Quote of the Day -- Tracey Gendron

I define 'elderhood' as the developmental stage encompassing later life. There are two primary reasons why I think the term 'elderhood' is essential. First, we believe that to be 'successful' at aging, we need to maintain roles and interests associated with adulthood. I disagree. I believe that roles and contributions in elderhood evolve and can look and feel different. Sometimes the contribution is active engagement, but sometimes it is a quiet reflection that is more personal. [emphasis mine] Both are developmentally healthy and appropriate. 'Elderhood' accounts for the nuances where the term 'older adult' or 'old age' does not.

-- Tracey Gendron

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Dr. Tracey Gendron is chair of the Department of Gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It.

Quote of the Day -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For age is opportunity no less 

Than youth itself, though in another dress, 

And as the evening twilight fades away 

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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According to the Poetry Foundation, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most widely known and best-loved American poets of the 19th century. He achieved a level of national and international prominence previously unequaled in the literary history of the United States and is one of the few American writers honored in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Thoughts on Aging

People today are living longer, dramatically longer. The details of the chart on the right from Our World in Data are a little hard to read but the visual image is striking. For the developed world or the "global north," life expectancy was relatively stable from the mid 18th century through the mid 19th century. Starting in about 1875, it rises sharply from 35 years to nearly 80 years today. In the "global south," the increase in longevity starts almost 75 years later, but it is equally dramatic. And the increase continues. Experts estimate that a child born today in the developed world has a 50% chance of reaching the age of 100.

This trend has huge societal implications, particularly in the global north where the birth rate is declining. The growth in the percent of the population that is "elderly" isn't as shocking as some news stories imply, but it has the potential to become a significant burden. (As an aside, Our World in Data is a treasure trove of fascinating information.)

The Stanford Center on Longevity recently launched a new podcast called Century Lives. Their premise: if many of us now have the possibility of living to see 100, that calls for radical new thinking both as a society and as individuals. We need to construct lifelong learning, for example. The notion that we can educate our children intensely from ages 5 to 22 and equip them with everything they will need to know for the next 80 years is clearly misguided. As is the notion that most people should "retire" at age 65. Doesn't it make more sense to intersperse learning with work? And if we're going to work for 45 or 50 years, should we consider instituting sabbaticals for everyone?

On an individual level, we need to think about age differently. What does it mean to "look your age" or "act your age" when our potential lifespan is so much longer.  This image of the stars of Golden Girls in 1985 and the stars of the reboot of Sex and the City in 2022 is making the rounds on public media accompanied by lots of heated discussion. You can certainly make the argument for ageism and the outsize emphasis on appearance. On the other hand, no matter how much work (both physical and airbrushing) the ladies on the right have had, they simply look younger. 40+ years has made a difference in how people think, act, and feel after 50 (or 60, or 70). We as a society and we as individuals are doing a lot of soul searching about what age really means, and I think that's a good thing.

You can make the argument that we "elders" (the boomer generation) still want to have it all. We are spending substantial time, energy, and money trying to ensure that our wellspan aligns with our lifespan as much as possible. We want both a quantity of years and quality in those years. At the same time, we crave a society that isn't so focused on youth and that values the knowledge and wisdom we've acquired in our 6 or 7 or 8 decades. In my last decade or so of working, I was pretty careful to disguise my age. I dyed my gray hair. I hid my age in social media. I worked with lots of young people and didn't want them to think (or know) that I was old enough to be their mother. I'm not sure that was necessary, but at the time, it seemed the wisest course. When I turned 70 last year, I chose to be very public about it (and to expose my age on Facebook for my friends of all ages to see). I want friends, young and old, to see that you can have a full vibrant life at 70. That a 70-year-old woman knows some things that they don't. That being a "village elder" is something you earn and should wear proudly.

 

Quote of the Day -- Walter Landor

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.

-- Walter Landor

Quote of the Day -- Katherine May

We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty. This is a brutal untruth. Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.

