Monday Meanderings

We had a bit of a melt after the last blizzard and then, wait for it, another blizzard last night. Herewith a pic to give you an idea of the height:

I haven't checked my car yet. I am dreading to do so. Sometimes I get help to clean it off, sometimes I struggle with engine running to warm the car enough to make it easier to brush.
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We are working away on the next step to be taken with Support Our Seniors. We finalized a letter to the Prime Minister in a last ditch appeal and are scheduling a series of events to draw attention to the ongoing issue of Senior Poverty in Canada, particularly with regard to women.

We are planning a cross Canada protest, a really serious one, and would like any ideas you out there might have to make this effective. We were thinking to rent a bus and also wheelchairs, etc. for the handicapped among us and blocking a major thoroughfare with signage, etc. We are willing to be jailed which would get the poverty plight massive media attention - jailing senior handicapped elderly women for civil disobedience in protesting their abysmal living so far below the official poverty line? Hello?

Something like this (stock photo). Imagine a row of wheelchairs and zimmer frames blocking a main road?

Elder Excitement

Without Ramans's exclamation point :). This is a joint posting project by Ramana and myself. Here's the link to his post.

I had posited to him that the reason he read thrillers was to create excitement. Getting that adrenalin rush. To revisit that type of feeling we had as children and younger adults. What do we do and think and feel to create excitement as elders? Living in an independent senior complex as I do I get to observe elders intimately. Not much excitement is visible but there could be a lot of it behind closed doors, who knows?.

This all brings me, of course, to what excites me in my seventies?

I'll list them but not in any kind of order:

Music, always music
Writing
A good story
An excellent film
Designing a new knitting piece
One excellent photograph out of many that I took of a scene.
Stimulating conversation (last night at a friend's for instance)
Helpless laughter
A sunrise
A sunset
A roaring fire
Watching the birds soar and swoop as they're doing right now as I write this
My thriving African violets on my windowsill
Live theatre
Waking up pain-free
Possibilities
The open road
The crashing sea
Dogs, any dog.

And I am mindful of that old adage: Measure wealth not by what you have but by what you for which you would not take money.

This: Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé 1987. Barcelona. Sublime.



Now tell me what gets you excited?

Elder Value

Growing old is not for sissies as Bette Davis said. She said a lot more too, see above.

I was at an event attended by elders last night. One of my hobbies is observing elders in great big bunches, not that they'd notice, I'm pretty good at it. I can be looking at you and listening to something behind me.

The event was a BBQ and we had live music. All the old songs from our teen years, early rock, some country, some Irish, some Newfoundland music.

The conversation at my table (6 around it) focussed on the good old days and how great the parties were then, how perfect the music, how wonderfully we danced, things just weren't the same and the young don't know what they're missing glued to their screens 24/7

I restrain myself. I always do. I want to yell "horseshit" or "bollocks" for I know The Ladies would circulate a petition and have me tossed out of the building.

I was startled a little to see tears in a friend's eyes and I asked her what was wrong and she said the music always brought her back to her dancing days and how sad she was they were gone.

I mentioned that Grandgirl and I share our music every time we meet and that we had played one of her newest finds (Pink's album - fabulous)



and one of mine (Radical Face - equally fabulous)



And of course when our time together is over we have the music to resavour these more recent moments together and also have the opportunity to discuss why we like this music. For instance "Always Gold", a track from Radical Face, reminds me of Missing Daughter and how I long for her return.

The Ladies looked very confused and eyed me as if I had broken out in a foreign language. No response, apart from puzzlement.

My point in this post is that do us elders have values apart from our distant memories? Are we meant to walk around as if we are mere sarcophaguses of our past? Do we not have a capacity to initiate and create present moments?

I have no desire to "fit in" to some proscribed elder formula, sizing up others to see if they are fitting the geezer mould or alternatively breaking out into puzzling and gossip-worthy behaviours which are perceived as strange and alarming.

I'm aware I'm in a minority here.

But I wouldn't change it for anything.

Money

I have a friend who runs from pillar to post with money, always on the verge of bankruptcy, lurching from crisis to crisis. For years. I am extremely fond of her and I have always found that criticizing or being helpful without been asked is dynamite to meaningful relationships. So I listen for a while and ask if she has developed a method on improving on this and a rambling type of conversation ensues. Her sense of humour is immense and she could make a statue laugh.

