Letting Go

"All the art of living lies in the fine mingling of letting go and holding on."
~ Havelock Ellis 

I have had this title and quote ready for about a week now, considering what I wanted to share about the process I've been going through as I let go of possessions I once thought so important.  About how satisfying and mature it feels to let go - the shoes, the books, the incomplete projects, the attachments, the "just in case" stuff.  Although I also was embarrassed at how many rulers, scissors, candles, index cards, post-its, etc. we still had after all my previous attempts to declutter.  I also planned to include the names of a couple books that have been helpful in the process.

And, then, this week a lesson in letting go no book could adequately provide.  This past Tuesday afternoon, a beautiful spring day in southern Utah, a large group of acquaintances gathered on the patio of a local restaurant to celebrate a successful event held earlier in the day.  Drinks and appetizers added to the sense of conviviality. The festivities were well underway when she arrived, our eldest member.  The sweet, charming, and cherished 90 year-old who has been a joy and inspiration to so many.   She is interesting, curious, with a wonderful sense of humor.  Always impeccably dressed, beautifully coiffed, her white hair surrounding a constant smile.  In good health, intellectually, emotionally, and until very recently, physically.

She came on the arm of a good friend to say one final good-bye as recent health challenges have caused her to agree to move to an independent living facility near family in the mid-West.  As we embraced, I could see the pain and sadness in her eyes.  Trying to be of help, I said, "This must be so hard."  

"Oh, it is, but it's for the best, I guess." 

"I understand,"  I said.

"That's what everybody says.  I understand."

And we hugged and exchanged kisses and promised to stay in touch.  And I tried to tell her how much she has meant to me and how I will miss her.

But our conversation has niggled at me in the days and nights since.  For I believe now that I missed her point. I don't understand.  I don't know how many of us can.  She is being asked to let go of her home, her friends, her independence, her sense of competency, the environment and weather and activities she has known for decades.  And to do so gracefully.  All within a couple months. 

Why does this answer spring so easily?  Because it is easier to say than to admit that we are afraid our time will come to have to let go of so much?  So suddenly?  I don't understand.  Honestly, I hope I never have to.  So I am going to call, and apologize and tell her that I don't understand.  But I do care.  And I will miss her.  I will hold her in my heart and thoughts.

  

Caller, Beware

"Your choice is to be active or passive in your response,"
~  Deborah Day

I had intended to post something quite different this week, and then I got that telephone call, that very annoying call.  "Private caller" on my caller ID.  Area code I didn't recognize, but thought faintly familiar.  So, curious, I decided to answer it, half expecting that no one would be there.

"Hello, Angela.  This is Kevin from HP.  We are receiving warnings that your printer is sending some strange messages to your computer that will damage your hard drive if not corrected immediately.  So I need you to go to your computer so that I can help you fix this problem."  

All delivered in one breath and in an accent from the Philippines, or India, or Sri Lanka, or some nation where I doubt Kevin is a common name.

Assuming the most mature, civil tone of voice I could muster up, I responded, "Stop, please. I do not recognize this number as coming from HP and I will have my own computer support check to see if there is a problem, so thanks, but no thanks.  And I'm hanging up now. Good-bye."

A moment later, another call.  Same number.  Not prone to passivity, I answered it.  

"Hello, Angela.  We were cut off.  Let me explain...."

"No, Kevin, we weren't.  I hung up."

"But, Angela, if you will just listen to me."

Not as concerned with maturity or civility this time, I responded, "No, Kevin, the problem isn't that I won't listen to you.  It's that you haven't listened to me.  I don't want your help.  I don't believe you are calling from HP and if you call again, I will call my lawyer and issue a complaint of harassment."  

This time Kevin hung up and didn't even say good-bye!  He did not call a third time and  I rather suspect my number has been taken off his call list.

Now, I don't want to become passive, but I also don't want to become paranoiac, nor cynical, so I decided to run the call and my response past Austin, my computer support.

"No, Angela, your instincts weren't wrong.  You'd be surprised how many people have been scammed by calls like that or how much money they lose in the process.  These con men especially target seniors.  You did the right thing.  And you were smart to check in with us."

