A short dissertation on a word

 

Celebrating another birthday on that path to old age
note the walker I'm sitting in

The word that’s on my mind today is resilience. The dictionary defines it as the capacity to recover quickly from difficult circumstances. I think of it as the ability to bounce back. Several years ago I was in the hospital with stage four acute kidney failure, caused by an antibiotic that I should have known better than to take. I had already within recent years been hospitalized for a hip reconstruction (a fractured hip so bizarre that people in the hospital looked at me and said, “Oh, your ‘the hip’” and a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. By this time I was feeling a bit down when a medical resident, a woman, came in to talk with me.

I said, “I guess this means that my health is going to change forever.” I was having a pity party, but I saw visions of dialysis three times a week dancing in my head. She replied, “Oh, I don’t know. You seem to be pretty resilient.” Right then, right there, that woman, probably unknown to her, gave me a great gift. I began to think of myself as resilient. I was in the hospital for six or seven days, but every day my creatinine (high is bad, low is good) came down. Eventually I went home and over the next months my creatinine came down almost to normal levels. The nephrologist saw me every three months, but my triumph came when he said, “I’ll see you in a year.”

I think so much of resilience is in our minds, and once I began to think of myself as resilient, I began to bounce back. Christian says I’ve been resilient about other things, like moving into the cottage. There are lots of things I cannot do these days, between the confines of the cottage and the limitations of my mobility: I cannot give the big parties I used to love or even the elaborate dinner parties for six that I loved. There are some recipes that I’d love to tackle but can’t with a hot plate and an toaster oven—those that boast of a skillet dinner you start on the stove and finish in the oven are beyond me. I have a closet that is nonfunctional for me—the hanging clothes are so high that I cannot reach them, even standing, and have to plan ahead so that I can ask Jordan to get this shirt or that down. But I love my cottage. Christian says I have made it work.

This is not to brag about my health or resilience to my friends who are walking the eighties path with me but to suggest that it helps to give yourself a message of resilience. When I posted about life in a tiny house yesterday, one friend wrote that she didn’t know if she could do that or not, but then concluded she probably could. My message is that we can do almost anything If we set our mind to it.

It seems to me a companion word to resilience is flexibility. It’s too easy to cling to the old ways, the ways we’ve always done things, from cooking to child raising. Living with one of my grown children who is raising an adorable seventeen-year-old son, you have no idea how hard it is to keep from saying, “When you were his age, you had to be home for Sunday supper.” Or some such. A long-time friend was here the other day and mentioned how angry she was to be quarantined at a daughter’s house for Thanksgiving because she developed covid. “But I apologized,” she said, “Their house, their rules.” That’s flexibility. And perhaps apologizing is resilience.

To my friends walking with me, think about those two words: resilience and flexibility. How do they apply to your life?

Okay, sermon over.

 

A new friend and two words of wisdom

 

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

Living your best life

 

My children--perhaps the biggest reason I'm so content these days.

Texas weather did it again! For two days we got dire warnings of severe storms, hail, and a slight chance of tornadoes. We got not a drop of rain. Nothing. I thought once in the night I heard the distant rumble of thunder, but I can’t be sure. They always say if you don’t like Texas weather, wait a minute. But the other thing is that the more frightening the warning, the less likely we’ll really have bad weather. But you’d be foolish to count on that because when you did would be the one time we really did get that storm or whatever. Jordan tells me the storms were south of us. But now we’re anticipating a low Monday of nine degrees, and I’m afraid my cozy cottage won’t be so cozy. The outdoor faucets are all covered, and a space heater is in the closet. Fortunately, this is to be a short if severe cold spell. We’ll see.

Last night I had a late-night conversation with my youngest son, Jamie. He had a birthday yesterday—good golly, how did he get this old?—and I called to wish him a happy day, even if it was the tag end of the day. When I asked about Eden, his daughter still in college, he said, “She’s living her best life.” The phrase struck me, although I know it’s a common one these days. But she’s only twenty—does that mean she’ll never again have as good a life as she’s having now? I hope not. And then I got to wondering what your best life is, though of course it varies for each of us. For Eden, it’s college, sorority life, some dating, but a real dedication to her studies, with her eyes set on graduate school in the future. Is your best life happiness or contentment?  The two are very different.

Then, of course, because I can be quite self-centered, I got to thinking about myself. I’ve always thought of my thirties as the happiest years of my life, the age I would return to if I had a genie in a bottle. My babies were young; my marriage was, I thought, happy; I was a bit frustrated professionally, but I was so wrapped up in being wife and mother, I didn’t really worry about it. There were tensions of course, prime among them that I was blissfully unaware that early in my forties, the man who had promised to love and cherish me would leave me to raise four children alone (it’s another story, but one that worked out very well). So I was happy, but I wouldn’t say I was content. It was like there was an itch inside me that I couldn’t scratch, a premonition that something less joyful was coming.

Now, well into my eighties, I think I am more content than I have ever been. I don’t feel the desperate need to produce two or three books a year—perhaps whatever I have done has to stand for my career. These days I still have projects, still consider myself a writer, but I am not driven as I once was. I have a comfortable, safe home with plenty in the refrigerator and on the dinner table. I am surrounded (and coddled) by loving children and grandchildren. As someone who's fought anxiety most of my life, I now don't have to do many of the things that make me anxious (okay, there was that rough parking lot at a doctor's office today but Christian saw me through it). I have good friends that I see often, a church where I find spiritual comfort (even when I only attend remotely), and a dog that I love—I think she returns that love, though with Soph one can never tell what’s in that mischievous little brain. Am I happy? Perhaps not in the joyful sense of the era of new babies, but yes, I’m happy. One lesson I’ve learned—and work hard at remembering—is not to bemoan the things I didn’t get to do, didn’t have, but to treasure the memories of all I did do—travels in many states and once to Scotland, a sentimental visit to Chicago with my grown kids, a high profile in some professional  writing organizations, lots of parties in my home and elsewhere, countless restaurant dinners that helped turn me into a foodie. I will probably never get to go back to Scotland, never take that cross-country railroad trip that Jamie wants me to take, never again be the belle of the ball (was I ever?), never have a best-seller book on Amazon or the New York Times,  but there are so many good things I have.