Mark you, she has never asked for help in dealing with her money issues.

Her image to others is important, I think I am one of maybe 2 who know about her real financial situation which is heart breaking. Single mother, not a dime from deadbeat dad through the years, a gambling addiction she has licked with a likeness for weed and booze replacing it. She is my age now and has never gotten ahead even in good jobs with pensions. She cashed the balance of all such accounts out last year (she had me review the papers) due to "hardship" so now her hardship has returned and it's none of my business what she did with the money and she has never volunteered any information as to its disposal.

She got herself into an awful pickle at Xmas. She likes to impress her grandchildren with outrageous gifts ("they're all I have") and she runs around with them in her jalopy, picking them up and dropping them off and utilizing a lot of gas. She can't afford to get her car fixed so it roars off out of here with an ear-splitting decibel level like some mad teenager with a beater.

I, too, had many years of financial struggle, taking in boarders for years, taking in tourists, working two jobs, always behind the 8 ball financially. Always stressed about money.

My path could be Stella's*.

I feel mightily privileged that I have a bank account ergo with not too much in it, but enough to bury me, enough to buy me yarn, to give Grandgirl a small bonus now and again (she knows how impoverished I am)and to fund my car payments and my rent and my groceries and bi-weekly cleaning of my apartment. There won't be any travel in my future and I'm just fine with that. My joy is being in the here and now, cherishing those who are dear to me: my chosen tribe and Daughter and Grandgirl.

I don't imagine Stella is unusual at all. The crisis of single female elders is worldwide, some living in their cars or on the grace and favour of their children. She took out a payday loan** before Xmas, and, an intelligent woman, she did not realize what all the fine print said about fees and usurious interest rates and truly that one can never pay it off. These places are owned by Big Banks and the Canadian government refuses to regulate them. They prey on the hopeless and the poor and the old like Stella. She texted me during the week to tell me how hopeless she felt in the maws of this bloodsucking vulture. She didn't ask for help. Though my care-taking instinct kicked in, I suppressed it. She needs to figure it all out for herself.

And yes, I'm very aware that some lessons never get learned.

And lurching from crisis to crisis is just another addiction. An adrenaline high.


*not her real name
**In 2004, a Toronto Star investigation revealed payday loans carried annualized interest rates ranging from 390 to 891 per cent.

Elder Musings

~~I am thrilled with a new project I was fortunate enough to get.

~~However, I am slower, do you guys of elder vintage find that tackling work that was formerly a kind of I-can-do-this-with-one-hand- tied-behind-my-back is now an-all-hands-on-deck situation? And speaking of all hands I find that a sporadic carpal tunnel problem I had returned and boy was it a challenge to heal, older tissues, repetitive strain injuries take triple the time to heal including an arm splint to bed, oh gawd was that awful. I digress, it is now healed with the odd twinge to remind me not to abuse it again.

~~I'm also aware that the the 30+age gap between my clients and myself has me faltering a lot with business language. It's not that I don't know it, it's that it is more difficult to retrieve out of my brain files, particularly in business conversations. This morning on a 3-way conference call I found myself fumbling mentally with what term I could use for my PC(personal computer rather than my smart phone), thinking: is PC still used? So I blurted "Main frame." Now there's a blast from the past. I've been 40 years using these suckers. They let it go, tho surely they must wonder what I meant or what decade of the ought-oughts I was in.

~~See what I mean?

~~My wee friend whom I've mentioned before (under 30) wants a coffee date late tonight and my mind immediately goes to bedtime interruptus now: my nightly routines of a bit of Netflix, my book, my games of online scrabble and I want to decline but hey, I know this stuff is good for me too. Break the old routines, get out there.

~~Daughter wants me to meet 2 of her friends and host them to brunch in my place next weekend and I'd thought: no more of these get-togethers when I moved here, just hermitize. And hermitizing has not been good as my inner slob takes over and things need to be put away rather than gaped at in puzzlement as to where to put them. There's very little excess, but photographs, binders of writing, old laptop, wools, crafting supplies, multiple unhung pictures, you get it. But I mulled and thought well: incentive. In the past friends and I always joked that the best housekeeping system is to entertain once a month and I've followed that for years and years now. So yes, I need to do this, there's nothing like new friends and seriously I'm quite proud that Daughter likes to air me and share me. The maternal age-gap has shrunk between us which is quite lovely. And rare. And I treasure it.

