Old Age Day by Day May 26,2010

A friend sent photos of his trip to the Grand Canyon, where he, two friends and his daughter hiked down to the river and back up. The canyon really is a wonder of the world, and I've loved it every time I've been. I'm a coward, so I've never actually been down very far, but I admire those who can handle the windy, steep trails. My parents took me as a child several times. One time it was winter and we stayed at a cabin on the North Rim. Now it is closed in winter but in those days you could visit. As we were driving to the place where we were going to stay (it was night, of course, because my father always drove too long - long enough we'd be starved and grumpy before we arrived) it was deep snow on either side and icy. The car in front of us swerved to avoid a deer leaping across the road and spun several times 360 o. My father braked and my brother and I were flung around like rag dolls and all the stuff in the recess of the back window came down on our heads. Somehow, we didn't hit the other car. The next morning, as we walked to the dining hall for breakfast, we saw the car, a navy blue ford, with blood on the hood.

My husband and I camped a week on the North Rim many years later, and I couldn't look over the edge without vertigo, so I kept our younger son, a toddler at the time, strapped like Houdini practically with chains and padlocks in his stroller, well away from the edge, while my husband and our two older kids walked out on lookouts and leaned way over. I had to talk myself down from hysteria every single time. Never mind, I loved the place. It was worth the anxiety. I've been by train in the winter to the South Rim, and other times by car. The North Rim is more beautiful, but the canyon is knockout however you see it.

I sent my friend's photos to my younger daughter, because she was born late enough she missed the camping trips, and our last visit she was elsewhere. She needs to see it. For me, it's a reminder of how beautiful our country is, and how new. The history of the canyon makes human history paltry. If we get too big for our britches, a glance at the canyon humbles us. The earth is vast and enduring, and it's greatest beauties have nothing to do with us. We only witness them.

Old Age Day by Day May 25, 2010

My younger daughter and I saw Nicole Holofcenter's new film, Please Give, last night. I am an admirer of her films. They aren't perfect, but they wrestle subjects near and dear to women. They don't feel anything like any other films. This one is about guilt women feel, and how they displace their own anxieties and sadness by "helping others". It's coherent, and funny and an indictment on our consumer culture to boot. Previously, my favorite of her film's was Lovely and Amazing, but I think this one is better.

Holofcenter lets her actresses be real looking, and she elicits heartbreaking performances. Catherine Keener is amazing, as is Rebecca Hall, but all the actors are extraordinary. And it's fun to see Oliver Platt in a more complex role. Did I say the movie is very funny at moments? I laughed out loud a bunch of times, and my sympathy stayed steadfast for the characters as I was laughing, with them, not at them. The redoubtable Lois Smith has a small role, and I worship the ground she walks on.

A good film has resonance, and I believe this one is going to have me thinking about it for a long time. It's the kind of film I know I will buy. There is a feel of truth about it, and I find that rare in my movie going life.

Old Age Day by Day May 24, 2010

It's a gloomy morning with damp oozing out the air. Very atmospheric, kind of Rebecca meets Lord of the Rings. The dogs are oblivious, but I'm already feeling lethargic and at the same time as if I should be making soup and baking bread. I'm sure it won't go that far, but we do take our clues from our weather so often. It's hard to resist. Build-in, you might say. Just having a wear a raincoat makes me all Sherlock Holmesy, and damp pavement makes the threat of slipping uppermost in my mind. I wore my clogs as I walked the dogs, and when they met a basset hound I let go of the leash and let them run over to overwhelm the poor dog, as I didn't want to attempt to hold them back without mountaineering crampons. Luckily, the hound had no manners either, and thought my dogs were the cat's pajamas. I nevertheless apologized to the owner. It's always best to appear to be civilized.

I often want to eat more in this kind of weather. I must have chips with my sandwich and hot cocoa and muffins dance in my mind. Salad seems way too cold, and buttered slabs of bread begin to appeal more than usual. It's hard to get by on a dreary day with less than 3,000 calories. The only way to avert catastrophe is to sleep as much as possible, and stay upstairs with a mystery and ignore the kitchen. However, today I have my foster granddaughter, but we're going out for lunch and I'm taking her to a science center, so as long as I order wisely and avoid bakeries, I should be okay until dinnertime. Now, if I go to bed at six pm I can minimize overeating, but then the forecast is for rain every day this week, so either I am going to have to stock up on mysteries and ask for a prescription for sleeping pills, or avoid the scales in my bathroom.

Or I could pray for wisdom and restraint. And do my exercise video more than once a day to make up for the toast. Ah, weather. I'm at it's mercy.

Old Age Day by Day May 23, 2010

Friends asked us over for dinner last night on the spur of the moment, and we had a simple, delicious meal and watched an old movie together afterward. This is my favorite kind of social invitation, no pressure, just a little sudden window of time and an opportunity to get together. When things are planned ahead, it so often turns out I'm too tired, or I can't think what to cook, or what I really need a to eat a sandwich with a good book. This kind of comfortableness with each other takes a long time to develop, but the fruits of the effort are so delightful.

And being with this couple is so tender and happy because when the woman and I first met, she was married to a man my husband and I grew to love and who was very important in our lives. He died suddenly, and she has been a widow until recently, living her life alone raising two kids, and then meeting this man three years ago, and now, here they are living together. And we are delicately forging a new balance, with her new partner, and yet trusting, because she is such an old friend. She has, of course, picked a wonderful man this time as well, and it gives my husband and I much joy.