Why do they target us?  Because they think we're gullible or trust "authority" too easily?  Or don't know enough about technology (or the IRS, etc., etc.)?  Or are too passive or polite or weary to challenge them?  

Well, I derive some satisfaction in knowing "Kevin" won't think this senior gullible or passive or totally ignorant about computers!  Certainly not too polite.

My only regret is that I didn't capture "Kevin's" telephone number so I could find a way to report him and whomever he is working with/for.  I know that blocking such calls is an option.  I've researched the ways to do so and will be because there are other battles I am more invested in fighting.  But I do so reluctantly, because it only protects me, while doing little to put these predators out of business.

So, until such calls are blocked, or if any get through, I will answer and I will respond - actively.

Note:
 You can register your numbers on the national Do Not Call list by phone or on the Internet at no cost. To register via the Internet, go to www.donotcall.gov. To register by phone, call 1-888-382-1222 (voice) or 1-866-290-4236 (TTY). You must call from the phone number you wish to register.

I Remember...

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future."

~ Corrie Ten Boom

Get to know anyone over 60 or 65 and inevitably the topic of memory will arise.  Goodreads has a collection of 1816 Quotes about Memory.  I fret about it every time I can't recall a name or a word I know I know, forgot where I put something, or wonder why I came into a room.

So, when the following quiz arrived in an e-mail from my husband, I was intrigued and decided to take it (even if the title is a little off-putting).

Older Than Dirt Quiz

Instructions:  Count all the items you remember, not the ones you were told about.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or dines with table side jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles
7. Party lines on the telephone
8. Newsreels before the movie (instead of commercials!)
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and remained until TV came on again in the morning...and there were usually only 3 channels
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S & H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice cube trays with a lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulbs
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Studebakers
24. Drive-ins
25. Wash tub wringers

Scoring: If you remember 0-5, you're still young.  If you remember 6-10, you are getting older.  If you remember 11-15, don't tell your age.  And if you remember 16-25, you're "older than dirt."

Yes, I'm "older than dirt."  But this list got me thinking, and I've created my own version.  A list of other things I remember.  I remember...

• the iceman delivering blocks of ice for my grandmother's icebox
• scrubbing clothes on a washboard so that my mother wouldn't be embarrassed when she hung the clothes out to dry
• seeing gold stars hung in the windows of families who lost a child during World War II and wondering why a gold star
• pictures of Nazi death camps that surfaced when WWII ended
• school being cancelled in the fall because of a polio epidemic
• fights being settled with fists, not guns
• bullies whose names and faces were at least known to their victims
• having my desire to go to college questioned because I was "just going to get married and have kids"
• Joe McCarthy and HUAC and the Communist Threat...and ruined reputations and careers
• the courage of Edward R. Morrow who called for the outrage to stop
• bomb shelters and bomb drills
• Selma and listening to "I Have a Dream"
• the assassinations of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X
• the Vietnam War, the protests, Kent State and the Chicago 7
• the wrenching apart of some families as they took sides over the war
• Watergate and Nixon's resignation
• Oklahoma City

I may get a bit nostalgic over memories of roller skate keys and drive-in movies and the pictures in my mind of simpler days, even feel a bit sad that life has become much more complex.   But, the consequences to future generations of not knowing about P.F. Flyers or Butch Wax or Studebakers is minuscule.  However, not knowing, or worse,  choosing to forget or deny the effects of violent dissension, not remembering how easily fear and anger become hatred that tears asunder families and communities, how quickly rumor and innuendo can become "truth", how hard fought the victories for social justice were - these, I believe, have consequence not just for the future, but most certainly today.

So, my list is not intended as a quiz.  There is no scoring to be done.  Rather, I ask how much do you remember?  How much have you passed on to others who don't know or may not understand why some of us who are "older than dirt" are growing more concerned with what we see taking shape in countries around the world, including our own.  For what if memories really are "the key not to the past, but to the future"?

How Lucky Can One Girl Be?

“It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.”

~ Roald Dahl

I got some important lessons about birthdays this past birth week, some new and some I needed to be reminded of.