~~Impatience with myself - that internal voice. I must slow down as I drop things in my speedy old way of doing things. Spoons, pens, phone, blue tooth ear piece, papers and I find myself castigating myself. Slow down, honour the crone.

~~One thing at a time is important. I can't do everything in one day and mornings are the best. So I do one thing on the to do list every day, or more if I can manage it, and the current day's wee jobs too, but I list them all as I learned in that Living with Chronic Diseases Workshops so I know that I've accomplished something at the end of the day, even if it's self care.

PS Photo is not me, but hey, I can sometimes feel like that.

Irony

It's odd this. But I have 3 places to stay in France. Free. And other distant places too, truth be known. And I can't afford the travel costs. Not just the airfare, though that would be a bit of a slice of money. But travelling around once I reach the destination. And food. And wee giftees. It all adds up. Until I have the bestseller. Ha.

Then another friend has decided to spend her fortune when she retires renting exotic places around the world for a month or two and then inviting her close friends to visit her and stay as long as they wanted. All they'd have to pay are their airfares and then head for Patagonia or Hong Kong or the Outer Hebrides where she'd be. Food and shelter provided. Again, I have to laugh. Airfares being a huge chunk of change for this pensioner.

A beloved niece sent me a lovely note about her upcoming wedding. Advance warning. A year in fact. To please be there. I'm going to try. I'd like to be there as I'm extremely fond of her. As I am of all my nieces.

The more I read of elders' writing (mainly solitary women, but some men) the more I realize how many of us are impoverished. Dreading expensive dental work or intensive house repairs or increases in rent or a new car. On the edge of financial catastrophe so to speak. Travel is in the class of bon-bon, a frippery.

I'm not complaining, in case you think I am. Not at all. I have my health, my writing and the odd wee fee for workshops, etc. And my knitting. And my photo-cards. And my books. And my darling Tigeen with a bonus of some rentals thrown my way.

And I buy the very best coffee beans. Always. One thing in my life is simply not negotiable.

Luxurious living is all in the mind.

And excellent coffee helps.

Let Me Tell You About my Bunion.

PS I don't have bunions. And the illustration reflects the graphic nature of the medical conditions shared with me.

What is the secret of good conversation? I was really driven to question this today. I know there are certain so-called “rules”. You know, ask questions, listen to the answers, try not to stick your own oar in the waters all the time. Evaluate your responses, be thoughtful. Really hear the other person.

I put this to practice today. We had our monthly book club meet and Elsie, a person I don't know very well, asked me to give her a ride home. We had already engaged a little in the kitchen where we were plattering the lunch. She'd asked me if I were going to Ireland this year and barely waited for my answer before launching into all the (medical) reasons she couldn't go there this year, this being the 10th year in a row she couldn't go there. A blow by blow accounting of 10 years of medical history. And yes it was savage and awful. But hey, behind her now. She survived. Maybe it is just me and maybe I'm being harsh, but lawdy, everyone I meet lately launches into med-speak with me, from their hangnails to their bowel movements, from their meds to their tumours. And their tests, their scans, their MRIs, their ultrasounds. It can get extremely wearying. Especially when the person is standing in front of me, alive, vertical and in motion. And it's all behind them now. It's history.

Maybe I'm lucky with my health and if it fails maybe I will grab you by the lapel or blog-wrestle you to the ground and blister on (and on) about it too. But it is completely boring. It would be completely boring even if you were a beloved family member/friend.

Don't get me wrong. If you are in hospital or need any kind of assistance to get to one of your appointments, hospital tests, anything, I'm there in a heart beat. Lean on me. Or if you are currently ill. One of my friends is and I listen intently to the symptoms and the medical assistance she is getting. I love her. It is important.

But for Dog's sake – leave the history of every health travail in your private journal once you are well again.

And that ride home with Elsie? More about her gall bladder than I would ever need to know - even about my own. This was after she asked one question about what road races were coming up for me and before I even mentioned the first one she launched into the 99 reasons she couldn't do it. All of them medical. All of them historical.

