what kind, but did she have to rub it in? And secondly, would I, in my old age, turn out to be one of those people who bores guests with "entertainment"? I might as well be contemplating slides of my granddaughter. Does my teacher think I've sunk so low? Well, obviously.

No, if I need to belt out When I Fall in Love, Brush up Your Shakespeare, I'm Always True to You Darlin in My Fashion and I Hope that I Don't Fall in Love with You - if and irresistable urge overcomes all wisdom and sanity - and I want to expose myself for the talentless Ethel Merman that I am - I'll just sing in the subway. It's way more dignified, and only strangers will witness my degradation.

Now, it's true, that when each of my older two kids was marrying, I sang a little song for them at the groom's dinner, and it's a fact that my clothes were so wet with sweat that I might as well have been belting out "Singing in the Rain", but that was a time of crazy euphoria and it was long ago, and the weddings were within three months of each other, so I feel I can be excused. It was right before and right after 9/11. Need I say more? Something was in the air.

I mean the thing about being older is I can work on something for NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER. I can just sing, and at least my teacher is being paid to listen, so I don't have to feel too bad. I'm singing with no judgment, no goal, no audience, no future. Right here, right now. It feels great.

Aging Day by Day February 24,2010

You know you're losing your edge when all you want to talk about is your granddaughter, and that's the only destination you really dream about. I'd rather see my granddaughter than go to Paris. How's that for pathetic? And my best friend won't budge to come here, as she's happily close by her granddaughter. Why should she bother to get away when she doesn't want to do anything but look in those big blue eyes? It's love at first sight, and second, and third. They are so fresh and new and curious and affectionate. They think you're funny, when no one else cracks a smile. They think going out to lunch with you is a treat. They assume you want to ride choo choo trains as much as they do, and they're right, if they are snug on your lap. I haven't seen my granddaughter in a couple of months and boy, do I miss her. Just talking on the phone with her gives me such a kick, and also makes me have to force myself not to get a plane ticket to go right there and bother my daughter and her husband. I'd love to be close enough to see her more often, but this way I get to shop for her more and keep the post office in business, and as you know it's tough times economically.

I was ready for grandparenthood a few years ago, and when a young friend died, and then his wife's mother died the next month, I asked his widow if I could help out with their 15 month old daughter. Make up for the lack of grandmothers in her life. And that has been such a blessing for me. I take her one day a week, and also show up for ballet class or gym class occasionally, or last year the Valentine's Day party at her preschool. We lunch giraffe's progress, we hit the parks and a nursery where we look at the plants. Now she's almost 5, so we go to movies (Yes, I have been to Alvin and the Chipmunks and other Oscar contenders) and we have our favorite places to eat (an ice cream-soda fountain, a place with mean burritos, and a diner with grilled cheese just the way she likes it).

She makes sure I keep a stock of jello, cheese sticks, vanilla ice cream and apple juice and lemonade. Let's see what's in the pantry, she says. For my away granddaughter you can find peas and also vanilla ice cream, and the pantry has tapioca, her favorite crackers, noodles, juice boxes, and canned lychees. I have hardly any adult food left, as they are much more enthusiastic about eating than I am. Gusto! Grandchildren are so full of gusto it rubs off on us jaded creatures. They reteach us the little joys that every day brings. I'm grateful.

Aging Day By Day Februaary 23, 2010

When I was in my early twenties I read a lot of mysteries. Dorothy Sayers, Nagaio Marsh, and Agatha Christie. Then I decided I was not improving myself by doing so, and I stopped. I was embarrassed then to be caught reading a mystery. Now, in my early sixties, I am back reading mysteries, and really having fun. And, of course, I don't give a hoot what people think about it. I guess I've given myself permission to be trivial. Also, I've read enough heavy duty classics and complex novels, biographies and non-fiction that I can rest on my laurels. I adore Elizabeth George, Cara Black, Harlen Coben, John Lescroat, and new writers like Tana French and Cordelia Read. So is there a theme here? Was I preoccupied with death early on - and now I clearly know it's round the bend for me - I want to tiptoe around the subject of mortality? That may be rationalizing. I do think suspense fiction just gets better and better, and compares well with fiction. I must say, I like non-fiction reading the best. I like to hear a true story. Not crime, just people's lives and how complex and interesting they are, whether they are famous or not. Memoirs are great, because that allows non-famous people to tell their stories. I think I like to be part of a tribe. A tribe of imperfect, complex, struggling beings.