Your best life differs for each of us. In a way I think it’s fitting that you live that fairly young. If you’re lucky, you can carry it through several decades. But I suspect there’s growth in there, a spiritual growth from great joy to contentment. I don’t consider myself a spiritual person (and I separate that distinctly from religious), but I do believe in growth of the spirit as we age. And with that growth, maybe, comes some bitter knowledge about life that nudges us from the joy of our best life to the contentment of age.

Or maybe I just had an extra glass of wine wth my dinner tonight. How do you feel about living your best life? Or the Texas weather?

Lazy Sunday—and a PS on aging

 

“And on the seventh day, God rested.” I took full advantage today of God’s designation of Sunday as a day of rest. For some reason last night I couldn’t get to sleep—almost never a problem for me. So this morning I felt justified in sleeping a bit past nine o’clock. But if I thought I slept late, the Burtons outdid me—except for Jacob who was up and out the door about ten to go host at Joe T.’s. It was well after eleven before I heard a peep out of his parents, which meant Sophie did not get her shot this morning. The vet said it’s okay to miss once in a while but don’t do it too often. So this was once in a while.

That start to the day threw my whole schedule off. I had intended to cook this morning, but I needed some dishes from the house—and some bourbon. So I did an extraordinary thing: I cancelled Sunday dinner. I was going to make sheet pan chicken with potatoes and carrots, but I knew the Burtons had big dinners (they went to two separate dinner parties) last night and were out late, and I had a vision of fixing that only to hear, “I’m not really hungry.” Plus I wanted to do the cooking that I hadn’t done in the morning. I was making two appetizers for a celebration happy hour tomorrow night, and once I decide when something is to be done, I am a bit compulsive about it. I wanted to cook today, so that I could work at my desk tomorrow. Besides, Zenaida will be here cleaning, and I can’t cook when she’s here—the cottage just isn’t big enough. I hide at my desk while she cleans.

Last night Jean came for supper, and I splurged. I had intended to make tuna casserole—I have a standard recipe I’ve used for years but somewhere found a new one I thought I’d try. When Central Market had halibut on sale, they hooked me. I fixed roast halibut with crumb topping and creamed spinach—Jean liked it so well she insisted we split the tiny bit left in the pans. And I agree—it was a really good dinner. Topped off by chocolate bonbons.

I need to add a PS to my thoughts on aging, posted in this blog last night. Not that I want to talk about me and my health a lot, but I have several chronic conditions—A Fib, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease, once advanced but now moderate. Plus I cannot walk without assistance. But I am determined not to let those conditions dominate my life. I will not go to the doctor constantly to have my blood levels checked, my heart studied on an echocardiogram, and so on. I go dutifully when scheduled, and, praise be, I get a clean bill of health on those visits. But those conditions are not front and center in my daily thoughts. In fact, I rarely think about them. I feel healthy, pretty energetic, and I am determined to live life as normally as I can for as long as I can.

I did talk to my brother tonight, for whom health is more of a problem. He’s pretty much bedridden—weak as a kitten as he tells it. When I had hip surgery, someone convinced my children I would need an electric wheelchair and should get it with Medicare aid while I could. It sat as a great obstacle in my closet for several years, but about six months ago we got it transferred to John at the ranch, and he gets up to sit in it for a while most days. Today we had a great conversation with lots of laughter, and I thought how wonderful it is that he, in his condition, has an intact sense of humor.

And then I realized again: it’s because of our mother. She taught us to be tough doctors’ children, never to cry “Wolf,” to soldier through whatever happens, to pay attention to our health but never take it too seriously. And until dementia took her mind, she had a marvelous sense of humor. My dad’s family, by contrast, went into a panic if he sneezed, and I think she was trying to counterbalance that. Bless you and thanks, Mom.

It all comes back to positive thinking, at least in my mind. Sweet dreams and positive thoughts to each of you!

Some thoughts on aging

 

Me and my big brother.
Both of us aging pretty well. Suppose it's the genes? 

This morning a friend of mine posted in her blog about what some experts are calling the Third Age of life—that period after the kids are grown and gone and retirement has either come or is looming. Men and women are living longer now than they did fifty years ago. The average life span is seventy-four for men and seventy-nine for woman in the United States. That’s up a lot over, say 1950, when it was sixty-eight for men, but the figures dropped during Covid and still have not completely recovered. Still, Americans need to think about their plans for this new Third Age. Instead of seeing it as a time of declining powers, we have to approach those empty years with enthusiasm and a will to fill them with new activities. The Third Age is a time for fulfillment of all that has gone before in an individual life.

That whole concept struck me because it reinforced some things I think—like opportunities for growth in the Third Age. Retired now for twelve years, I have continued to write, although I’m not sure I’d say I’ve done my best writing during this period. Pretty much, I think I approach my life now with enthusiasm and greet each day waiting for the opportunities it will bring. But I also think I’m a mixed bag of thoughts. Some days, when I can’t do something or feel it isn’t working right---all writers have those days!—I think to myself, “It’s okay. You’re eighty-five. Cut yourself some slack.” I suspect that’s not a helpful—or healthy—attitude. I am thinking here of mental rather than actual physical health. Giving myself a pass on a mental or intellectual problem because of my age is not okay—it’s just a way to accelerate aging.

The Third Age is a time of freedom—free, mostly we hope, from the financial strain of raising and educating children, perhaps from the mortgage for a too-big suburban house, from the pressure to succeed. For me, that means I’m free to fall down a lot of rabbit holes—if something irrelevant to anything I’m doing interests me, I can follow up on it. IF I read something about a historical incident I never knew before, I can do some online investigating; if a Ruth Reichl column inspires me, I can look at the historical recipes she references. It’s sort of a will o’ the wisp approach, but ten years ago I’d have scolded myself for wasting time. Not now. Every new fact I learn, every new thing that interests me keeps my brain functioning.

Of course there are some things I cannot do these days that ten years ago I could—walk without assistance, reach things above the first shelf on a kitchen cabinet, twist off some jar and bottle caps, etc. It’s legitimate for me to ask for help on those things because I cannot physically do them—a weird hip replacement and torn rotator cuffs on both shoulders limit me. But I also tend to throw my hands up in the air at the slightest financial problem and refer it to my son before I try to figure it out myself. Not cool. I need to watch daily that I do not let my mind slip into laziness.

