You say goodbye, and I say hello

People kept asking me if I was going to write a blog on this trip. I said I'd send emails and write FB posts. But as I drove to church yesterday I realized that I had a lot on my mind.....more than a FB post and perhaps more than people wanted littering their inbox. If I did a blog post, then people would have to make a conscious decision to read it. Life being what it is, I can't figure out how to start a NEW blog, or change my "name" and since there's something to be said about historical perspective, I'm just tacking this on to an old blog I started seven years ago when I was a sweet young thing. But I am so much older then, I'm younger than that now..... Of course, I also don't know how to tell people how to find this blog. I'll think about that later.... So as I say, I was driving to church. One thing I'm looking forward to on this trip is going to lots of different churches. In general, they will be of the Episcopal persuasion. But yesterday, I started at Pilgrim Congregational in Harwich, MA. And why? BECAUSE SOMEONE (namely my friend and college classmate Bethany Holly Craig) INVITED ME! Hint hint church types out there. I know it's not "cool" to be a church type these days but in these perilous times, I think we all need community more than ever. Of course, the problem is, we don't want to put ourselves in silos, and this is especially true at church. Churches/synagogues/mosques/faith communities, in my opinion, should be open to divergent views and be a place where a variety of people can ask questions, find solace, build relationships. So what if someone stood up at Sermon Seminar (the "talk back" portion of our 9 AM service at St. Mark's) and said "I think DJT is a great guy and I think we should all support him." Would I greet that person with love and reconciliation? Or would I answer back? Keep my mouth shut? That's what our country is facing right now. As usual, I digress. What's more on my mind is that I'm saying goodbye to a part of the country where I've spent the last 40 years of my life. I moved from the Midwest to New England in the fall of 1967 and been in New England or the mid-Atlantic region ever since. I have enough miles on I-95 to qualify for a free washer-dryer combination. And that's going to come to an end in late June when I cross the MA/NY border and head west. Not knowing when I'll return for more than a visit to the grandkids. Very strange feeling to be out of my comfort zone. Comfort? I won't ask how many years I felt comfortable in Williamstown MA. Not as many as I probably thought at the time. Never in Pittsfield, never in Brookline. Absolutely in Arlington VA/Washington DC. The only way the cost of living is going to change in DC is through a major economic meltdown. I'm not hoping for that. So does that mean I can never return? Never say never. There are always group homes. But for now....the open road, the Wild West, the call of adventure, the lure of palm trees, ibis and alligators.

Crawling toward something....

I know not what. Boy I haven't written here in a LONG TIME. I will not bore you with the details. But today I read a blog post by my friend Julie Green who is trying to adopt. She is a brave and honest chronicler and it made me realize that I could learn a lot from her even though she is way more than 20 years my junior. So we're pulling up our big girl pants....

And what better to discuss than the fact that they eye doctor told me yesterday that I'm developing cataracts? MOI???!!!! Excuse me, but I'm young and gorgeous and defy all the other aging things that happen to people (except weight gain, pre-diabetes and high cholesterol.) And now THIS! I can already see that my life is going to transmogrify into a series of doctor and dentist appointments that will take so much room in my Blackberry that I won't have time for any fun.

Except of course my 40th college reunion. There is nothing BETTER than old dear friends who have been around for a long time. And making new friends of people who shared an experience with you but you didn't really know at the time. The next time you go to a reunion -- high school, college, whatever -- be thankful for the people who did all the hard work so that everyone else could have a good time. They, of course, are probably exhausted and will only see it through a haze!

Do I WANT to live to be 100?

Probably not, but a new article in the New York Times by Jane Brody emphasizes the benefits of walking. My favorite line in the article is when one practioner bemoans the fact that he tries to get his patients to walk and there's such resistence. "We're not prescribing chemotherapy, for pete's sake! It's WALKING!"

I am lucky to be in a walking group at work. It's important on a variety of levels but of course the first benefit is that it's a group of people encouraging you to go, even when work is piling up on your desk.

Here's the article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/health/26brody.html?src=me&ref=general

So now we're never going to stop working.....?

You know, we Baby Boomers thought we had this whole "aging" thing down pat. We were going to control the world, make everyone else do our bidding and laugh our way to the grave.

Now it turns out that society is starting to fight back. They don't want to take care of a bunch of indolent former hippies. So they're starting to write little subversive articles about how we'd better keep working or our brains will turn to mush....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/science/12retire.html?src=me&ref=general

This is NOT FAIR! Why can everyone else retire and we can't? Just because we're going to cost the society their entire nest-egg? Too bad. We EARNED IT! I've got a deck chair all picked out where I can snap my fingers at the staff and say "Hey, you there...another pina colada!" (Except I don't like coconut so it will have to be a rum punch.) And what do you mean the rum punch is going to help my brain atrophy. Doesn't anyone here have a sense of humor?

I've either been in school, been working, been taking care of tiny children or been working, working, working my whole life. When does the merry go round stop? When do I get my lifetime supply of cotton candy?