And isn't this just the cycle of life. The happiness/sorrow/struggles/peace mix that we get to witness if we live long enough. We've been there with her through all the ups and downs, and felt them ourselves. But we're ready to love her partner, and support their happiness. What comfort this kind of friendship is for all parties. Seeing life not just go on, but circle back and embrace us.

Old Age Day by Day May 22, 2010

Yesterday my friend and I went to a fine art show and saw some wonderful artists' works that thrilled us. I especially liked these paper watercolor works by Rachel Davis, paintings by Joachim Hiller and paintings on wood by Robert Nugent. What discoveries for me! We looked at them for a long time, then met a friend and had a soda, then came around again to gaze some more. What a mystery it is which art speaks to us. And it tells us each something different. Of course, if I could have had anything in the building, I would have picked a Colima preColumbian puppy, or a Deborah Butterfield horse, or maybe a painting by Leonora Fini. Who knows? I get to see them all and pursue them in museums, and I don't really have any desire to possess them.

As we were driving to the show, my friend wondered about the emotional draw of art, and we were saying that conceptual art can have a limitation in that it appeals to the mind, but not the heart. But we both enjoy engaging with a lot of different art, because it shows us how miraculous the mind is. The creation of art is universal and its power indescribable, really. And at the same time, it's so personal. We all have associations that pull us in, of color, subject, size. Then we have emotional pulls that connect us to the artist, and we have all these ideas from theories of art and experience that mix in with pure response. Sharing what we see together is one of the fun things my friend and I do, as well as discussing books we've read or music we've experienced.

And this wonderful thing happens when we really connect with a piece - we sort of memorize it in our minds and hearts and can call it up when we wish. I was telling her about seeing Brueghel's Fall of Icarus at the Musee de Beaux Arts in Brussels, Belgium, almost 20 years ago. I've never seen it live again, though I have a print of it. Yet I can transport myself to the museum and "see" it now, and re-feel those emotions of delight, sorrow, humor, awe and deep sensual lusciousness still. The Star Trek transporters have nothing on me. And in that moment of remembering, I am present, again, and knowing that something in me has forever altered. I find the existence of this painting comforts me, even guides me in my understanding and coping with the world I'm in. There is the real, and there is the real moment, recaptured, and most importantly, re-felt, for which all humans ought to be grateful. I know I am.

Old Age Day by Day May 21,2010

My voice teacher got laryngitis this week. It was the first anniversary of her father's death, and I've noticed that the body knows. When the mind wants to skim over unpleasantness or repeat the mantra "Everything is fine" our bodies will poke us in the stomach or cause fatigue or give us a flu. Slow down, the body tells us, feel this. Stop and feel this. My body knows the anniversary of every important death I've witnessed. I'll be thinking I need to check my thyroid level, but no, it's the day of my mother's funeral. I'll feel a vague malaise, then realize an anniversary of my first husband's death is coming up in a few days. The body remembers.

Listening to my body has been a difficult practice for me. I was raised to be stoic. No "whining" as my father would call it. He, himself refused to go to Arizona for three months and heal his lungs after pneumonia, and it caused him to have asthma the rest of his life. He thought he'd lose out if he was off work that long. So he struggled with breathing, our most basic of functions, forever after.

When my parents died within ten months of each other, I promptly got mononucleosis. I dragged around like a limp kitten for months, and awoke every night a two am in a fever. I was sad, and I wanted someone to help me weather the sadness, but I had four kids and I thought I needed to buck up. The body has a great sense of humor. Let's see who's in charge here - you won't stop, well, we'll see about that.

No I listen carefully, and if I'm about to doze in the middle of a task, I doze. If I don't feel like eating, I don't. I check in with the vessel that houses whatever being I am, and make sure it wants to come along for the ride. If it needs to be parked in the garage, so be it. The garage is nice and safe and dark and cosy. Respect the body. We really need its complete cooperation.

Old Age Day by Day May 20, 2010

I went with my voice teacher to see a simulcast opera at a nearby movie theater last night. It was Rossini's Armida; a total delight. Renee Fleming sang the lead, and she was amazing. The wonderful thing about opera is it's goofiness. The sublime and the ridiculous yoked together. Well, probably they always are, but opera makes it obvious. There are all those people trying to control other people's emotions and actions, love taken to the extreme, power lusted after with such force it becomes its own destruction. It's us writ large, and we can see our foibles and longings with a detachment that reminds us we are human, and therefore engaged in a tricky enterprise.

The costumes of the demons in this production had golden, tigerish tights and long tails a la Avatar. Then they had kind of Miraclesuits around their middles. Surpassingly strange and delightful, if utterly absurd. The soldiers had Dr. Zhivago coats and Fleming was trussed up a creamy white coat cum jelaba with deep eggplant in inserts in her first costume and a corset and a million ruffles, all eggplant, in her second. She had on a curly red wig, and was more gorgeous than any earthly being.

And the great thing is, I could eat my bucket of popcorn and soda as I watched. AND the restrooms were less crowded. No, it's not the same as live opera, but it's fun.

I will be mimicking the operatic voice for days, until the illusion wears off completely. But anything that reminds me the world is bigger than our soap opera troubles is grounding. Perspective is always a good idea.