Needy. Yeah, I know. And I don't lack compassion. But shyte, at some point in 60+ years on the planet there should be a smidgen of growth, of self-awareness, of interest in others. Especially if you've shown a curiosity in the greater world by joining a book-club?

I have this girl......

Well, a girl she will always be to me. She's a middle-aged woman now. How did that happen? I'm supposed to be middle-aged. Well, late middle aged. OK then, a "senior". Senior what? Senior middle-aged. OK. OK. I'm an elder. This is what an elder looks like, feels like, behaves like, dresses like, walks like, sings like, talks like.

We invent our own elderhood. And a fine place it is. Most of the time. Compared to the alternative.

So this girl? This girl is Daughter #1. We've had our trials and tribulations. Oh, yes. Anyone who tells you they haven't had trials and tribulations and troubles and temper tantrums with their children are liars. Or disconnected. Or on drugs. Or in la-la land and don't know their children from the neighbour's dog. Or don't give a shyte. Trust me. Raising children or watching them raise themselves? It ain't easy. Best book I ever read on parenting was "How to Raise Children at Home in your Spare Time." I just Googled it and it's still kicking around. I know. Use me as target practice all you helicopter parents out there.

Anyways, as I was saying. Daughter has moved here. To accompany me into extreme elderhood. I never expected this. And I certainly don't feel I earned this wonderful proximity. We're not living in each other's pockets - she lives about 50k from where I live. Right where the whales come in - nearly on her doorstep. When she announced her moving here we all thought she'd last a month tops and be off on her travels again, to Peru, to California, to France. But she is loving it here. In spite of the weather, the winds tossing her house around all the time, the washed out roads, the snow, the cold. She is in love with the people, the community she's in, the slower pace of life, the clean air and it shows in every fibre of her being. She glows. She is happy. What more can one want for their child?

Today she brings over lunch, a gorgeous soup and a bread she'd made, gluten-free and with cinnamon and chili peppers and bokchoy built into it. Scrumptious. I cooked a pot roast with all the root vegetables on hand for our dinner. On the fire. We had a long walk as the day was glorious and the sea sparkled and we picked up our eggs from the chicken lady and talked to her for a while tossing stories around.

It had been a while since I felt so carefree. I wasn't going out much in this dismal weather. And it showed. I know it contributed to my recent depression. Walking and connecting with others and the outdoors is essential for balance.

Yeah, I have this girl.....

Tell Me a Story

Englee (but throw a few extra syllables at it) where Myrtle lived all her life


I'll write it down before it leaves me, and you can read it too. So my thoughts are a little richer tonight. And maybe yours might be.

I was companion to an elder today. A woman whose body is falling apart, her legs at odd angles to each other, her elbows support her along the walls. You'd be right nervous looking at her negotiate down the hall and she'd shrug you off with a shoulder if you came near enough to help.

She tells me she didn't bring her walker with her as she lives in Labrador and had to fly down and the walker "got on her nerves". She is staying with her daughter in my village over the holidays.

She has early onset Alzheimer's. I shifted and played with my words so we could engage in a meaningful conversation. It took a while as she had a massive resentment that her daughter "had the sauce" to engage me for the day while she, the daughter, "off and gallivanted in that annoying way she has." I got her back into her life, age 19.

Here in her words:

I was post mistress at Englee, ran the whole post office all by myself. Daddy was good with the numbers, he was quartermaster in the First World War so he taught me numbers and he built me all those shelves for the sorting. Oh my, there was so much mail! I had to sort them out for the boats in the summer and put them in big canvas bags with cardboard labels. They would take them away, up and down the coast to all the little outports, there was a bag for each one. And they's pick up the outgoing mail and drop it off at my post office for me to sort and send off to the city. I'd write letters too, there's some that never learned. I never would charge for that though I heard some did. Now that was the summers.

The winter was another story. There were all these dog sleds in the winter when it was too rough for the boats. Coming in from everywhere and I'd load up the sleds with the bags. Mail was the only communication then, there was no phone or electricity so it was so important I kept on top of it all. It's how I met my husband and he just back from the Second World War. He was a post office inspector! Imagine that!

And here she laughs and laughs, punching me in the arm, to make sure I got the joke.

And I did.

Moving the Toothbrush

I am always one for fresh opportunities. I remember reading a few years ago that as we age we should challenge ourselves a little more each day to keep that vital creative spark going. Sleep on a different side of the bed. Move the toothbrush to the other side of the sink. And suit up and show up if something interests us.