I know a lot of the elderly (yes, that’s me) focus on their health. Have you ever listened to old folks chat? Way too much of it is about symptoms and health problems, imagined or real, limitations, and—yes, great sighs over what they cannot do. I have avoided that by going to the other extreme and ignoring minor problems which turned into major ones that I should have paid attention to (why I’m on a walker). I am, to my discredit, the opposite of the little boy who cried “Wolf!” too often. But I do not want to live the last trimester of my life spending my days in one doctor’s office after another. I have a sort of innocent health theory—if certain signs are okay, if my nails and hair are growing and I am regular, I figure my body is functioning, and I can pretty much ignore other small symptoms. Yes, I do all the preventive things—skin check, mammogram, cardiologist once a year, nephrologist once a year, etc. But child of osteopathic medicine that I am, I prefer to think in terms of health rather than illness. On a wellness scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, I would put myself at a seven because that’s the way I feel. My doctor might disagree, but that’s okay.

I think aging, like a lot of other things, depends on that now-hackneyed phrase: positive thinking. If you go into that Third Age with enthusiasm for what you can do rather than regrets about what you can’t, with a determination to be as healthy as the good Lord permits, with joy in the moment rather than regret for the past, the Third Age can be a wonderful experience. In many ways, I am more content now than I have ever been in my life. I’ve known mountain peaks of happiness and passion, valleys of despair, the joy of young children, the satisfaction of professional accomplishment—and now those are all memories I treasure. But they are not the stuff of my daily life. And that’s okay. I’m eighty-five, alive and healthy and involved in life.

Of gardens and change and aging

 

A corner of my yard two years ago

Microsoft or whatever genie lives inside my computer decided today to show me pictures of the garden two years ago when it was lush and green. It was particularly inappropriate today because John, the lawn guy, came this morning to walk the yard, talk about what was hopeless, what might come back, what to do through the winter. The new rosemary is toast, the honeysuckle needs to be cut way back and should be pulled—you know it was hot if it killed honeysuckle. The lantana might make it. And so it goes. Of course, in this uncertain world, the weather is one of the most uncertain—he said if we have an early killer frost, as we did last year, it will be a double whammy some plants might not survive. But our new grass is strong and good—a bright spot.

This focus on change came on a day when I read two blogs about aging and change. The first, “More Than a Shoe Part” by John Clark on the Maine Crime Writers blog, talked about “lasts.” When was the last time you did something that you know you will never do again in your lifetime—rode a rollercoaster, went fishing on slippery rocks, climbed a mountain or hiked ten miles. He had a friend who went hunting and had to use his rifle as a cane to get home—you know that was a last.

Susan Witting Albert, writing Senior Chronicle #2 in her Place and Thyme column on Substack, also talked of the things she no longer does, though she suggested that we now have more power with the things we do. On her list of lasts were a brisk two-mile hike every morning, foreign travel, driving around the country on book tours, intense gardening. But Susan points out that technology now enables us to do much of that virtually—an author may not tour bookstores but through social media can stay in touch with readers, we may not travel but we can visit far-off lands virtually (I love videos about Scotland). We need not be confined by age; it’s simply different.

On my list of lasts, things I know I won’t do again are another trip to Scotland, probably another trip home to Chicago where I grew up (my urge to go these places is overridden by my dislike of flying these days). Sitting on a dune in the Indiana Dunes watching the sun set over Chicago and Lake Michigan. Giving a big old party for sixty of my nearest and dearest. Briskly walking my neighborhood and studying the ever-present changes—a walker makes that difficult. Driving a car, though I must say I don’t miss that so much. I adore my little VW convertible Bug, but I don’t want to drive her again.

But there are so many things I do daily that bring me joy—keeping in touch with children and grands, reading and writing, visiting with friends, cooking for my family, studying recipes, keeping up with the news and voicing my opinion. My days are full and happy and, I’ve said this a hundred times before, what I can no longer do is balanced by my wonderful memories of doing so much of it.

Some of you reading this are too young to think about lasts, but I know others my age or close to it read my blog. So what’s on your list of lasts and how do you feel about that? I used to think ahead to retirement and worry about what I would do all day, how I would feel about the things that slipped away from my life. What I’ve found is that’s not a problem at all—it’s lovely to look back at the memories, but it’s also lovely to be in the present, to enjoy the now.

Just to be alive is a grand thing

 

I guess Agatha Christie has been on my mind since I’ve just read a cozy mystery, Fatal Fascinators by Jenn McKinley, set in a British castle on the weekend of a lavish wedding—and a double murder. That was one of Christie’s signature plots—a variation on the closed room mystery, where all the possible suspects are gathered in one spot so the detective’s job is made a bit easier by the smaller numbers. With Christie it was often someone's country estate. As a side note, McKinley’s latest in her Hat Shoppe Mysteries combined the best of an American cozy and an Agatha Christie weekend in the country.

Christie has long been a puzzle for me. Of course, I’ve read several of her mysteries, but I never could finish Murder on the Orient Express (a shameful confession from one who aspires to write mysteries), and I’m simply not a Christie scholar. I have read and enjoyed some of the books about Christie’s life and particularly the two weeks when she disappeared from sight. Much of what I’ve read about her convinces me she was not always a happy person, didn’t have that happy a life, let alone a happy childhood.

Yet here she is, proclaiming how much she loves life. There’s an obvious lesson there about enjoying life as it is handed to you, making the best of what you have—and whatever other platitudes you can bring forth. But I think for those of us who are aging, there’s a deeper message. At the age of eighty-five, I am very much aware of Andrew Marvell’s 17^th century poem to “To His Coy Mistress”: “But at my back, I always hear/Time’s Winged Chariot Hurrying Near.”

You don’t have to be a coy mistress to get the meaning: death is always just around the corner, and you never know when its chariot is going to catch you. I think Marvell, centuries ago, and Christie, fifty years go or more, have the same message for us: enjoy life while you can and don’t anticipate death. It will come when it comes. I fully understand Christie’s sentiment about having been miserable—haven’t we all been there one time or another, when we’ve lost a loved one, faced a disappointment in love, lost a job or a career—and yet the trick is to admit that you love life overall. That may be the whole energy behind suicide hot lines.