-- Katherine May

Quote of the Day --- Marcel Proust

Time…was one of those painters who keep a work by them for half a lifetime, adding to it year after year until it is completed.

-- Marcel Proust

Quote of the Day -- Bonnie Prudden

You can't turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again.

-- Bonnie Prudden

Quote of the Day -- Linda Ellis -- The Dash

 

I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning… to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time they spent alive on earth and now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own, the cars… the house… the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard; are there things you’d like to change? For you never know how much time is left that still can be rearranged.

To be less quick to anger and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile… remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say about how you lived your dash?

Quote of the Day -- John Weiss

 It’s tempting to complain. We all end up experiencing health challenges and the slow march of physical deterioration. But telling everyone else about it only amplifies your misery. Focus on the positive, and gratitude for the good things in your life.

-- John Weiss

Quote of the Day -- Susan Moon

You can't take it with you.  And what you leave behind should be sorted into boxes and neatly labeled.  

-- Susan Moon

Quote of the Day -- Colin Wright

You have exactly one life in which to do everything you’ll ever do. Act accordingly. 

-- Colin Wright

Quote of the Day -- Susan Moon

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.

-- Susan Moon

Quote of the Day -- Samuel Ullman

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living.

 -- Samuel Ullman

Quote of the Day -- Twyla Tharp

Age is not the enemy. Stagnation is the enemy. Complacency is the enemy. Stasis is the enemy.  

-- Twyla Tharp

Mrs Palfry at the Claremont

Author Elizabeth Taylor is a new discovery for me. I receive book recommendations from a variety of sources... friends, newsletters, Goodreads. I add many to my "to read" list in Goodreads, which has ballooned ridiculously to over 900. And I add some of them to my reserve list at the library. I don't know when or why I added Mrs. Palfry at the Claremont, but it arrived just before the library closed for the COVID-19 lockdown. And, serendipitously, it arrived in the same batch with Susan Moon's this is getting old. (Or perhaps I read a newsletter about aging and that's why they both ended up on my reserve list?) But I digress...

Susan Moon's collection of essays addresses the challenges of aging with wry good humor. I saw myself in many of her vignettes, and they made me nod and smile. I found Taylor's fictional treatment of aging far more difficult to read. Her characters are a group of eccentric, lonely old people, living in reduced circumstances in a hotel in central London. Their lives are very "small" with minimal interaction beyond their little circle. 

Mrs. Palfry, the central character, is recently widowed and profoundly lonely. She has a strained relationship with her distant daughter and grandson. She doesn't feel any real connection to her fellow inhabitants at the hotel. But she does establish a relationship, of sorts, to a young man she meets while on a walk.

Some of the reviews talk about humor. And, apparently, there was a movie a few years ago. The book jacket that features a scene from the movie shows Mrs. Palfry looking well-groomed and not all that old and feeble. She smiles while her young friend laughs. I find this image almost offensive because it so completely contradicts my impressions of the book. For me, the few moments of laughter in the book bordered on pathetic. The overall impressions that stay with me are shabbiness, loneliness, and pain (both physical and emotional). This is simply not a happy book.


That being said, I do recommend it. Taylor writes masterfully, capturing the eccentricities of the Claremont inhabitants with spare but elegant prose. Following in the tradition of Jane Austen, Taylor gives us a story in which very little happens but we gain powerful insights into the indignities of aging and of human nature in general. What the heck. I guess I will add another Taylor book or two to my "to read" list.

 

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.  

Quote of the Day -- Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

-- Dylan Thomas

Quote of the Day -- Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

A fall is an unintentional loss of balance causing one to make unexpected contact with the ground or floor.  

-- Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 

(via Susan Moon, this is getting old)

Quote of the Day -- Susan Sontag

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. 

– Susan Sontag

Quote of the Day -- Indian Proverb

Never postpone a good deed which you can do now, because death does not choose whether you have or haven’t done the things you should have done. Death waits for nobody and nothing. It has neither enemies, nor friends.