I had a call the other day from an acquaintance.

"Would you be interested in a few hours of a different type of work from time to time?"

"Well... if it doesn't involve housework, maybe yes."

"The situation is this. You remember my elderly mother?"

"Oh yes! Mabel is delightful!"

"Well, she feels the same about you and she's staying with us now and we need the odd break in town so would you be able to companion her during those times, we would pay you, of course."

"With advance notice I don't see a problem."

"And I should also mention she is showing early signs of Alzheimer's or dementia. This is heart breaking for us all."

"Not a problem, maybe I can read to her, or see what she'd like to do."

Aging fascinates me. I love my elderly friends. What is elderly to me now? Over 80. Mabel is in her late eighties. I know that both physical failing and less mental agility can strike quite suddenly. Days are precious as we age. There are no guarantees.

I am so fortunate I am healthy enough to provide this kind of service. I even thought of a business name "Elders for Elders". Many have told me that most young minders can't relate at all to elder needs. And I want to learn. About me.

Yes, moving the toothbrush. I think I can do it.

Bursting the Bonds of Old Age

The inside of my storm door.

I'm glad I live in an era where "elderly" is being redefined by so many of us.

I was talking on the phone with a couple of old friends (at length, I'd been away) who are also blossoming and making plans and painting new works and even buying new works by young artists. Our conversations veer away from that old and tiresome "howz yer health, list every detail" exchanges to more immediate 2012 plans. One still works full time way beyond the normal expectations of her pensionable age.

Exchange of grandchildren news is minimal and restricted to transitions only, if at all. It is mainly about our lives and what we are doing and the reinvention of ourselves.

I had dinner during the week with a long time friend (we worked together) his wife and their best friends - my friend's best friend since grade school.

I had one of those moments where you realize you haven't really known a friend at all.

I mentioned Rob Ford the much reviled and derided mayor of Toronto that no one I know will admit to voting into office. He is mainly on the extreme right and in that oligarchal way of most conservatives creates his own bubble of entitlement such as severely limiting access of the press to his office, texting while driving and flouting other traffic laws (he doesn't believe in stopping behind an offloading tram).

Not only did they all admit to voting for him, they were supportive of his ongoing faux pas and his lack of support for urban transit.

They put down all his incredible contempt for the public as a liberal media spin and as one said he was one of the best mayors ever as he was ending the prolific subsidies which were enabling the "emigrants" and the poor to continue sucking off the public teat.

Whenever I hear the word "emigrants" being used in a derogatory sense my head explodes.

I sat a little gob-smacked, staring at my friend. Do we ever really know anyone?

I decided to end the dangerous curve the conversation had slid into.

"Oh, did I tell you?" I said pleasantly, "I was asked to run for the Green Party here. I had to turn it down of course. If they had asked me in my forties I would have run, but now I'm just too busy."

Gobsmack echo.

Conversation shifted to "Great meals we have eaten" and "inns we have stayed at".

Away with the Fairies

I was returning a borrowed book to her.

I found her on her couch, the large screen teevee bellowing mightily into the oblivious air from its forbidding presence beside by the fireplace.

She shot up guiltily as soon as she saw me.

"How are you?" I asked, a little concerned. This woman is a mighty presence in the area, a recipient of the coveted Queen's recent Jubilee Medal. A spearhead of the Fisherman's Museum, a poet, a painter, a quilter, a historian, a published author. Prone on a couch in the middle of the afternoon? I would have said never.

"Can't go anywhere," she said plaintively, "My son is supposed to be fixing my car and took it to his place until he gets back from offshore, it's been weeks now."

"And nobody ever visits anymore."

I found that surprising. Another son and daughter-in-law and various nephews and nieces are scattered all around her.

She went to her fridge and hauled out a plate of fishcakes.

"Would you like one?" she proffered the plate. I demurred. Cold fishcake? Seriously? What's going on?

"I don't cook much, the family keep taking me over to their places and feeding me and then giving me all sorts of stuff, look!" The fridge was packed.

She had just said nobody visited. Alright.

I mentioned a mutual friend had her first grandchild. A girl. I told her the pictures were on Facebook.

"I've forgotten how to use my computer," she laughed.