My life right now is not exciting, but it is comfortable, and I am enjoying it. Until I am forced to, I am not going to dwell on thoughts of illness and death. Jordan suggested tonight that I talk about illness a lot—the illnesses of those around me that I care about. And probably I do—my brother has been ill for a long time though he’s doing better, a friend’s brother is battling cancer, another friend is having memory problems, and yet another had an unexplained blackout which is worrying both her and her doctors. I suppose it’s inevitable that when you reach my age, you are surrounded by illness—and by the death of contemporaries. But I refuse to dwell on it.

What Christie is telling us is to move on, leave that behind, and treasure your life. I had a friend once who said she couldn’t bear that this table, that chair, and that painting would still be here when she was gone. I find just the opposite—it reassures me that life will go on. And I think that’s basically because as Christie suggests, I love life.

And on to the mundane—so far, it’s been a busy week, with happy hour company every night. That, too, is part of what I love about my life. And of course, the cooking—Monday night we had hot dogs. It was, after all, Labor Day. So what if everyone went out last night, and I ate a leftover hot dog at home alone. Tonight we had Greek hamburgers with marinated tomatoes and cucumbers. Pretty good stuff.

And so what if the days are a bit long right now, because I’m not sure what I’m working on. That will resolve itself. Meantime, I can read emails and recipes online and keep up with national politics and this week, the hullabaloo of the Austin impeachment trial of Kenneth Paxton.

Yep, Agatha, just to be alive is certainly a grand thing.

Is there a better name for aging?

Some time ago the senior minister at our church announced a series of sermons titled, “Life Comes at You Fast.” He intended to explore four ages: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and, according to the announcement, old adulthood. I howled in protest that I did not want to be called an “old adult,” and Russ Peterman, our minister, confessed that was a typo: it should have read “older adulthood.” Not much of an improvement in my mind. Later, he wrote that at one church he’d served, the seniors called themselves Third Agers. I thought that sounded a lot better, but then, a few days later, I saw a reference to the “chronologically-enhanced population.” Whoever wrote that admitted the phrase does not trip lightly off the tongue. But it’s pretty expressive, and Russ used it in his sermon this morning.

He talked about some closely-held ideas in America, one of them being a fear of aging. We all know that the media bombards us with glorification of youth and rarely has much good to say about age. Similarly, one person talked of the so-called golden years as a time of being, not doing. You’ve worked hard all your life, doing, so now you can let others do, and you can just be. Not an attitude that Russ endorsed. Instead, if I got his meaning, he spoke of our older years as a time of freedom—kids are grown, family is probably more stable financially, career is over or slowing down—but he emphasized that we cannot sit back. We in our seventies, eighties, and beyond have accumulated wisdom to share with the world. It behooves us to share our wisdom, to use our new leisure time to better the world somehow. A wealth of volunteer opportunities are open to older adults. What I got out of today’s words—and I hope I’m not distorting—is that we should use the hard-earned lessons of the past to move forward. We are never too old to participate in life.

That struck home to me because the other night I was talking to a friend, a minister, and said I feared becoming irrelevant. This was partly prompted by the fact that more and more when I go out, I want to be pushed in the transport chair rather than walk with my walker. I’m not sure if it’s a return of my fear of open spaces (I sort of suspect that) or a sign of growing weaker. My friend said it was not a sign of weakness. “You are engaged,” she said, and that made me feel a lot better. And maybe that’s what Russ was saying: as we grow older, we must continue to be engaged, bringing with us the wisdom of the past as we move into the future. He quoted former U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld: “For all that has been, Thanks. To all that shall be, Yes.”

Last night I had a lovely dinner in the Blue Spire, the formal dining room at the Trinity Terrace retirement community. Friends Carol and Lon have been there about two months, and they invited me and Jean (who already lives there) to join them. The dining room is on the twelfth floor, and I tried to take a picture of the view, but it didn’t come out. Me, who goes weak in the knees at height, loves to be inside looking out from that height. Jean lives on the seventeenth floor, and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with that. Carol and Lon are on the fifth floor in a different tower, and I was at ease with that. When Subie and Phil get there next month, they will be on the third floor, easy for Phil and his seeing-eye dog to navigate.

Much of the conversation was about Trinity Terrace, what goes on there from food service to programs, and who lives there. It struck me that someone said, “Has memory problems” about every second person whose name came up. Is it in the atmosphere? Something that’s catching? Then it dawned on me: these people are in their seventies and eighties (and a few nineties)—of course they have memory problems. It’s part of aging and doesn’t necessarily lead to Alzheimer’s or dementia. I have memory problems all the time, mostly people’s names that I can’t grasp. After a few minutes, the name comes to me, and I go on my way. I think I’ve been doing that since I was, maybe, forty? Where I wonder, does one draw the line, and what is the line anyway? I am reminded of me friend and once teacher Fred who moved, with his wife, to an apartment complex filled with friends of Jordan. When I pointed out he is old and the other occupants were all young, he said, “Precisely.” Maybe he too was afraid it was catching.

One final thought from the sermon: we take with us into old age the attitudes we’ve had all our lives. I hope your attitude is on health and happiness.

Scaring myself and an impromptu dinner

 

Curried chicken salad
before running it under broiler to melt cheese

Last night I had a scary experience that brought home to me the isolation of living alone in your eighties. I am not given to nightmares, and I don’t think that is what happened. But I woke up slightly before four in the morning and was suddenly convinced that I could not roll over in bed to get up. In retrospect, I think maybe I was so soundly asleep and woke so suddenly that I somehow hadn’t “collected” myself. But I remember thinking that I must not panic and then, inch by inch struggling to turn over. I sleep, out of deep habit, on my left side, with my back to the cottage.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about how you get out of bed, but today I can tell you that I swing my legs over to the right and that momentum carries my body until I find myself sitting on the edge of the bed. Some time ago I learned of a physician’s advice to sit a bit rather than springing right up, and that made sense to me, so I do that. The advice also included lying there a minute when you wake up to adjust—I don’t do that all the time, and that may be where I got in trouble last night. Anyway, after that scary moment, there I was sitting on the edge of the bed, just like any other night. I went to the bathroom, came back and got in bed, and spent the next hour getting in and out of bed just to prove to myself I could do it. Four o’clock in the morning is not a good time for rational thoughts!