And we are going to make massage therapy one of the preventive benefits of Medicare, right?

I'M BAAAACK.....

The last time I posted to this blog was on the first day of this year...I won't exactly tell you where I've been since then. Suffice it to say that I almost ran for State Representative and then didn't, almost got a couple of jobs out of town and then didn't, and spent an awful lot of time on Cape Cod licking my wounds and soothing my soul.

So what inspires me to start writing all of a sudden? Because I have decided that really, when you come down to it, I am an expert on "healthy aging" or maybe an incipient expert. But in any case I have decided that that is where I am going to put my energies for the next period of time. This may be a month, a year, a decade. After all there are rumors around that if I had been born in the 80's I would have been diagnosed with ADHD...but it's my blog and I'll laugh or cry if I want to.

So, in the category of healthy aging, there is TODAY'S accomplishment, and the place that I've been all this year. Today I "ran" a 5K. Now, the quotes are there because I covered 5K in geography. Sometimes I was running. Most of the time I was not. But I was moving the whole time...I didn't stop....and I finished, albeit 50 minutes later, but they didn't have to send the ambulance for me. As I passed all the "spotters" I told them "you can go home now...I'm the last person."

What this has encouraged me to do is:

1. Try to make my time under 40 minutes next year (or maybe the year after that...)
2. Start a "senior" or "Masters" division for the "Fun Run" (the "race" I was in...for me it wasn't a race it was an endurance contest!)next year and encourage other semi-out-of-shape over S*x*y's to join me...
3. Perhaps see this blog or some of my professional goals as becoming an expert on "Healthy Aging."

Trust me, it's where life is going...

I looked back at the post I did on the first day of this calendar year. I vowed to:


1. Hug my granddaughters
2. Visualize whirled peas
3. Eliminate teeth-grinding and other outward manifestations of stress
4. Be thankful for what I have (no materially but spiritually and emotionally...)
5. Be careful what I wish for
6. Stay hopeful
7. Love my family and friends
8. Try to make the world a better place
9. Keep checking things off on my "I've always wanted to...." list
10. Keep moving

So OK, I've started at the bottom and I will work my way up. Peace....

Where DID that Decade go? I knew I put it somewhere.....

By this time, I am used to the passage of time and coping with the mental picture of the calendar pages flipping and the years rolling past at the speed of light.

But there was something about it being the beginning of a new DECADE (I am NOT going to get into an argument about whether the century began in 2000 or 2001 and whether this decade should begin next year....)that brought me up short.

Because I could have sworn we just celebrated the millenium.....

Remember that? In my case I was with five of my closest friends and we rang things in with a bang. I had just turned 50 and discovered that it was the best stage I'd ever been in. My daughter was in college, my son in law school and life was good. I started a new job on January 13, 2000. I still have the same job. Is that progress?

So I could deal with the idea of a new year. But then all the commentators stated talking about the DECADE. What do you mean, it was just yesterday.....and then I realized that both kids were now married, I had grandchildren and my Uncle Bob had died. The world had changed profoundly. I hadn't kept up with technology and now I was....well, s*x*y. And still lots to look forward to.

In her usual timely way, my sister-in-law Hilary sent me this post of the last column that Ellen Goodman, one of my favorites, penned. It seems to sum it up pretty well. Peace.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/letting_go_20091231/

Reflections of ....the way life used to be.....

This past weekend we attended an engagement party for our friends Rebecca and Brent. It was great for us, especially, because it looked like a PTA reunion of parents from the '80's. All my daughter's friends' parents were there and it was lovely.

So this of course obviously led to a discussion of what it's like to be a certain age. (Rebecca's dad turned s*x*y on November 29th....) My friend Erica opined that it was like a Renaissance. You could embark on a variety of new paths in life and experience them in the fullness of time. Which of course provoked Mort to say that, to have a Renaissance, you have to go through the Dark Ages. After death there is resurrection and all that.

Well, that's true. For me, my 40's were the dark ages. But what is also true is that to truly embrace being 60, one has to acknowledge the "death" of certain things that simply are not going to happen. I am not going to be the first female Supreme Court justice (one of my early goals.) Not only have we had three, but I never did go to law school so it's a nonstarter. I also never did start my project of hiking the Appalachian Trail in segments. It's not that I COULDNT not start this project, but having hosted through-hikers this summer, I think it's a project best left to the young. I am content to hear their trail stories.....

So having said all that, we wish our friend Ellen a very happy 60th birthday tomorrow. Ellen is best known in some circles for two things: inventing the concept of "martyr points" as in "I have enough martyr points for a washer-dryer combination" and washing strawberries VERY THOROUGHLY in college (which necessitated rinsing them even MORE THOROUGHLY). Since that time she has distinguished herself in fields of endeavor too numerous to count.

For my part, I have decided that this decade will be dedicated to fomenting revolution in unlikely places and enjoying being part of the background of history....