Happy New Year

Matilda Ledger, borrowed from Google images

J appeared at my door the other day. "Look at me and tell me what's wrong," she said without preamble. I looked. Then I laughed. Her sweater hung at odd angles, buttoned incorrectly by not one, but two buttons. The hem dipped toward her knees on one side and was hiked up to her waist on the other. "And I went to the bank this way," she sighed, dropping into a chair. "Not another soul in there so all three tellers, sweet young things, watched me traipse across the floor like this and me clueless."

"They'll know what it's like in oh, forty years or so," I consoled her. Then the two of us collapsed in another fit of giggles.

When we could breathe again, we agreed the slope toward old age was slipperier than we'd thought. So many things we've taken for granted, like being able to notice whether we were groomed and dressed properly or that we knew where our glasses and keys were or we were sure, when we set out, that we knew where we were going, have suddenly become things we must question.

"Just the other day, my car went one way while I was intending to go another," J confessed and I remembered the day a few months ago when I had been half way somewhere only to realize with a start that I couldn't remember, just for one eensy moment, where that was.

J and I are not old by today's standards though we've passed the middle-aged mark. She jokes often about being on the 20 year plan (but we've been claiming that for the past few years). We're both still active physically. We both garden and she does farm work, I ride my bicycle and hike, and we try to eat sensibly. Still, it's these little slips, these wrong buttonings, that give us pause.

To counter her look of despair, I confessed to J, rather sheepishly, that when I'd unwrapped the present she'd given me for Christmas a few days back, I'd tasted it. She sat up straight and then fell back, guffawing, her hand over her mouth. What I'd thought, in my glasses-less state, was a piece of divinity was actually a chunk of hand-made soap.

So it goes. Arm in arm, slipping and propping each other up and laughing hysterically at our failings, J and I are heading off down the hill. Along with the rest of you.

Ah, well...

J and I had a rather enlightening conversation yesterday. She's a widow and I've been post-divorce single far longer than I was married. Since we're of a certain age, we spend a lot of time discussing the strange and odd things our bodies are doing as they deteriorate without our mind's consent. Our conversation this time wound round to the fact that neither of us would be able to enter into an intimate fling at this stage in the game, not because our once taut skin is now wrinkled like an elephant's knees or our once healthy hair shows signs of being chewed by mice or because we might cause permanent physical damage with the swinging bat wings on our upper arms. No, the demise of our night life hinges on the fact that our night life has taken on rituals sure to stymie even the most determined man.

It used to be that we splashed some water on our faces, slipped into something more comfortable, and jumped into bed. Those days are gone forever. As gradually as the wrinkles appeared on our cheeks, so the little bedtime routines grew from slapdash to must do. Now, just getting up out of the chair and into the bathroom takes planning, and ablutions include special non-drying, colloidal soaps and emollient rich lotions. There's the anti-aging night cream, the delicate skin eye treatment cream, the spot eradicating hand cream. There's flossing and brushing and rinsing, eye drops, ear drops, anti-ache foot potions that smell like an herb garden run amok and capsaicin cream for aching joints.

Then there's the whole climb-into-bed routine that includes finding just the right sleepwear - old people nightclothes that won't bind or pinch or cling or wedge. Looking sexy has taken a waaaay back seat to being able to turn over under the covers without exposing too much flesh or being tangled, strapped, caught or strangled. The very act of turning over requires strategy because now one's knee pillow must follow along, the head pillow arrangement for the left shoulder does not match the pillow arrangement for the right shoulder, and the whole bed becomes a war zone of arms and elbows and knees as we struggle to alleviate aching hips. There'd be no room for even the most intrepid fellow even if he was willing to put up with the smelly lotions, the shifting pillows, and the fanatic need for absolute dark. 