But a lot of things beyond the moment scared me—or at least worried me. If I couldn’t turn over, I couldn’t get to my phone which is always on the seat of my walker. I couldn’t reach to bang my Apple watch against something hard and alert the alarm system. I was just there. Naturally I thought of all the horror stories I know: a friend who fell out of bed and lay there for twenty-four hours before her son realized that she wasn’t answering her phone—she was safely locked into her house, which meant fireman had to be called to break in. Ironically she fell right by her telephone stand and the telephone was just above her, but she never thought to pull it down and call for help. Another friend told me her mother had pretty much the same experience—my friend wished her mom had had some sort of alarm to call for help but instead lay on the floor or a ong time. A friend of my brother fell and couldn’t get up—his wife was out of town and he lay there for twenty-four hours until she came home. The medical consequences have been long-lasting.

I realize the time may come when I cannot get into bed by myself, let alone get out, and I want to be proactive about this. But I’m not sure how. In the meantime, my panic died down in the cold light of day, and I was still in bed, making up for lost sleep, when Jordan came to give Sophie her insulin shot. I’m comfortable about going to sleep tonight, but I’m also aware I want to find a future plan.

As if to counteract the above, which to me had a lot to do with aging, I proved myself still pretty capable tonight. Christian and I had agreed on some menus—he was to fix stir fry tonight (I had gotten some interesting vegetables—baby corns, baby bok choy, matchstick carrots, bean sprouts, etc. But Christian had to go deal with the tire shop that was installing two new tires on Jacob’s SUV—the Burtons have had a rash of flat tires all at once, so much so that Jordan commented tonight that it’s really bad when you greet the tow truck driver as an old friend. “Hey, hi! How are you?”

So Christian and I traded—I had ingredients for a curried chicken salad with a crispy potato chip/cheese topping. I would fix that tonight, and he’ll do the stir fry tomorrow night, which is great because that’s when Mary Dulle comes for happy hour. So I rushed around, poached the chicken, cut up an enormous amount of celery, and got the chicken salad made by six-thirty. Thing is it has to be cold, so I shoved it into the fridge and cooked some asparagus that really needed to be eaten. Close to seven-thirty, we pulled the salad out, topped it with the cheese and chip mixture and ran it under the broiler. You really need CorningWare to do this! Recipe maybe coming in Thursday’s Gourmet blog.

But all was worth it when Christian took seconds and said, “Great dinner for spur of the moment.”

So tonight, I’ll hope to sleep the night through and not scare myself. Hope you do too.

Growing old is not for sissies!

That’s the favorite saying of a dear friend of mine, and it came home to roost today. Not in a big, bad way—just an annoyance. I went to see a hand surgeon because the middle finger of my right hand is hugely swollen and really crooked. I’d show you a picture, but you really don’t want to see that ugliness. It’s not new—it’s been that way for at least a year, but my family physician said it was time to check it out to make sure it doesn’t get worse. I am at this stage in my life beyond vanity about my hands, so it wasn’t a question of ugly—okay it does bother me a bit. It’s that ugly. But it doesn’t hurt, I can still bend it, etc. so the doctor said there’s no reason to do anything about it, and I was grateful. I like a conservative approach.

Still, gout conjures up visions of, oh maybe Samuel Johnson consuming gallons of red wine and countless beef roasts while scribbling in his diary. It’s an old person’s disease for goodness’ sake. I am these days trying to convince a much younger friend (mid-50s) that the way to grow old is to do it with grace, to accept that aches and pains grow more frequent, but much of the time they amount to nothing. She swears she’s going to fight it tooth and nail and mostly with rigorous exercise as soon as she is fully out of PT from a recent surgery. I don’t think this is a good day for me to talk to her.

But the visit had its social aspect. The doctor is an osteopathic physician, and I grew up deep in the osteopathic profession. When my brother and I were young we could count eighteen DOs in the family, and Dad was the president of the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. The so-called cradle of osteopathy is in the small town of Kirksville, Missouri where A. T. Still first preached his doctrine of wholeness. My brother and my ex-husband trained in Kirksville, and I went to graduate school at Truman University there, then known as “the teachers’ college.” The doctor I saw today also trained in Kirksville, some twenty years after all of us.

When he asked if I understood what he was showing me on a computer screen and explaining about arthritic changes in joints, I said, “Let me give you a connection,” and the whole Kirksville thing tumbled out. It led to a pleasant discussion and a really cordial visit. But telling him was my way of saying I had some medical background.

There were other frustrations in my day, though. You may remember Cigna Dental cut me off July 31, didn’t tell me, and the whole thing was a mess. Then early this month I discovered they still had an open account for me, albeit with premium payments way overdue. I blistered their ears as best I could without being rude and thought the matter settled, bought new insurance. Today I got Cigna identification cards—I don’t know what to do with them, but I have some unladylike suggestions.

Then there’s the USPS site: I have tried for days to order stamps. Some days it tells me I don’t not have authority to access the site; other days it lets me get as far as payment and then stalls on the loading site. Whoever accused DeJoy of ruining the postal service gets my vote.

My political contributions are random—when I think someone needs a boost, I send $50 or $25, figuring many others will do the same. Again, sometimes it works fine; other times, Act Blue, the umbrella Democratic site, flashes a big “Forbidden” sign. After investigating, I have decided the problem is on their end, not mine, but you’d think s much as they beg for money, they’d work this out. Tonight I want to give to John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, but it won’t let me.

Tis the end of the day, and I have gotten diddly squat done on the things that matter to me. Morning is my work time, and the doctor’s appointment, plus a trip to Trader Joe’s, took it all up. This evening, it being Tuesday, Mary came for happy hour but tonight she stayed for supper because we planned a special dinner for her. She loves lamb but when she serves it to Joe, he says, “Not my favorite.” So tonight while he was paying tennis, we had lamb burgers and salad. So good.  A funny mistake: last night when Jordan was frying hamburger meat for taco salad, she got the wrong package of meat. As it started to cook, she said “Oh my gosh, this is lamb!” She pulled it from the flame, cooked the beef, and I made lamb burgers of it tonight. No problem.

Sweet dreams.

