all of the selves we Have ever been
If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. – African Proverb ******************************** Speed is the thing. It is the only thing. We want express lanes and speedy deliveries, fast food and speed dating, prompt responses and high-speed internet. We prefer snap judgments and quick reads, fast-acting elixirs and rapid relief. Forethought and careful attention to detail are as extinct as dinosaurs. Demand either today and your age is showing. And your new name is Karen. You will be tossed into the category of emotional extremist faster than you can swallow your dignity. Accuracy is not to be factored into the results so long as we are going as fast as we can. Destination is superfluous. In the prescient words of Yogi Berra, “We’re lost, but we’re making good time.” Here is the latest example. My friend Angie placed an Amazon order. Within the promised hours, Angie’s phone pinged an alert. The delivery driver was eight doors away. Angie waited a few minutes and then opened her front door. Ta-da! Prime magic. A package had appeared on her porch. Puzzled by the size of the box, Angie picked it up and studied the shipping label. The name and address belonged to a neighbor. Suspecting a mix-up by a harried delivery driver with a full bladder, Angie carried the package to the neighbor’s house. Sure enough, the package intended for Angie was on the neighbor’s porch. Fearful of being mistaken for a porch pirate, Angie knocked and traded parcels with her neighbor. Back home, Angie opened the box and removed the paper, the bubble wrap, and the plastic shrink wrap. Through some sleight of hand, the item in the box was not what Angie had ordered: wrong address, wrong item, but “on time.” There is some black magic that I can’t comprehend. Speed has been separated from time and results. Age may be a factor in my befuddlement, but age seems like a convenient stereotype to explain away this turn of events. I find myself looking for speed bumps, something to calm the traffic and prevent accidents. Many of us are just not fast lane people. We never were. We obey the speed limit, brake for squirrels, read the road signs, slow down and let others merge. We study the billboards and mentally correct the grammar, memorize the faces of missing children, ponder the Bible verses, and take note of the new businesses. If a caution sign says work area ahead, speed limit 50 mph, we’re willing to risk our lives for the sake of others. We…slow…down. Growing up in a different era reinforced my already unshakeable predisposition to travel in the slow lane. “Pay attention” was the theme song of my youth. We painstakingly practiced penmanship and served time in detention for running in the hallways at school. Adults were there to borrow from John Wooden and remind us: “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” We lived a life of lazy Saturday mornings lounging in our PJs until noon. We spent Sunday afternoons our grandmother’s house when all the shops were closed and a family dinner took all day. We were encouraged to slow down, take our time, do things right. The only thing we were in a hurry to do was grow up, and my mother warned us about that, too: “Don’t wish your life away.” Perhaps she was influenced by Shakespeare’s Macbeth who warned us of the “brief candle” that is our lives. Now, after a lifetime of temperament and conditioning, I find myself pressed to choose speed over satisfaction, action over forethought, frantic energy over peace of mind. Shoot me an acronym-filled text message, there’s no time to talk. Or listen. Life is zipping away. I can’t help but wonder, are we really saving time with all of this speed? If so, what is everyone doing with all of the extra time? Collapsing from exhaustion? When our loved ones travel or begin a new adventure, we wish them God speed. God speed is a blessing, not a curse. It is a prayer that the traveler will arrive, not swiftly, but safely and well. God speed implies fidelity, an old word meaning faithful and true. The right package reaching the right house at the right time in the right condition for the right reasons to serve the right purpose. I wasn’t built for life in the fast lane, and I don’t like going it alone. I find the journey safer and more enjoyable when I share the road with others. I am older now, but I still have far to go. I want the journey to be for the rights reasons and serving the right purpose. Will you come with me? We’ll go together. At God speed.