This must be why one's libido diminishes with age. Imagine having the energy for a spot of hot and bother after all that preparation. Imagine the light of day (or a bedside lamp) shining on what now looks best in pitch black (and the safety of one's imagination). I know, I know, I'm leaving out love and the comfortableness of a long-term relationship and J admits that if her husband was still alive, he'd be fine with all that. But someone new? A stranger, no matter how wrinkled and smelly himself? He'd have to be blind, deaf, and willing to sleep in his own house at night.

Creamed and Steamed

borrowed from jennybsspace.blogspot.com

 A brightly lit changing room is not an older woman's friend. Neither is the mirror. I'm edging toward dim light in a number of ways!

J and I went on a minor shopping spree the other day. Youngest daughter is getting married at the end of June. J has a lovely skirt she is willing to lend but it needs just the right top - something lightweight and shimmery, not sleeveless, but summery. It has to be the right color (the skirt is two layers of voile in shades of cocoa, cream, and peacock blue), and the right length. Too short and I look like a pot-bellied pig, too long and I look like a dressed up Doric column.

I checked out a gazillion tops, give or take. If one was the right color it was the wrong style. If it fell nicely it was the wrong color. If it fit it was too expensive, if it was the right fabric it was the wrong size. I looked at ruffled blouses with plunging necklines, skimpy blouses with floppy fabric flowers strategically stitched, spaghetti-strapped camisoles under drapey sweaters, pullovers with three quarter sleeves that made me look like a chef applying for a 5 star hotel job, and short bolero type tops that left my second stomach fully exposed.

All that pulling on, buttoning up, and taking off under glaring fluorescent lights in front of a clown booth mirror resulted in a severe case of brooding. On the way home and blouseless (now that sounds just wrong but it wasn't), I moaned to J that I used to look like a string bean. "Now I look like a cauliflower," I said, patting my mid-section. "A steamed, creamed cauliflower at that." She didn't laugh. Neither did I.

Over the years, along with the wisdom, I've acquired bumps and sags and bags and spots. I've been stretched and bent, pulled and pummeled, dragged and drugged and it shows. J agreed that she, too, had once resembled a potato stick but now was headed for the Idaho baker side of the plate. I averred as how I would really much rather resemble a slender stalk of asparagus but that it seemed a futile goal at this point. "Maybe we should switch to fruits," J suggested. "You could be a baked Granny Smith apple and I could pass for a steamed peach."

Well, okay. I look pretty good in green.

Perspective

imageenvision.com

I was winding my wispy blonde-going-on-gray hair on bristly rollers this morning (an exercise in futility since it's raining out and the moisture will take out the curl before I get from the door of my cottage to the door of my car), and contemplating the unfairness of certain aspects of my persona. For instance, instead of having thick, shining, naturally curly locks that tumble in reckless abandon to my shoulders, I have thin, fine, stick-straight hair much the color of mouse fur. I was a tow head as a child, a color I carried right up to the birth of my first child. With each successive pregnancy, the color was leached from my hair follicles and deposited in my child's. All four were white-blonde as small tykes while my own hair began to take on the hue of a winter-dead tree. I've sought in vain for a haircut that is flattering to both my face and my hair texture but hair style magazines limit face shapes to oval, round, heart, and square. Bovine is not listed. Sigh.

Where I've been limited in the hair department, I've been burdened with excess when it comes to my nose and my mammary glands. Photographs show my great grandfather's nose holding a prominent place in the middle of his face, balanced with great bushy eyebrows and an equally bushy mustache. I have been spared the latter two features but my nose is decidedly similar, i.e. too big for my face. And what I wouldn't give to have my blouses and shirts fall straight and smooth to my waist without first stopping to leap off a cliff.

I mention all this because I have been going through old photos for a senior history project at the local senior center. Pairing a senior with a middle school student to talk about what life has been like for the past 60+ years, the project covers nine weeks of memory digging and culminates in a scrapbook of student writing illustrated with pictures of the senior from birth to the present. I keep finding photos of myself as an infant, a toddler, a school girl, a young wife - and I don't look at all like the image in my mind. I do remember, however, bemoaning my looks even then. What was I thinking? And why was I thinking that?