Birthday thoughts

 

The annual birthday picture with Jordan
Lovely birthday dinner tonight--Christians good hamburgers,
Jordan's blue cheese salad, and brownies

Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about aging, long before my birthday, but today seems like an appropriate time to write about it. It’s no secret: today I turned eighty-four. I won’t say I never expected to live this long, because that would not be the truth. I will say that I am a bit surprised to be here, and no, I don’t feel my age.

When my mom was this age, she began a long, slow decline into dementia, painful for both of us. Maybe because the lovely, happy, laughing woman, always a prioer lady, was replaced by someone I barely knew, I began all those years ago to think about aging, and one very unscientific conclusion I arrived at is that some of us keep our physical health and lose our minds; others keep our minds but the physical body goes to pieces. Mom was generally in good health.

I on the other hand have 500 chronic physical problems—okay, that’s an exaggeration, but if you’d see the pills I take twice a day you might think it comes close to truth. And, as I said to Jordan the other day, it’s always something, often a little something, but an annoyance. The latest if that wearing sleeping shirts and sitting on the leather seats of my walker and desk chair, I took a layer of skin off the back of both thighs. Annoying and painful, plus needing a trip to the doctor, antibiotics, and messy wound dressing.

My mind, on the other hand, seems almost as sharp as ever (my kids might disagree). I’m still writing, still figuring out how to put concepts into words, and loving it. Sure I sometimes open a window on the computer and stare at it, puzzled about what I was going to do, and like all of us I sometimes wander into the kitchen and wonder why I’m there. And I forget names. Jean, who watched her husband disappear into the never-land of Alzheimer’s, tells me if you forget a name but get it back the next day and keep it, that’s okay. If you never get it back, that’s a problem. For some odd reason, the name I can never remember is a celebrity who has no direct effect on my life—historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. There! I did it! I called I up from memory.

I talked to my brother about this the other day. He’s ninety, with a lot of physical problems and not much stamina, but his mind is sharp. He agreed with my unscientific theory (not always the case), and I’m sure he too was thinking of Mom.

Pandemic did a number on me, and I have never gotten over quarantine. I am content in my cottage—going out is fun but a lot of trouble. And like my brother, I have no stamina. I couldn’t walk a city block if I had to. I’m a bit stunned to realize that I can’t do everything by myself and need someone to help me. Specifically, I can’t climb on a stool to get to high shelves nor bend down to the low (I’m afraid I’ll fall out of my walker). But when Jordan refers to herself as my caretaker, I wince a bit. Me? Needing a caretaker? I could survive on my own. I can certainly care for myself and feed myself, but there are many things I can’t do.

I’m the one who voluntarily gave up driving (long story, mostly involving the walker), but it’s sometimes a shock to realize I can’t jump in the car to run an errand but must ask someone to do that for me. And that’s a rub. My caretakers are busy, I am hesitant to ask for fear I’ll push them too far, but then I’m frustrated because the dog really n
eeds to go to the vet or I really need that package mailed. We have our moments of tension in this household, but then, who doesn’t. It’s a delicate balance. I have an occasional pity party—lonely, frustrated by anything from my work to isolation, discouraged—but then again, who doesn’t?

I’m fortunate in so many ways: I have a comfortable, manageable home in the cottage with my dog. I have work that gets me out of bed, albeit a little later all the time, I have friends who come to see me, and I have fun cooking some darn good meals. Eighty-four doesn’t feel bad at all, but then I realize I am so much luckier than many my age.

There’s a huge difference between aging and mortality, and the latter is a subject I’m not yet willing to tackle. Tune in next week—maybe. I will l say that it’s with curiosity as much as fear that I hear time’s winged chariot.

Happy Birthday from
Jordan and Sophie

Sometimes it’s all about food

     

Jacob's going away dinner
Wonder what we'll get when he goes to college.

It seemed that way this weekend. Last night we had a big “celebration” dinner for Jacob’s last night at home before two weeks at Sky Ranch in Colorado. He’s been going to that camp since he was seven or so every summer—for years he went to the main camp near Van in East Texas, but last year and this year he goes to a remote site near Colorado Springs. Yep, he’ll be on a bus all night tonight. He loves it and was excited to go. So Christian cooked a really wonderful dinner—excellent filets and oven roasted potatoes, and Jordan fixed a blue cheese salad. And sneaky me had the last piece of chocolate mousse cake, from Jacob’s birthday, in my fridge (no, I wasn’t hogging—they have some inside, but I don’t think they are eating it).

Friday night I fixed myself a bowl—hummus, cucumber, thinly sliced radish, and smoked salmon, seasoned by Everything But the Bagel. It was things I thought I would like but no one else would—a strange combination. I decided I liked all of it except the Everything But the Bagel (I’m not a fan of that seasoning anyway), and I wasn’t sure that the smoked salmon didn’t get lost. But my liking for hummus was reawakened and now I’m sorry I forot to order more with this week’s list.

Tonight Jean came for supper, and we had the rest of the package of smoked salmon, with rice crackers, for an appetizer. Then I fixed the imitation crab salad that I wrote about a few days ago—and speaking of seasonings, I think what distinguishes that salad is the Old Bay seasoning. So good! And I cooked my first Bok Choy—braised it in garlicky olive oil and then finished with lemon. Jean, who is more knowledgeable about that vegetable than I am, said it was perfectly cooked.

But Bok Choy is in a class of foods that a gastroenterologist told me I should avoid this week. I thought the stomach troubles were due to a return of my lactose intolerance, but he said dairy is only the main offender, and I should be wary of fruit (I really don’t eat much except bananas and occasional blueberries) and of cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, spinach, kale, etc. We eat a lot of broccoli because Jacob likes it, and I adore spinach, so those are hard for me. Kale I can easily do without. It occurs to me that I have eaten bananas without the Lactaid. Oops.

But the one thing I heard from the doctor is something I am really weary of hearing. It’s the phrase, “As we age ….” And you can imagine what follows. The gastroenterologist explained to me that as we age, we are more like to exhaust our supply of lact-whatever or other enzymes that help us digest foods. So that’s probably what has happened to me.

Not too long ago an ophthalmologist said to me, “As we age . . . .” explaining why one of my eyes leaks. I will be talking to someone in a perfectly normal, fine conversation, not emotional, and this big teardrop rolls down my left cheek. The doctor said as we age, the lower eye lid sags and releases more liquid. Thank you so much for that. Actually he was a nice and very competent physician—I trusted what he said. I just didn’t like it.