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When I was a teen, I made a vow: I would not let myself go. I cast my naïve gaze upon older people and swore on my beloved guitar that I would never let THAT happen to me. No way, Jose. In my defense, I made a sincere effort to keep my promise, and I did so for a very long time. Hence, I did not see it coming. But here I am. Falling. Apart. And so I enter another defense. I did not let myself go. I was taken. I am beginning to unravel the diabolical scheme and identify the clever thief. This story is not an action-packed thriller starring Liam Neeson. There are no Albanian Human Traffickers. It’s just me on the run from Time. Lacking the training of a CIA operative, I was slow to trade in my old bifocals for some new lens implants. After two quick cataract surgeries, I have a new super-power: X-ray vision. I now see every liver spot on my face as well as the ones on my actual liver. Every cell of my body is under a binocular microscope—my new eyes. Prior to my surgeries, I thought it was just STOP signs and red lights I was missing. Post-surgery, I have to face that my face is not mine, at least not the one I remember. I can see my bare scalp through the sparsely planted gray hairs. My cheeks are covered with dark spots I never knew were there. Every pore is a swimming pool. My gums are receding into my nasal passages, and my teeth are shouting, “Stop with the tea!” Now I know not to get into the car with anyone who ever said, “You look nice.” I have not had the courage to look below my neck. Those pesky chin hairs provide me with a convenient excuse. If left alone with my new eyes and a pair of tweezers, my morning is booked. Don’t call me until after eleven. When I was a teen, I hoped to live long. I looked forward to becoming a grown-up—mature and independent, but not THAT. Now that youth has been restored to my vision, the world is brighter, but there is a stranger living in my house. Where is the prior tenant? I did not let her go. She was taken. During the COVID crisis, my naturally wavy hair grew. And grew. Unchecked by professional shears, it grew to my collar bone and then below. Befuddled by this new freedom, the dead ends looked up and flipped out. A new hair style was born, or more accurately, re-born, in the image of Patty Duke or the bewitching Samantha Stephens, symbols of 1960s glamour. My hairstyle became a new flip for my friends to poke fun at. The other flip is my old flip phone, that relic of the 1990s. I now top the list of the scorned--a walking stereotype of the uncool, incompetent older adult---a dinosaur with big hair. Fashion dictates that if I were smart, I would have a phone to match. But neither scorn nor style weakens my resistance. I persist with the flip. I keep my flip phone for many reasons. I grew up in a mechanical age when things were built to last. We did not discard functional items that remained useful. New technology is constantly updated and expensive. I lack the interest, stamina, and financial resources to engage in the constant pursuit of upgrades. While I still can, I don’t mind getting up off the couch to turn on the television, lock the doors, and do internet searches on my desktop computer. I still love studying a map and planning ahead when I travel. Also, I see people addicted to their phones and unable to put them down in order to connect with the very real loved ones sitting next to them. I realize that I could easily fall prey to such an addiction along with the accompanying loss of privacy and dangerous distractions. My small flip phone meets all of my needs, and it is the perfect size. So, I stick with the flip. But those aren’t the only reasons. My persistence is strongly influenced by sentiment. Our family was late to the mobile phone game. A forever memory is the day my son and I drove to the Verizon store to purchase our first family cell phone plan. When we got into the car after our purchase, Sam used his new flip phone to make the first call to his big sister, a junior in high school. Bursting with pride and delight, Sam said, “Em! We all got cell phones!” I could hear my daughter squeal with her own delight as I sat behind the wheel, my tear-filled eyes on the road ahead of me. As a single mom on a tight budget, it was a joy to be able to give this gift to my children. For years, they had been gracious and uncomplaining about the things that others had that they did not. During the flip phone heyday, people still talked to one another. There seemed to be a seismic shift in connectedness when the smart phone took hold of our attention. I recall a more recent day when I and my colleagues gathered around a conference room table to say farewell to a retiring co-worker. Plenty of people showed up and there was an abundance of good food, but instead of visiting, reminiscing, and offering good wishes, almost everyone in the room played on his or her smartphone. The youngest ones made fun of their parents and others who still used flip phones. This precious time together, the last day with a beloved colleague, was spent asking silly questions