AGING--WHY WASN'T I INFORMED?

   I have a few words of wisdom, or "wisbom" as my husband likes to call it, about aging. It is startling how suddenly it creeps up on you. One day you are dragging big bags of cedar mulch to the garden with only a few deep breaths; the next moment you are using a walking pole, gasping, and having to sit down at the end. I should mention that now I put mulch in a bucket and take that to one of the many--too many--gardens I have.

One word of advice, if you are an aging gardener comme moi--have plenty of those nifty green garden seats, bought from Amazon of course, to plop down on it. 

Anne Lamott calls it "the sacrament of plopping." I concur. Then, when your spoons run out (remember "spoons" is a metaphor for "energy"?), you plop down and stare at the green trees. If you are lucky, you might see a brilliant, red Scarlet Tanager light in the blueberry bush nearby as I did yesterday. Such a gift, such a sudden blessing!

I remember Mom telling me of the day she was walking in Northampton, when she caught sight of herself in a store window and thought, with dismay, "Who is that aging woman? Could that possibly be me?" It's the cognitive dissonance between the person we think we still are, and what the mirror tells us.

 

This happens every night when I floss my teeth, every morning when I splash water on my skin, and any time I pass a mirror. That woman does not match my inner self.  Like many women brought up in the 50s and 60s, I was taught to value my appearance, to always look nice, to be slim, and to wear makeup. Do you know anyone else who wears earrings and makeup when they go out to dig in the garden, even if covered by bug netting from a hat? Moi. And--if a delivery truck scoots up our steep drive, I always pat my hair and make sure I look decent if going out on the deck. Le "sigh" as someone posted recently.

Up until around age 73 (and this includes cancer and chemo and other nifty health issues), I pretty much was ok with my reflection in the mirror. Then I started to look old. Whatever old is or means for any of us. Wrinkles. Thin hair. Patches of skin showing through said thinning hair. 

We won't even talk about the back of one's arms.

And feet. Sheesh. Are those really my toes? What in God's name happened to them? Suddenly, they are like miniature hooks or tiny pink talons without the sharp bits.

 They used to be nice--but hey, I can still walk on them, and many of us do not have that option. It's good to be grateful even at the same time one is bemoaning things.

I should not get into what peeing is like as one ages. Without TMI, I could literally watch an entire episode of "Downton Abbey," while waiting for action to proceed, or perhaps one show of "Jeopardy". I hear tell that patience is a virtue, one I am not acquainted with.

I could go on. I could say that I start getting ready for bed about 8:30, and walk slowly upstairs to slide into bed around 8:45. A really big and festive day could be 9:00! Luckily, I have a darling man who accepts all of these foibles of mine, still thinks I am lovely, and is not bothered by my tiny, pink talons.

And let's not get into memory. If I imagine my brain as a physical library with cards and the Dewey Decimal system (how I loved that!), the shelving from A-D has fallen to the floor. Perhaps more. Just gone. 

And yet--I could tell you what I ate on my first date at Bates, a dress I wore in Second Grade, and the plots of books I read as an early adult.

There it is. Trump has ruined forever the phrase, "It is what it is," when speaking of how many had died of Covid. It's this acceptance thing. I pray to be more accepting, less judgmental, more merciful, more tolerant, and more focused on what is truly important in God's creation.

 As I stare through the keyhole in my mortality doorway, I know I don't have forever. I used to think I did. But this door I am facing is teaching me things:

--how to let go

--how to see the humor in most things (except not when my friends get cancer)

--how to feel the slow surge of life welling up in the land, telling me that no matter what happens to us humans, life will continue

--that even if I've lost the stacks of A-D, I still have E-Z, at least for awhile.

In the meantime, I shall sip my Americano on the deck, sit amazed at the birds on our deck, water plants, garden, love where I can, look at new Impressionist paintings on FB, cook my ass off, and remember whose hands hold me, oh, so gently, which will carry me through that door when it finally opens. But not too soon.