And at this time in my life, so many friends and aquaintances have died that it's becoming familiar territory. That is maybe one thing aging does for people, lets them slowly adjust to the inevitable. That's why we all feel the death of a young person as tragic. I had some death to face as a child - an uncle I adored, my grandmother, my first boyfriend at 12 - and perhaps that was the fascination with mysteries when I was out of college. I also think I loved drama more - the buzz of extreme situations and the thrill of danger. But since I was a wimp in real life, I lived vicariously through these books. Now I'm an older wimp, and I hope a wiser one. I don't wish drama on anyone, and appreciate the calm, balanced life of a careful intention. But that little glimpse of chaos beyond is somehow important to me. It's like touching a snake - delicately, with trepidation, but knowing the creature is in and around your life, and you share the earth with it.

Old Age Day By Day February 22, 2010

We attempted, on the weekend, to find the source of a particularly hideous smell wafting throughout our downstairs. My husband crawled under everything possible, and we unscrewed the heating vents and looked behind the CD racks and underneath the stereo. Anticipating dead rats or worse, we searched and sprayed, searched and sprayed. The conclusion seems to be something died in the walls, which downstairs are solid wood. Our house is 100 years old, and it's a race to see which falls completely apart first, us or the house. I guess we'll be forced to call a pest control company, though last time we did that, they caught nothing and I went around asking complete strangers how to get rid of rats until someone told be of a concoction of peanut butter and anise seed. I'm a Buddhist, so this killing creatures thing is deeply troubling, but I wasn't going to catch rats and release them into the wild, as if there is a wild close by. But they were eating the water tubes on the washing machine (2 X), dishwasher (3 X) and refrigerator (2 X). I was going to be forced to divorce my husband and marry a plumber if the rat activity continued.

My suspicion is that this time it's squirrels. But a gang of racoons ate a large hole in our roof a few years ago, and with our luck, it's a gang of cats or hamsters maurading the neighborhood. I just wish whatever animal it was believed in cremation, because I hate to think of my house as a cemetery.

You probably think, given my lament about hating housework, that the rats are all my fault. But not true. In this city everyone has rat tales, and they are more prevalent than pets. The creek nearby doesn't help and also that we all have some fruit trees, and also that certain nameless neighbors have pets in cages in their back yard where grain falls on the ground like manna from heaven.

So, while everybody else is obccessing about H1N1, I'm reading up on bubonic plague and looking for bite marks on my dogs. Talk about your biblical references. Maybe it's time to retire to that brand new condo with no yard and no access for tiny creatures. New cabinets, new doors, and maybe the laundry in the basement. Yeah, like that's going to happen. The closest thing to a new house we've ever had is 25 years old. And even if we got a new condo, we'd be the wrong age for it. I don't think retinol is going to de-age us fast enough to look right in a new place. So while something in the walls is de-composing, we're trying to compose ourselves for a long siege of lysol, pinesol, Nature's Miracle and other de-stenchers. Which is what will probably kill us in the end. Oh, well.

aging day by day February 19, 2010

You know, being technologically challenged, as I and so many of my friends are, does have it's advantages. We're so ancient we have land lines as well as cell phones, and now that they've determined the phones pressed against the ear are disintegrating brain cells right, left and center, we may end up very wrinkled but able to rule the world by superior brain strength. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll do any better than the current crop, some of which are geezers themselves, but probably feel forced to use cell phones to look cool and hip. Cell phones have lots of wonderful uses, but some advertised advantages, let's face it, have not proven to be true. If you try to use your cell phone during crises like earthquakes and floods, the whole system goes down and you can't get a dial tone. Try 911 from a cell phone and prepare to die. Lost in the woods? The battery will be dead. Need a number? The cell won't work and you can't even access the numbers if you're standing next to a regular phone. Better hope information is up and running, ha, ha, ha, that the number is listed, and remember, phone books are nowhere to be found. Telephone booths looking pretty good right about now?

Then there is the fact that if the decline in brain cells doesn't do you in, an SUV driver screaming and gesturing will crush you like a bug. Yeah, I know, it's against the law in my state too, and every erratic action I see on my forays out into the world of jungle madness is a person texting or talking. What happened to the good old days when it was alcohol or drug abuse? This is way more terrifying. Pedestrian deaths are way up in my area, and we've all seen some driving that reminds me of the saying "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down". They just hit everything in their path.

Then there is this idiotic caller ID. That lasted a long time. Everyone who calls me now is a PRIVATE CALLER. It reminds of of the song by Tina Turner, but I don't think it's her. And call waiting doesn't work half the time, and, well, I could go on. So I will continue to have my cell phone off 90% of the time, though it drives my kids crazy, and use that thing connected by a wire to that box thing. It works. All the time. And remember, I'm holding on to all my brain cells as long as I can. They have to compensate for the hearing loss, aches and pains, and crumbling of the infrastructure.