of Suri and mocking Suri’s ridiculous answers. As members of the work group had a good laugh, someone we knew and cared for walked quietly out of our lives. I recall learning that Alexander Graham Bell’s first words on his newly invented telephone were: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” I take his words as proof that the telephone was not meant to be a shield to keep us apart, but a device to bring us together. It is in my old flip phone, that I can still see my children, locked in time, my son calling his sister on that joyful day. When I pick up my phone, I am summoning the people I love, “Come here. I want to see you.” When I pass people on the street with their earphones in place, talking into the wind, their side of the conversation overheard by strangers passing by, I mourn the loss of privacy and intimacy in our relationships. Have we become too casual, perhaps careless, with our people and our things? As I write this, I think of all of the words that have reached through a telephone receiver: good news and bad, friendships grown and relationships ended, emergencies addressed. I remember a time when not everyone had a phone in her home much less in her pocket, a time when an operator was necessary to place a long distance call. I still remember the number to my grandmother’s ancient party line: KI6-5416, and yet, today, I do not know my daughter’s new cell phone number. I rely upon my contact list to dial it for me. And I think of my dad. I was seven years old when I picked up the phone and heard the international operator say she had my father waiting on the line. I pictured a long invisible thread stretching from our home in Ohio all the way to his duty station in Pakistan. “Will you accept the call,” the operator asked. My father had been gone long enough that I could barely remember what he looked like until I heard his voice. Come here, I want to see you. For most of my life, my fingers did the walking—through the Yellow Pages and the White. Today, they dial and text, skipping across the keypad of my old flip phone. I know that it is a matter of time before my phone breaks or otherwise fails to magically transmit the voices I cherish. And still, I drag my feet like a reluctant witness for the prosecution, weighing my options, waiting for a better deal, keeping my eyes on the alternatives to a life of solitary confinement. Daily, the mockery and the pressure build… But will I flip? When we were teenagers, "poise” belonged in the world of well-spoken valedictorians, reigning beauty queens, and spokesmodels, people who went to elocution classes and debutante balls. Awkward as most of us were in adolescence, poise remained painfully elusive. Decades later, it turns out that time did not heal those old wounds. It created new ones. Just when we were finally beginning to feel more confident, the toilet was pulled out from under us. Poise no longer describes a person who is gifted with grace and elegant bearing. No, it means a person’s pipes are leaking, and not the ones under the sink. Poise is now the word used to describe the damp but “discreet and worry-free” older adult. A friend recently described her efforts to cultivate this new form of poise. Off to Target she went for what she thought would be a quick trip. Little did my friend know, but a poise-seeker needs to come to the incontinence product aisle armed with a tape measure, graphing calculator, and an urban dictionary. And just a word of warning: do your homework. Some measurements should not be taken in the aisles of Target. Poised to purchase, my friend surveyed the options: micro-liners, daily liners, light pads, original pads, moderate pads, maximum pads, ultra-thin maximum pads, original maximum pads, ultimate pads, ultra-thin ultimate pads, original ultimate pads, overnight ultimate pads. Thickness aside, there were length options: extra coverage in three lengths, regular in five lengths, and heavy in five lengths. Additional features to consider included no-slip wings, built-in side barriers, flex-loc core, fiber distribution layer, and comfort dry cover. And then there was the leakage spectrum: LBL (light bladder leakage)? Drips? Spurts? Bursts? Surges? Streams? Gushes? My friend took a moment to absorb this new language of science. On she went to determining the best combination of features…Trying to recall her high school calculus classes, my friend struggled to determine if this problem required the formula for a combination or a permutation. In any event, it seemed like there were thousands of possibilities. If she went too short or too long, she might not achieve the discreet and worry-free self she was seeking. Too short, she might have to deal with an unsightly wet spot, too long, and she might look like she was sporting the back fins of a 1959 Chevy Eldorado. The ad says these products are designed “with your curves in mind.” Allegedly, they offer “peace of mind” – a new form of mind-body experience “with less bunching in the middle.” Additionally, the products “multi-task like a mother.” Like a real mother? The good news is that poise can now