The good news is that I took Lactaid and then ate cottage cheese for the first time in weeks. I adore cottage cheese, and it tasted so good. I added some of the batch of marinated cucumber and sweet onion I made to keep in the fridge. Delicious. Honest, I don’t mind aging if I can eat cottage cheese—and keep my wits about me.

So now we’re headed into another week. Jordan and Christian tell me they will be home several nights for dinner, so I’ve got my thinking cap on. I feel we should eat the things Jacob wouldn’t like, while saving those he would for his return. So maybe chicken stir fry, and salmon one night, and poor boy sandwiches—oops the teenager loves those!

As I write I hear distant thunder teasing us into thinking we’ll get some rain. The forecast said “possible” and “early evening” so maybe we’ve aged out of any possible rain. It’s so hot and so dry. I mentioned that the flowers weren’t blooming, and Christian replied, “They are in survival mode.”

These days, I think that’s all of us. We’re in survival mode. Pulling our heads into our houses, like turtles, and hoping to keep evil away from ourselves and our families.

Feeling invisible

 

The Supreme Court ruling doing away with Roe v. Wade essentially made women second-class citizens, without the autonomy that men enjoy. For some reason that reminded me of a feeling that I have experienced lately especially with medical personnel. Because I no longer drive, Jordan accompanies me to most medical appointments, and too often, the doctor, nurse, whoever talks to Jordan about me, as if I were invisible or, at the least, addled. I’m not sure if it is the wheelchair (if a long walk is involved, we take my transport chair instead of the walker) or if it is just age.

One day last week, I had an appointment with a physician I’ve seen off and on for maybe thirty years. He talked directly to me. Jordan occasionally offered an opinion, and he acknowledged that. But his focus was on me. But when an aide came in with the follow-up paperwork, the aide completely ignored me and talked to Jordan. Some time ago, when I had a root canal, the oral surgeon explained carefully to Jordan what he had done, showing her illustrations. I was still in the dental chair, but he could have turned me around to see the illustration. He didn’t, and he told her in careful detail what post-op procedures I should follow. I was a second-class citizen. And now I am permanently—or until the ruling is reversed.

I’ve been wondering today about checks on the Supreme Court, because so much of what I’ve read indicates that was a flawed and heavily biased decision that follows personal agendas of the justices. Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett apparently lied under oath in their confirmation hearings, saying that Roe was established precedent and would not be touched. Justices Thomas and Barrett are obviously compromised and should have recused themselves, he because of his wife who was involved in plotting to overthrow our democracy, and she because she is associated with a restrictive organization from the religious right that does not promote women’s rights. Can they be impeached?

Scholars have been quick to point out problems with Justice Alito’s written decision, from his reliance on an eighteenth-century jurist who prosecuted witches to his focus on nineteenth-century thinking on abortion, influenced as it was by the status of women in the pre-Civil War days—they could not own property or vote and were essentially chattel owned by their husbands. Like the refusal to ban assault weapons, it applies historically out-of-date thinking to twenty-first century problems. Historian Heather Cox Richardson pointed out in her “Letter from an American” last night that Alito’s decision relies on inaccurate history. Other sources point out that the decision flies in the face of established precedent and is the first time the court, which usually grants rights, has taken away an established right. What the heck is going on?

And where is Justice Roberts in all of this? I read that he wanted a slower approach to the abortion problem (and problem it is!) but didn’t prevail. Exactly what are the responsibilities of a chief justice? What authority does he hold? He seems to be just letting the court run rogue without any direction. Should he resign?

Where does the will of the people come in? Quite obviously the majority of Americans want abortion laws relaxed, even if not entirely written out of the books. What if any is the court’s responsibility to the people of the U.S.?

And why are so many men pushing for rigid abortion laws? I understand the position of some Christians, ranging from orthodox to evangelical, that abortion is murder of a living being. But when it threatens the life of the mother or gives life to a badly deformed fetus, I don’t understand the rationale. I respect others’ beliefs, but I want them to respect mine, which is that an established life takes precedence over an unborn fetus when a choice is necessary. Interestingly enough, that is written into the Talmud where abortion is explicitly called for if the mother is in danger. Although the Bible, as Christians know it, praises God as the creator of life, it does not explicitly mention abortion.

So why are these men so rabid on the subject? I hate to believe that greed for money and power would lead them to run roughshod over lives, but what else, besides a prurient interest in intimacy, could it be? Are they so threatened by the increasing power of women in business, the arts, and life in general that they must subjugate us, take us back in history instead of forward to the future?

I don’t think this is the last word, and it will be interesting to see it play out. Meantime, though, some women are caught in the moment. More than one clinic waiting room was full of patients with procedures scheduled for that day when the decision was announced. The would-be patients had to go home. And not many of them can afford to fly to California.

It’s not Monday anymore, is it?

 

Y

Yesterday I had every intention of writing a blog but somehow the evening got away from me. But I would have begun by saying that I love Mondays. They always seem like a bright new beginning to me, and I am curious to see what good news they will bring. Mondays are almost always busy email days too, and I sometimes get 200 messages. It’s as though everyone else, like me, discovers that there’s a whole world of work out there to be done. Since I like being busy, following up on things, responding, etc. I am a happy camper.

I have a morning ritual. I start the day with emails, which include some columns I subscribe to—some writerly, some politic, a few about food—and I read those, plus personal emails and click through all those that pretend to be personal. I especially dislike the ones that pose as polls when all they want is your money. These days I get a lot from the Republican National Party asking how I like Biden and Harris—I know exactly what they hope for, but I always say I like them a lot. Then I get some that ask if I’m leaving the Republican party, and when I answer Yes—no need to tell them I can’t leave what I never joined—it flips me right to their fund-raising site, with pictures of trump all over.

Moving on to junk mail—I check it daily, usually 30-some emails, many I can click right through but some I move to my inbox—National Memo, Wake Up to Politics (written by a college sophomore who’s been doing this for ten years and is an impressive, mostly impartial, common-sense voice), and my very favorite, Kitchn, where I mine a treasure trove of recipes.

Then comes the separate email account I keep for writing organizations. Having two accounts is confusing, and sometimes I goof and write to family or a close friend on this account and they write back in alarm to ask if that’s a new address. I don’t respond to every email in this account, naturally, but enough that I keep my voice active. It’s good for me image as a writer and for my ego.

