A truly worthwhile book by my friend, Stephanie
Sometimes serendipity can lead
to the nicest things. Several months ago, the neighborhood newsletter that I
edit did an article about Ann Darr, the neighborhood representative to the Fort
Worth ISD board. I stressed to the writer that it had to be apolitical,
following the guidelines for the newsletter, and it came back raving about what
a good school board member she is. I sent it back, explained again about no
politics, and got an article Ii thought usable (yes, I got some criticism, but
not much). A few weeks later, Ann Darr contacted me and asked if we could meet.
We had confusion finding a date, and I had to explain I could not easily meet
her someplace for a happy hour drink but I would welcome her to the cottage.
Tonight, finally, was our
happy hour meeting. I made a tuna spread—not very original, but it was good and
she seemed to like it. We chattered like magpies for over an hour and a half.
Found out we go to the same church, one of her children is in Jacob’s class at
the high school, and one of her sons is at U of Arkansas where Jacob will go
next year. We are politically in sync, though her position, like my newsletter,
is apolitical. We chattered about education today—charter schools, home
schooling, book bans, intrusive parents (she says that has peaked and died
down), the necessity of trade school programs, financing, Abbott’s sitting on funds
allocated for teachers because he didn’t get his way on vouchers, and on and
on.
I have friends I see often and
simply adore but familiarity sometimes results in fairly stagnant conversations
(I can hear them now—“Does she mean me? Surely she doesn’t mean me!”). I think
we tend to know what our close friends think and not dive deep in conversation.
But when you meet someone new, in the process of getting to know them, you go
deeper—at least that’s what I found tonight. I hope Ann Darr will come back to
the cottage, and we can develop a friendship. PS She’s a dog person, so what’s
not to love. After welcoming her with frantic barking, Sophie was as good as gold
all evening, pretty much stayed on the patio.
Two words of wisdom for the
day: resilience and gratitude. My friend, Stephanie Raffelock, posted in her
Substack column this morning about her goals to reach by the age of eighty. I misread
and thought she was referring to her seventies as her last decade, so I
hastened to send a rebuttal from my advanced age of eighty-five. She called to
say I had misread and her goals are to prepare herself to live into her
eighties and nineties. We talked about aging, and she mentioned a book that is meaningful
to her: Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. A Jewish psychiatrist,
Frankl spent four years in various Nazi concentration camps, and he came to
believe that the will for meaning was the single most important factor in
survival. He got so he could look at fellow prisoners and almost predict who
would survive and who wouldn’t. I probably won’t read it simply because I
refuse to read about Nazi cruelty. I find it too upsetting to realize such evil
exists in the world. But I like the theory.
Stephanie had written that it
was a goal to be pain-free, and I told her that was a pipe dream—as we age we
all suffer minor aches and pains. The goal is not to let them grow so big in
your mind that they become major. I mentioned that as a doctor’s child, I was
taught to be brave about health problems and pain. Doctors, my mom told me,
laugh at those who magnify problems or pain. I took it so far that my brother
once said he thought I was taking Mom’s advice too seriously. But once when I
was in the hospital with a fairly serous health problem, I said to a resident
physician that I guessed this would change my life, and she replied, “Oh, I don’t
know. You seem to be fairly resilient.” So that, for me, is why resilience is
important—bouncing back from major or minor upsets.
Stephanie had just been
reading about gratitude, and she proposed that as a factor in aging well. Gratitude
takes us beyond ourselves. If you can give up moaning and whining about your
present state—or about the state of our country or the world—and look for the
positive, your whole attitude toward life will change, and you will be
healthier and happier. I try, every night, to thank the Lord for the blessings
of my day and those of my life in general. I find I have lots to talk about.
Resilience and gratitude: Try
them for a week
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