be purchased which is easier than shaping your character. The bad news is that poise must now be purchased. After an hour in the aisle of Target, my friend completed her calculations and was ready to buy…Unfortunately, what mathematically seemed like the perfect choice was…you guessed it…out of stock. “What’s not to love?” the advertisement asks. I am poised to respond. How much time do you have? The sun might come up tomorrow, but I’m not betting my bottom dollar on it. I’ll call it a maybe and pencil it in. If tomorrow does come, I’m booked. And that goes for next year and someday too. There’s a lot on my schedule--a lifetime of appointments that I put off until tomorrow. Sometimes my delay tactics reflected a lack of time or resources, sometimes dread or fear. My recipe for procrastination was perfected with some added doubt and a mega dose of the most dangerous risk factor of all—“I don’t feel like it.” I wish I had kept the list, but tomorrow’s calendar grew too many pages. I would like to go back and take a look at yesterday’s tomorrow to-do list. How many things didn’t matter? How many did? Which day was the today that my ship sailed without me? And which was the day it came in? Which was the day that by waiting for tomorrow, turned out to be my lucky day—a life changing day? Would the fortunate days balance all of the missed opportunities? What was the special calculus I should have applied when choosing what to defer until tomorrow? When we were children, it seemed like tomorrow would never come. My siblings and I would whine about the daily calamities. We could not wait for tomorrow when we would be grown up and boredom, rules, chores, and bedtimes would be erased right along with the homework. As we carried on about the latest injustice of youth, our mother would say, “Don’t wish your life away.” Of course, that was easy for her to say, she could stay up past nine o’clock. Didn’t she understand that while we were chained to our bunk beds before the sun went down, men were walking on the moon? There were new horizons. We needed to get moving and fast. We summoned the heavens for favor: “Liberate us from today.” And then the sky did become the limit. We had grand plans as teens and young adults. The sky turned out to be a big place with no road signs. We didn’t always know the way, but we could do what we wanted. About middle age, we began to realize that we might have been better off had we retained a more experienced driver. We missed a lot of turns and ran red lights. We drifted into oncoming traffic. But we lived to tell about it. Constant demands shielded us from regret. And then somewhere along the way to growing old, tomorrow lost its urgency. Our hair grew thin from being blown back. Our teeth needed caps after all the worry we chewed on. Rotator cuffs gave out from shouldering the weight, and our knees buckled and ached from running marathons. I find that I prefer to stroll now. It’s back to early bedtimes, and it seems like a new day is here before I’ve closed my eyes. Tomorrow is the day when all of the forces will align. It is the day we will understand everything and come prepared. Tomorrow is the day we can write our list in permanent marker. I think that is called heaven. I pencil it in. The English language can be slippery, and a lot of words sound alike. I sometimes find myself living in a parallel universe with others who share my space. Younger people think that older people can’t hear. That’s not my problem. I don’t need volume; I need context. And maybe a little less background noise. I experienced a classic case of such confusion a couple of years ago after I was recruited for a two-year contract job in Missouri. I pared down my possessions to just what would fit in my car and started driving. I knew no one in Missouri. I sublet an apartment and settled in. I loved the small rural community with its two main streets and slower pace of life. Everything I needed was clustered within three miles of my home. The welcoming culture of the town and its conveniences were a nice relief from the aggressive traffic and harried pace of the big city I left behind. This could be home. One sunny Saturday morning I set out on routine errands. I did not get far before I saw flashing lights and slowing traffic. As I inched toward the scene, I could see that a car had driven through a storefront. Crumbling bricks and shattered glass filled the parking lot where a vape shop once stood. The sight of a car’s rear end sticking out of a collapsing building was peculiar enough, but what was even stranger? It was the second such accident I had seen in less than a week. What have I gotten myself into? I called a co-worker who was a new friend to tell her what I had witnessed. My friend was not aware of the fresh accident, but she seemed to know quite a bit about the earlier one. “Oh, yes! I heard Alexis drove through the window of the candle shop.” My friend said this as though Alexis was someone I should know. I checked off the names on my short mental list of people I had met in Missouri, but there was no one named Alexis. “Who’s Alexis?” I