I'd like to think of myself as wiser since I'm so much older but old habits die hard and once I'd fallen into the habit of seeing myself as flawed in face and figure, it became almost impossible to think of myself any other way. Looking back now, I see all my worry over how I looked to others was useless. I wasn't half as bad looking as I thought and most likely, when I look back on photos taken now, I won't be quite as awful looking as I'm imagining now. It makes one wonder when we, as humans, started judging our worth by our beauty and our beauty by someone else's standards.

My mother was forever admonishing me that pretty is as pretty does. I wish I'd paid more attention to her; I'd be stunning by now!

What Was That?

I've noticed lately that my hearing is not as sharp as it once was. For instance, when the whole second grade classroom is abuzz and some cherub whose voice doesn't ever raise above a lisping whisper says something to me, I have to bend to her level and say, "What was that?" repeatedly. If a train is hustling by I often can't hear my idling car engine. Likewise, when the phone is not pressed directly against my left ear (my "good" side), I often miss parts of the conversation from the other party and have to uh-huh and mmm-hmmm my way along until I pick up the gist of what I missed. I've gotten along just fine with what hearing I have left until last Sunday. Now I have cause to pause.

J and I were on our way home from a Transfer Station run when she suggested swinging by a fast food place and indulging in one of their inexpensive hot fudge sundaes. Any time the word fudge is mentioned I am all for whatever it is I need to do to get it. Besides, it was a beastly hot day and ice cream sounded like a bowl of heaven so off we went. We pulled up to the talking order board and when the scratchy voice asked us what we wanted, J leaned out the window and said, "Two hot fudge sundaes, please."

"Do you want double fudge for an extra dollar?" inquired the board.

J looked at me. "Double fudge?" I asked. J nodded. "Sure!" we both said at the same time, I to J and J to the talking board.

"Pull around," said the board so we did.

At the window, a young fellow handed J a small paper bag. She passed it to me and I looked inside. Surely our sundaes could not be in there. Just as I suspected, they weren't. What was in there were two apple pies.

"These are apple pies!" I exclaimed. J looked at me with raised eyebrows. She whisked the bag from my hand and gave them back to the fellow saying, "We ordered hot fudge sundaes, not apple pies."

"Oh, the sundaes are coming," he said with a smile. "You agreed to the pies for an extra dollar. They're our special this week."

J's eyebrows crept up another notch. "We did?" she asked me. "Did you hear anything about apple pies?"

"Double fudge," I said enunciating each syllable, then "Apple pie." No way did double fudge sound like apple pie, even if I dragged the syllables out. I shook my head at J. "Nope," I said. "We agreed to double fudge. Who eats apple pies with hot fudge sundaes?"

"We don't want the pies, thanks," she told the window guy, but he handed them back to her saying that since they couldn't put them back we might as well take them and he'd deduct the dollar from our bill.

"Stranger things have happened," he intoned, his own eyebrows rising for emphasis.

All the way home we puzzled over the misunderstanding. Who could mistake double fudge for apple pie? Apparently two hot, tired, more-than-middle-aged, on-the-twenty-year-plan old bats like us because between them, those sundaes didn't have enough fudge to qualify as a single serving, never mind double. It was all very disconcerting.

I've been practicing the two phrases. If I speak through a paper towel tube with a piece of saran wrap held tightly over one end and I mumble, you might mistake one for the other, but you'd have to be hard of hearing in the first place.

Parker the cat who knows the value of an afternoon nap.

The sun rises awfully early on summer mornings and though I don't have to rise with it, I often do. Sleep has become an evasive commodity lately (lately being the past ten years or so). At first I blamed my semi-insomnia on worries - you know, the ones about money and children and things you wish you hadn't said or done that loom like monsters in the deep, dark night. But, I have a job, my grown children all have jobs, we all have places to live and food to eat. And worrying about those things no matter what time of day or night never did present a solution. Now I blame my ever increasing age. I am older now than I've ever been and I can see signs of deterioration. It's the ones I can't see that seem to be causing the trouble.