• Cards matter - say I, who is so remiss about sending cards.  Not that I didn't appreciate the e-mails and kind thoughts on Facebook, but the cards are now pinned to my bulletin board and I smile whenever I pass them.  And am sure to smile at them in the weeks and months ahead.

• But also, "I celebrate the day you were born" - a sentiment no greeting card can rival, however and wherever it's expressed.

• Belated wishes are appreciated.  Too often, I have thought that somehow they might be considered an insult, an afterthought, and have felt embarrassed to send them.  But it is being remembered, before or after, that touches one's heart.   At least, this heart.

• Then, there's gifts.  Over the years I have received some spectacular gifts - fine jewelry and trips to Italy and Hawaii, clothes and items for our home - gifts that as a child I would never have imagined possible.  But the gifts this year, much simpler, have moved me as much or possibly more (could this be a sign that I've gained some wisdom as well as years?) A friend coming up the driveway clutching a bouquet of pink tulips, unexpected gifts from new friends at a gathering of "the girls", a treat to lunch, affectionate messages left on the phone.

• And the special gifts - a care package from my sister with not one but six small treasures that only someone who knows my tastes, and history - and idiosyncrasies - could select.  A new chair from my husband - who gets a chair for a birthday present? I did, because I asked for it and he always strives to give me what I ask for.  And the two foot tall teddy bear because he wanted this birthday to be memorable in its own way.  "How lucky can one girl be?"

But the lesson that lingers most in the days that have followed was instigated by a single sentence from my brother when I prattled on about the highlights of my birth week.  "You are well loved."  Birthdays - a celebration of the fact that we are loved, that we have enjoyed another year of being loved, and can, hopefully, look forward to the next one.  An acknowledgment of the lives we touch and that touch us. Viewed this way, how could you not look forward to your next birthday?

So, I'd like to enhance Roald Dahl's quote:  "It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like" or how old you are, "so long as somebody loves you."  My deepest gratitude to all who have reminded me that I am one lucky woman.

  

 

Still Laughing after All These Years

“You don't stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” 

~ George Bernard Shaw

On this first day of my "birth week", a tradition I highly recommend, I declare that....

When I am a very old woman, I shall...

wear sequins and bangles, glitz and bling,
and I shall spend my money on chocolates and macadamia nuts, and glitter for my hair.
I shall sit down on the grass when I'm tired and reek of perfume samples,
and play hopscotch with little girls,
"and make up for the sobriety of my youth."
I shall dance in the rain,
and weave garlands for my hair,
and learn to yodel.
I shall have champagne for breakfast,
and pile shells and wine corks and colored marbles in pretty little boxes.
And, above all, I shall laugh.

But maybe I ought to start today.  So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised when suddenly I am very old and start to wear sequins and bangle, glitz and bling.

- with special thanks..."Warning, When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple" by Jenny Joseph

Better Late than Never

"...part of the wonder of aging today is that we get the time to discover our second chances."

~ Michael Gurian
The Wonder of Aging

I was so relieved to come across this line in the Wonder of Aging, the best book I've read to date on the subject . The concept of discovering a second chance rather than declaring a  lofty "purpose" ( something I had been struggling with) seemed more reasonable and more attainable.  Some folks seem to arrive at retirement with a clear sense of how they will spend this new stage of their lives.  Whether it be to volunteer, or pursue a hobby or new venture, or enjoy travel and special interests with loved ones, they easily and eagerly set off on a new direction.  Not I.

I knew that I didn't want to age as my parents had, in poor health, dissatisfied with life, their world becoming narrower and narrower with every passing month.  But when retirement arrived, I found that I hadn't developed a clear idea of how I did want to age.

So, I set off on a rather convoluted journey of experimentation.  I tried activities I thought I might be interested in, perhaps even thought I should be interested in, or activities others recommended or seemed to enjoy..  I joined a couple book clubs. I volunteered as a docent for 4th and 5th graders visiting the local Art Museum.  I became active in a couple non-profit organizations, surprising myself as I have never been a joiner.  I attended classes, tried my hand at drawing, even knitting. 