Yesterday it took me until noon to get this far, although in all fairness I admit some new “brush fires” came up, especially dealing with my neighborhood newsletter. But the last thing on my morning list—and really sometimes I am through it by ten—is Facebook. I don’t read new postings until late in the day, but I do check notifications and respond where appropriate. See why I don’t have time for the great American novel?

Tonight, I just meant to throw in a few comments about Monday mornings and move on to quarantine, but I got carried away (as I too often do). Quarantine is much on my mind. A close friend wrote to say she hated to see me spend the rest of my natural-born days in isolation. I responded that I’d hate to cut my natural-born days short by risking infection. And there you have it—those who will risk and those who won’t. I have discovered that the ones who will go on about life as usual are middle-aged (my kids' generation) or my grandchildren’s age. My contemporaries are like me—cautious, quarantining, sheltering in place. We’re too old to risk it—we don’t have as much time to recover, and statistics are not in our favor. Many of us have chronic conditions which would complicate an infection. And perhaps we’re a bit more susceptible, though I have a great deal of confidence in the vaccines. I did contact my doctor, and he advised me to follow the program I am. Which means I don’t see family except glimpses through the window or masked talks across an open patio as long as they attend high-risk events (the stock show).

So when I whine about isolation, bear with me and know that it is my own choice. I’d rather be safe than sorry. Tonight, friend Mary, who has not been any place except the optometrist, came for happy hour. We masked but gave it up in favor of eating and sipping wine. In a few days, my Canadian daughter (the one who was concerned about my natural-born days) will bring me lunch and we’ll eat on the patio. A friend is coming for supper tomorrow, but I know she too has been quarantining. I will continue to pick and choose who I see.

Would I love to have you come whisk me away to Wishbone and Flynt or the new Fitzgerald (in the old Café Aspen spot I loved so much)? You bet! Am I tired of my own cooking? Yeah, that too, a bit. But I’m okay, almost content, and optimistic enough to think this surge will pass, and I can get out again. Thanks for understanding. And I think I speak for a lot of old folks.

Has Christmas changed—or have I?

 

And so begins another holiday season. I have wrapped seven gifts, done some online shopping, a bit of cooking and a lot of menu planning. And I officially feel in the holiday season. My cottage is gaily decorated, thanks to Jordan, with colored lights on the pussy willow arrangement and white lights and ornaments on the table-top tree. The tiny virtual fireplace son Jamie gave me glows with welcoming warmth, although it doesn't put out much. Outside, the deck railings twinkle with white lights, and the neighbor’s wall shows my tiny green lights, with a few red flickers (he says he doesn’t mind at all, and it looks like such a fairyland from my desk). Most of my shopping is done, except for a few reluctant kids who will give me no hint.

But I confess, I approach this holiday season much later and with less—not enthusiasm, but perhaps less energy than I used to. When my children were little, I had to plan both Christmas and Hannukah, the latter involving eight days of gifts for four children. Plus Christmas required several packages under the tree plus stocking stuffers. I used to do spread sheets. And I hid the presents in the upstairs guest room closet—since all our bedrooms were downstairs, the kids were not supposed to go upstairs, but I will never forget the year they found their presents.

And then there were Christmas cards. As a doctor’s wife, I sent out countless obligatory cards. I would buy them December 26 at Hallmark when they were half price, and by the next November, well before Thanksgiving, I had them addressed and ready to mail. And then I sent a Christmas letter, printed off my computer, to distant friends. I remember buying special Christmas letterhead. I haven’t done any of that in years. When I hear from a few, special, distant friends, I reply individually after the holidays, but the mass mailing days are gone and not lamented.

Thanksgiving weekend was when we decorated the house—when there was no longer “we” but me and the kids, we stuck to that weekend. And left the decorations up until January 6 when we celebrated Twelfth Night.

Christmas is different this year—okay, it was different last year but that was because we were in the midst of pandemic and quarantine. This year, I’m trying to figure out if the whole Christmas atmosphere is different or if it’s just me and another signing of aging with, I hate to admit it, waning stamina. Okay, I will admit that I am no longer up for everything I did in my thirties and forties. I try not to use the excuse that I need a walker, but that does mean everything takes more energy and more time.

But I’m not sure it’s just me. Yes, Christmas decorations appeared in the stores shortly after Halloween, which is an abomination. And yes, there are still huge civic Christmas trees and parades and, on the surface, we’re still celebrating wildly with little regard to the meaning of the celebration. But ours is a nation in deep trouble, fraught by conflict and division and corruption. We argue about abortion and voter suppression, critical race theory and socialism (neither of which most of us understand). We want to ban books and masks but not guns. I think we all know we are skating on thin ice, and it makes us more tentative about Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, and other seasonal celebrations. I have my own theory about how all this meshes with religion, but I’ll keep it to myself. I have no proof, but I think many of us will be grateful for a quiet holiday with loved ones. We don’t need the hullabaloo to convince us that we’re happy, because maybe, deep down, we’re not that happy. We’re scared and anxious. So it’s a time to draw loved ones close and treasure them.

On a less somber note, there was a high old time in the cottage tonight. Neighbors Jaimie and Greg walked up for happy hour. Jordan and Christian were going to a holiday party but came out for a drink first. Conversation flew far and wide—while Jaimie and Jordan discussed I don’t know what but I think exercise classes and diets, Greg, Christian and I talked about everything from dogs (their dog broke his leg chasing squirrels, poor baby) to gardens and our new tree to politics and the SCOTUS debate on abortion (do not get me started on that or I’ll rant). For some reason, we all talked loudly and with enthusiasm, and I often had a hard time hearing. When the Burtons had gone, and Jaimie and Greg were on their way to check on their dog, I said, “I really hadn’t planned any entertainment for the evening,” and they both laughed. It was a good, neighborly time.

And I was most proud of my appetizer: I pulled the baby leaves out of the center of three heads of romaine and put them upright in a glass, made a Caesar dip, and added a basket of baguette slices. To my mind, it was showy, innovative, and delicious. Greg didn’t indulge, but Jaimie and I feasted.

And now I’m catching up on emails but getting so sleepy. Sweet Christmas dreams, you all.