Book Review -- this is getting old

Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity. I love that. It captures what I and so many of my friends are trying to do. Keep our sense of humor. Maintain our dignity for as long as humanly possible. (Losing my "dignity" is probably the aspect of aging that most frightens me.) Not taking ourselves too seriously -- maintaining dignity is not the same as being stuffy and "dignified." And, above all, being Zen -- accepting, being present, not focusing too much on the future.

In her introduction to this wonderful collection of essays, Susan Moon says:

It annoys me when people say, "Even if you're old, you can still be young at heart!" in order to cheer up old people. Hiding inside this well-meaning phrase is a deep cultural assumption that old is bad and good is young. What's wrong with being old at heart, I'd like to know? "Old at heart" -- doesn't it have a beautiful ring? Wouldn't you like to be loved by people whose hearts have practiced loving for a long time?

Moon voices a sentiment similar to Ursula Le Guin's lament in No Time to Spare. Both women celebrate getting older, even while they bemoan it, and they both resent the ageism in our society. Not only have we lost respect for our elders but we're rapidly losing the desire and ability to learn from their wisdom. And soon, all of us "elders" will be gone.

I'm not particularly conscious of experiencing ageism -- being invisible or underestimated. Occasionally, a young male waiter or store clerk will call me "miss" instead of "ma'am." I'm sure that's how they are trained -- that it's offensive to call someone ma'am because it's means you think they are old. But good lord, I'm old enough to be this boy's grandmother. Having him call me "miss" is offensive and patronizing. And what's wrong with being old anyway? (So I guess maybe I am conscious of it...)

On the other hand, I look at our presidential candidates, all of whom have at least 5 years on me, and it terrifies me (and not just because one of them is Donald Trump). I'm in relatively good health and still mentally sharp, but i know that I don't have the same energy I once did. Nor is my ability to quickly analyze alternatives as acute as it was 10 or 20 years ago. I can't believe any of these elder statesmen has significantly more energy than I do. The body and mind start to wind down toward their expiration date as we round the corner after sixty. None of us can escape it.

I love Moon's whimsical description of a senior moment, but it's not so funny when you think of it happening to an important leader:

It's not my fault when I have a senior moment any more than it was my fault when my hair turned gray. I'm just a human being, after all.  I've had a lifetime of junior moments, when one word follows another in logical -- and boring -- succession, when each action leads to the next appropriate action. For countless years, I have remembered to bring the pencil with me when I go downstairs to use the pencil sharpener.  I think I've earned the right to break free from the imprisonment of sequential thinking.

A senior moment is a stop sign on the road to life.  It could even be a leg up toward enlightenment.  So I stay calm, let the engine idle, and enjoy the scenery.  What happens next will be revealed in due course.

Moon's book is both a delightful journey and a cautionary tale. Those of us in the second half of life need to do our best to battle the slow descent of aging while at the same time embracing it. Being old at heart isn't such a bad thing.