Along the way, I noted in my journals whether I did enjoy the activity, whether I felt I added something by my involvement, whether it was satisfying, engaging, whether I had enough skill or the desire and commitment to acquire the skill if I didn't.  Whether I looked forward to it or not.

Along the way, I discovered - that I want to read so many things and to learn about so many topics that I can't do justice to more than one book club; that I no longer have the patience required to deal with the natural exuberance of 4th and 5th graders; that I am not the social animal I thought I was; that I value time alone to read and draw and enjoy my home and my relationships with a few close friends and family.  That I prefer small intimate groups where I feel I still can make a difference.  That there are specific skills I want to develop before I die, like speaking Italian, drawing, using the computer more effectively, and surprisingly, after all these years, cooking.  

Ultimately, with Gurian's inspiration, I arrived at this conclusion-  that this is my second chance - to pursue every day something that intrigues me, something that inspires me, something that brings me personal satisfaction, something that piques my curiosity.  Not because I think I should or because someone else wants me to, but simply because I want to.  

I realize I am blessed...I  have a loving and supportive husband who needs and wants as much personal time and space as I do, siblings and friends whose company enriches the simplest conversation, adequate funds, a nice home in a safe community, a sound mind in a sound body.  I am always grateful.  But clarifying my second chance, discovering it over time has enveloped it all in a blanket of contentment I didn't realize I was searching for.  I know how I want to age.

With Deep Appreciation

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty."

~Henry Ford 

I love this quote, and then again, I love to learn.  So, according to Henry, I'll never be old!?

Though I now consider myself a lifelong learner, my love affair with learning didn't start until my early 20's.  Although I always did well in school, my good grades were more a result of innate ability and the fear of disappointing my parents.  I went to college to better my opportunities in life and to avoid the economic struggles I witnessed at home, not out of any thirst for knowledge.  In the process, as was common for my generation, I married, and moved from the Midwest of the early 60's to northern California to put hubby through graduate school.

For the first time I met folks from South Africa and Israel, Germany and France, China and Japan.  The wives of the graduate students formed a support group and I was invited to eat different food, listen to points of view that never would have been entertained in my parents' home, attend events I never would have considered.  

More impactful, however, than the somewhat exotic, worldly young men and women I met during those years, was the elderly wife of my husband's major professor.  Mrs. W. was, in fact, quite unassuming, probably shy. I remember her as in her early 70's, the epitome of a gentle woman, with a halo of white air, blue eyes (one of which was blinded by glaucoma when a young woman), a quiet smile and a wardrobe of tweed skirts, hand knit sweaters and sensible shoes.  I never heard her raise her voice nor criticize anyone, including a very difficult mother-in-law.  I never saw her lose her patience nor challenge even the most outrageous point of view.   She didn't even blink when our new Schnauzer puppy had an accident on her handwoven Persian rug.

What I did see were her accomplishments - she had woven every piece of fabric, other than carpeting, in their home - linens, draperies, even furniture coverings. From the first day of their marriage she had knit all of her husbands argyle socks. She cured olives from their backyard. All with one eye.  

But most of all, she was infinitely curious and eager to learn.  When we wanted to try batik, she joined in.  When Ravi Shankar came for a sitar concert, she came with us.  It didn't matter to us - or to her - that she was almost 50 years our elder. We never would have thought to exclude her, and she never would have thought not to accept our invitation.  Not because of her position, but because of who she was, especially because of her willingness to explore and the almost innocent pleasure she took in the new and different.

I remember the exact moment I understood it was her love of learning that both awed and inspired me.  We had gone to a conference with our husbands and while they were at meetings, we remained at the hotel and met with our books in hand for a session beside the pool, I, with my mystery of the month, and she with her Thackeray and a novel in French.  What followed was not a discussion of the books (thank heaven). but why she read what she did, why she loved to learn, why it was so important for her health and well-being to continue to learn.

If you would have asked me 20, even 10 years ago, to name the five most influential individuals in my life, I doubt that the list would have included Mrs. W. It is only now, when I am near her age, when I have met people who have stopped learning or appear to distrust learning, that I  realize what an invaluable gift she was to that naive, sheltered young woman of 50 years ago. What a difference she made. What an important role model she remains for the woman I am today.