Last Sunday I shared my grief over the felling of an ash tree. As it turns out, the emerald ash borer is slowly killing them all.
I know the feeling. Age is boring into my bones. I’m sagging.
(Gravity sucks!)
All my friends are getting old. One just turned 70. Another 90. When I was 30, people that age looked awfully old.
Someone once told me that anyone 20 years older than you looks old. At 20, 40 looks old. At 40, 60 looks old. At 60…well, you get the idea.
I’m 73. Anyone still alive doesn’t look old to me.
Peers I see regularly still look young. We’re like trains moving in the same direction on parallel tracks. Both are moving, but it doesn’t feel like it.
That has a certain comfort to it until you go to a class reunion.
A few years ago I walked into my 50th high school reunion and saw a classmate I hadn’t seen for years. Oh my God, what happened to you? I thought. (Don’t say it!) I bit my tongue. But the tongue is a rascally muscle. I blurted it out.
What do you mean what happened to me? retorted my old friend, staring at my wizened countenance.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), I’ve had a lot of practice with blunders like that. Many a time I’ve blurted out something that should not have been said. So over the years my tongue’s become like Jack—nimble and quick.
You look more beautiful than ever! I hastily replied.
And then I noticed that was actually true.
Beauty ages like fine wine.
Minutes later I was called to the microphone to give the invocation. When you’re the only minister in a class of 300, you’re stuck with that dubious honor.
(I didn’t know Randy became a minister! And to think I thought he was really cool back then!)
I dislike proforma prayers. I had none to offer. But I did have a blessing for all to recite with me, plus a freshly conceived idea.
Love before us, love behind, love under our feet.
Love within us, love over us, let all around us be love.
And then I asked everyone to turn to the person next to them and say: Oh my God, what happened to you? You’ve never looked more beautiful!
A ripple of hugs went round the room.
And that was really cool.
_______________________
See Paula’s photo “Bittersweet and Lavender” on the home page. Posted Feb. 21
Love your True Confession, Randy. Beautiful! And resonant. At one class reunion, I accidentally called my husband by the name of my high school boyfriend (who was there). That was when I was still married to my first husband. The wonderful guy who is my current husband had a few flub-ups like that, too, before we got together. So we agreed to just call each other “honey” and laugh if we messed up and used the name of a former spouse. Now, when names don’t jump to the surface as fast as they used to, that “wizened” humor is more important than ever. Now who did you say you are?? 😆
I got a call from an old friend the other day. Thirty-five years had passed since we last connected. What a blast from the past! He tracked me down because Bunny Wailer had died and he remembered that the first time he ever listened to Reggae music was when he hung around with me. We caught up on births, deaths, and career changes–of the latter, I had the most. Mainly, we just laughed and remembered. I was left with a sense of completion and the warmth of a long ago friendship that had traveled a long way to help both of us. It’s indeed a small world. Thanks, Bunny!
The gift of mindfulness can be instructive. The words of Mark Twain might be useful: “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
Thank you for my Sunday morning smiles & reflections. Love truly is above us, below us, all around us & within us when you stop & look. My 50th reunion got rescheduled due to COVID. I anticipate the surprises, the good & sorrowful ones, with a sense of being in this older, wizening body & still 17 in my soul spirit… what a gift to be alive, after all we’ve been thru. 💓🙏
There’s an apt simile for this, I think. Our aged friends are beautiful in all the ways that sunsets are beautiful.
I love reading your “gifts”. Thanks! You’re not getting older, you’re getting better.
Women have the ancient Maiden, Mother, Crone cycle. What is the periodicity of men?
Reply to Bradley’s query: The ancient Freckles, Reckless, Feckless Cycle.
The Half-Remarkable Question (one of the verses)
The flower and its petal
The root and its grasp
The earth and its bigness
The breath and its gasp
The mind and its motion
The foot and its move
The life and its pattern
The heart and its love
O, it’s the half-remarkable question
What is that we are a part of
and what is it that we are?
Robin Williamson – The Half-Remarkable Question
” Age is a state of mind”. Sometimes that montra works for me, other times it doesn’t. Especially when I roll out of bed in the morning and my knees don’t want to work! I recall my dear Mother, Dorothy. Up until her death, she had a sparkle in her baby blues. She was my inspiration.
My primary struggle with ageing is that life is such an extraordinary trip — with a one-way ticket! What is NOT to love, fully and joyfully, about the rich wisdom, beauty, and humor in these comments? They are a buffet of delights with added zest and lightness of being! Better company is not to be had — mentally and emotionally, we are marathon winners! My gratitude today is that my body has carried me this far, intact, and it has earned a right to falter now and again. I listen, and then we agree to push onward!
Move to a retirement community in Florida and suddenly when you look around, you will feel young again.
Randy, I love the invocation you gave. An inspired moment. My friend Freya always referred to cheese and wine as exemplary of the benefits of aging, so my age makes me quite the fine wine these days, thank you, and going with the cheese and wine comparison, I should become unbearably superior each year hence…or perhaps unbearably smelly if I were to pursue the cheese side of this. Terry