"Was the grandchild a boy or a girl?" she asked me. I said girl.

We inspected some of her crochet which she hauled from her linen closet.

"What did they call the boy?" she asked me.

"What boy?"

"The grandchild."

"It was a girl"

"You said it was a boy."

"My mistake, a girl."

She took me over to the piano and all the pictures of her grandchildren.

"And this new grandchild you were talking about? Was it a boy or a girl?"

And I thought my heart would break.

Packed Agenda

What's this about?

I find myself getting overly explanatory lately. In that irritating way of some seniors and elders of my experience.

Example:

Making an appointment at the car dealership and they change it by about two hours and I start in on how busy my day is. Not in an aggravated or aggressive or annoyed kind of way or anything. Nicely. Going through the entire day until I hear myself and think, sweet Maude, my grandmother would do this, my elderly aunts would do this, other elders of my acquaintance would do this. Usually people who lived alone. So I stopped and coughed and said to the patient lady:

“Oh, who cares, I'll shuffle things around, no problem”

And I got to thinking, why do I do this? Is it to make my life valuable now that I am older as in:

(1) See how important I am (to strangers, yet),

(2) I may be old but you can't shove me around, lady,

(3) I am so busy, listen to the list of all I have to do.

(4) I matter.

Who am I trying to convince? It's hard to admit it but of course it's myself. And half the battle of changing or eliminating any negative trait is the awareness of it. Right?

New News

(1) One of my stories is up at The Elder Story Telling Place

(2) Quotes

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes .. Pass a law that says that if the deficit is more
than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."
-- Warren Buffett

(3) And (tongue firmly in cheek) ad of the week:

Blog Jam

For your pleasure, an old photo from 2005.

Well, I am shocked, I tell you, shocked, that it could be some Big Pharma drug I was on that caused my recent depression and other side effects. I mean, this is unheard of, right? Big Pharma run all sorts of clinical trials before releasing any kind of new drug to the general public, right? And then we have the added layer of government protection, our tax dollars working in stringent oversight provisions to save our lives if Big Pharma pulls the wool over our eyes and just pretends it did some testing and monitored negative effects. Right? It's never about the 5 billion dollars and climbing they make from this particular drug. I mean lives come before grubby dollar always, right? Right?
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Elsewhere I notice something I had dismissed before in how family talk to their elders. There is a gentle, almost hidden patronization in the tone. Pay attention next time.

"Oh is that so, Daddy, well, well, you could be right."

"Oh Mummy, you little weasel you, you forgot to zip up your coat. Naughty, naughty!"

What I find even worse is the complicitness of the elders in this behaviour. I imagine they find it easier than asserting themselves. As if by this passiveness they don't make any waves. They maintain the status quo by buying into this second toddlerdom bestowed on them by their children or other relatives. It is what's expected from them after all.

And then, when I'm alone with these elders, we have a normal intelligent conversation about multiple topics.

Should this be filed under "I've seen the future, baby, and it is murder" department?
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And in the "oh me nerves" division, the play looms ever closer and I find most of my waking thoughts are with the coming debut, swinging between euphoria and rockbottom "ohmygawd what have you done now?"

Riff on the First Snowfall

And it's just about gone now. I like the monochromatic aspect of it all. The fluffy new blanket cuddling the brown earth, smoothing the rocks and shingles of the shore, mothballing the trees for the spring.

My clever birds burrowed deep into the bird feeder and yelled to each other that the food conundrum was solved for another day. The pecking order took over, bluejays first, juncoes next and last the sparrows, patiently waiting, flipping the soft flakes from their wings as they stood in an orderly line on the railing.

I was deliberately slowing down myself. What the hell is my hurry most days I asked myself. In a life of rushing around I have to tell myself it is perfectly OK to slow down now, stroll, don't run. Savour the air, breathe in, breathe out, stop even. Slow down the world for a minute or six.

It is alien to my nature not to rush about the appointed tasks, hurry the phonecall, pile the fire high all at once, add more baking to the floured board, make three dozen more.

I think I know now why some elders slow down to a crawl. It is not physical or mental limitation at all.

It is a conscious choice - to savour all we could never do before. Finally we are stopping to smell the roses. And the cedar and the woodsmoke and the ocean.

Time. So precious. I'll have eight more lifetimes, please.