Books and magazines offer solutions to what seems to be a global affliction. One can go the drug route complete with little flapping butterflies hovering over one's prostrate body, the health conscious route that advises a light evening meal and a brisk walk afterwards, or the natural route which involves chamomile baths and spraying one's bed linens with lavender. I avoid drugs whenever possible and prefer my butterflies out of doors so I tried first the healthy route. Summer evenings are fine for an after dinner stroll around the neighborhood but winter nights fall fast and early. A brisk walk to the end of the driveway involved hat and coat and boots and mittens. Just dressing and undressing made me tired and I'd tumble into bed earlier and earlier each night. My ability to stay asleep did not increase, however, and I would find myself awake and semi-alert well before dawn. By mid-morning I was desperate for a nap!

Lavender on my bed linens smells heavenly but does not put me to sleep. Chamomile baths are out of the question as my tiny cottage has no room for a tub, but chamomile tea does not put me to sleep either. Nor does warm milk, a small glass of wine, or gentle yoga just before bedtime. I've tried reading in bed, counting sheep (and blessings), and meditation, none of which make me fall asleep more readily or stay asleep once I've nodded off. I'm beginning to suspect that the folks who come up with these remedies stay up all night thinking about them.

My latest tactic is to enjoy the pre-dawn hours, to rise slowly, make a cup of steaming tea, sit where I can watch the sun rise or the rain fall, and breathe in the new day as it unfolds. When I wind down around three in the afternoon, I take a nap. So far, that's working just fine.

Grief

photo by Jean Couleurs

My friend J, who is my co-inspiration for this blog, has suffered a staggering loss. Her husband of 45 years died suddenly today after surgery. Friday night he was doing well and on Saturday all his major organs began shutting down. Though when we began this blog we titled it Laughing On The Way Out (for all the foolish things we were encountering as we traveled toward old age), J is unable to muster even a smile right now. Sometimes the things life deals us are not funny at all. This post, written several years ago for much the same reason, is for her...


Life on earth is at best a chancy thing. You cannot know the exact moment when you will leave the land of the living or if your dreams will die before they've been fully lived. One thing is certain—if a loved one leaves before you, whether by accident or design, you will travel to the strange land of grief and you will go alone. The winds of change will swirl about you, pick you up, transform you forever, and set you down in another place.

It is not only the departing who are changed by leaving. The living, the survivors, the ones left behind must become someone else in order to cope, to grow and finally emerge into a different life—the life without. It is a lonely walk through an unfamiliar land, this land without. Things that two did together one does now. There is nothing so empty as the other person's chair pushed up to the table, unless it's the stairwell that no longer echoes end of day greetings and eager footsteps, or the bed that suddenly seems vast and cold and too lonely on either side of the middle. There is nothing so quiet as a room with one person in it, the silence absolute after the death of conversation and shared confidences. There is nothing so solitary as a single plate on an empty table, a single towel hanging folded and desolate on its too wide bar, or a lone toothbrush standing solitary guard in its cup. There is nothing harder than being one when you have loved being two.

J was so happy, so loved, so alive while her loved one was with her. Now she looks and feels as though she's been struck down and in a sense, she has. Grief has her by the heart and for a time she must wrestle with it, pushing her way through the pain to unlock the reservoirs of strength and faith she accrued in happier days. I watch her struggle to come to terms with her loss, to find a place where she can lay her sorrow down long enough to eat, to sleep, to think of something other than what has befallen her.

She tells her story over and over, trying to make sense of it, to fit it in with her own picture of what her life is all about. Perhaps her peace will lie in the creation of a new picture, a new story, a tale that embraces this grief as a gift that, when opened, reveals all the words and colors she will need.