asked. “Not Alexis. A LEXUS,” my friend shouted into the phone’s receiver. “Oh!” Once we cleared that up, my friend proceeded to share another interesting bit of local gossip--some wrong perpetrated on Dee Dee. “Who’s Dee Dee?” I asked. “Not Dee Dee. THE DD. The DD Highway!” Oh, again. I thought this kind of conversation only happened on greeting cards, but my friend and I had a good laugh over it, and not just once. Our friendship was cemented by a case of mistaken homophones. If laughter is good medicine, it is also strong glue. It is inside jokes such as these that help to form the enduring bond of friendship. During the pandemic, my friend adopted a puppy and named it Alexis. Just to be clear, this Alexis was nowhere near the candle shop in 2019. It is now perfectly evident that Alexis is a pet and an out-of-control Lexus can do a lot of damage to a storefront. Thankfully, a couple of poor gals named Alexis and Dee Dee did not end up serving time for crimes they did not commit. I think we can agree that I should never enter a court of law to provide testimony based on hearsay. I returned to Ohio just ahead of the pandemic. Cars protruding from collapsing buildings now seem like a minor social problem compared to disease and conspiracy theories. Confusion is everywhere, and troubling news easy to come by. Some of the news is so strange, in fact, that I find myself full of doubt and afraid to speak. Not everyone is a good friend who will find humor in auditory mix-ups. Today, it might even get me killed. And so, I find myself questioning everything: Is there a heroin problem in my community or a heroine problem? Given the current state of politics and reports of corruption at the Columbus Zoo, is it guerilla warfare I should fear or gorilla warfare? If someone tells me that a hummer interrupted the school’s choir performance, should I call a tow truck or the principal? It’s all too much—a classic case of homophonophobia. And to whom should I turn for treatment? A Colonel of truth perhaps. During my recent musings about Nancy Drew, I contacted several members of my unofficial Nancy Drew fan club and asked them to share their memories about our beloved teenage detective. Each woman eagerly shared still vivid memories about Nancy Drew and the entire series of books. We felt like kids again swapping tales and recreating the excitement of all that youthful sleuthing. While reading remains my favorite past time and greatest pleasure, no fictional character has ever filled the gap left when I outgrew the Nancy Drew mystery series. Pondering this I asked a fellow fan, “Who might be a new Nancy Drew for this stage of life?” My friend considered the question for several minutes and came back with, “Jessica Fletcher?” Jessica Fletcher? More pondering. Could Jessica Fletcher be a new sleuthing idol for my geriatric years? I had been a Jessica Fletcher fan and regular viewer of Murder, She Wrote. Every Sunday night for 12 years beginning in 1984, I and 30 to 40 million other people tuned in to CBS to see what Jessica Fletcher was up to that week. I did love that Jessica Fletcher was a smart, fearless, bike-riding, world-traveling, single gal. It didn’t hurt that she was a successful mystery writer and crack amateur sleuth. Just as I envied Nancy Drew and her small town, speedy blue roadster, good friends, and apparent lack of homework and curfews, I envied Jessica Fletcher’s lifestyle: retired, free of obligations, surrounded by the beauty of coastal Maine, living in a big house in the small town of Cabot Cove, a town where everybody knew her name and the sheriff stopped by for coffee, a place where a woman could safely get around town on a bicycle. Jessica sure seemed to have it all, but a substitute for Nancy Drew? It just wasn’t working for me. I guess the kid in me expects an old high school English teacher to have all of the answers. Nothing to marvel at there. The grown-up in me is not surprised when a mature, educated woman is self-assured and wise, capable of freely traveling the world as a best-selling mystery writer. And the final obstacle? Jessica Fletcher’s life was not about mystery; it was about murder. No matter where Jessica went, someone died. While I enjoy a good adventure, I am not fearless. I tend to shy away from homicides. I don’t want to risk getting into the line of fire or spending my golden years in the slammer. Who can take Nancy Drew’s place? My guess is that no one can. Some things and some people are irreplaceable. Another mystery solved. But Nancy Drew’s influence continues. She provided me with many happy memories. Memories are the currency of the geriatric years. The puzzle has become how to hang onto them. Often, we fail to value remembering until we begin to forget. I hope I never forget Nancy Drew or the names of my children or where I live. Until someone solves the really big mystery of Alzheimer’s Disease, I guess Jessica Fletcher does make a pretty good role model for growing older with grace and vigor. |
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April 2024
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