To: ann Tudor <atudor@pathcom.com>Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2025 at 11:21:47 a.m. EDTSubject: Once and for All plus Book List for June 2025 (attached)
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2025 at 10:54:16 a.m. EDTSubject: text musings
Once and for All
Once and for all let's deal with this question of age, of being old,
becoming old. I was with a group of friends recently; our ages ranged
from 91 to maybe 65. That youngster of 65 had many things to talk
about besides age, but the rest of us? No matter where our sentence
started we ended up back at that irresistible topic of what it is like
to be as old as we are.
So many permutations: what does it feel like? How does the world react
to your oldness? Analyze the issue from the viewpoint of physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual changes.
That's a lot of territory to cover in one little lunch party. Here's
the thing. It's all new. Wandering into this new land (not
voluntarily, I might add) separates us from everything else. I guess I
was more prescient than I knew when I wrote "Hesitating at the Gate"
and described (from my relatively young 70 years then) the border
between the Land of Old and the rest of life.
The hardest stumbling block is that things don't get better. Every
physical insult that befalls you becomes the new normal you. Things
don't get healed, you just get inured to them and accept them as a
part of life.
I remember a time (at 70) when I bemoaned the loss of words. I don't
talk about it as much now because the loss is on such a large scale,
so all-encompassing, that I can if I wish spend hours fretting over
the difficulty of finding a word I knew perfectly well in the previous
moment. The only thing to do is let go. Let go of your need for the
word or phrase or idea. Maybe it will come to you some other time.
This morning at 7 I lost and could not retrieve the name of the
daughter of a friend. I knew it began with C and had an O in it, but
Cordelia was all I came up with and that wasn't right. Just a few
sentences ago it came to me: Courtney. Blessings on you and all of us,
Courtney.
We inspire fear in the younger ones, I'm sure. Our children vacillate
between seeing us as immortal and all-powerful ("Mom, you will never
die") and dreading the day when we lose yet another of our important
faculties and become the dreaded thing: a burden. The one approach is
simply denial, the other is a form of catastrophizing.
Not to mention the physical changes that frighten off the young:
wrinkles, thin and wispy hair, bent and limping legs, groans upon
rising from a chair, thinning arms with pleated flesh that dangles,
ears that grow impossibly large, noses that become the focal point of
the face. No wonder they ask: where is my dear little grandmother?
As usual, I've wandered off the original topic as I imagined it and
have reduced the whole issue to a catalog of superficial ills. Not
what I wanted. What I was trying to convey was how very separated we
become, as old people, from everyone else. Our issues are not
comprehensible. Blame enters the picture: if she'd done the Wordle
puzzle every day she wouldn't be dealing with dementia now. If she'd
walked every single day the way we told her to, her legs would still
work.
Here I am at the end, still a long distance away from any final word.
But I'm done for the day.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Fw: Once and for All plus Book List for June 2025 (attached)
Fw: Once and for All plus Book List for June 2025 (attached)
Once and for All
Once and for all let's deal with this question of age, of being old,
becoming old. I was with a group of friends recently; our ages ranged
from 91 to maybe 65. That youngster of 65 had many things to talk
about besides age, but the rest of us? No matter where our sentence
started we ended up back at that irresistible topic of what it is like
to be as old as we are.
So many permutations: what does it feel like? How does the world react
to your oldness? Analyze the issue from the viewpoint of physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual changes.
That's a lot of territory to cover in one little lunch party. Here's
the thing. It's all new. Wandering into this new land (not
voluntarily, I might add) separates us from everything else. I guess I
was more prescient than I knew when I wrote "Hesitating at the Gate"
and described (from my relatively young 70 years then) the border
between the Land of Old and the rest of life.
The hardest stumbling block is that things don't get better. Every
physical insult that befalls you becomes the new normal you. Things
don't get healed, you just get inured to them and accept them as a
part of life.
I remember a time (at 70) when I bemoaned the loss of words. I don't
talk about it as much now because the loss is on such a large scale,
so all-encompassing, that I can if I wish spend hours fretting over
the difficulty of finding a word I knew perfectly well in the previous
moment. The only thing to do is let go. Let go of your need for the
word or phrase or idea. Maybe it will come to you some other time.
This morning at 7 I lost and could not retrieve the name of the
daughter of a friend. I knew it began with C and had an O in it, but
Cordelia was all I came up with and that wasn't right. Just a few
sentences ago it came to me: Courtney. Blessings on you and all of us,
Courtney.
We inspire fear in the younger ones, I'm sure. Our children vacillate
between seeing us as immortal and all-powerful ("Mom, you will never
die") and dreading the day when we lose yet another of our important
faculties and become the dreaded thing: a burden. The one approach is
simply denial, the other is a form of catastrophizing.
Not to mention the physical changes that frighten off the young:
wrinkles, thin and wispy hair, bent and limping legs, groans upon
rising from a chair, thinning arms with pleated flesh that dangles,
ears that grow impossibly large, noses that become the focal point of
the face. No wonder they ask: where is my dear little grandmother?
As usual, I've wandered off the original topic as I imagined it and
have reduced the whole issue to a catalog of superficial ills. Not
what I wanted. What I was trying to convey was how very separated we
become, as old people, from everyone else. Our issues are not
comprehensible. Blame enters the picture: if she'd done the Wordle
puzzle every day she wouldn't be dealing with dementia now. If she'd
walked every single day the way we told her to, her legs would still
work.
Here I am at the end, still a long distance away from any final word.
But I'm done for the day.
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Believing in Maybe
Believing in Maybe
In the Medieval world
beliefs were communal and universal.
In our inconclusive world
of disparate and scattered beliefs
it is thrilling to believe in the maybe,
which roams over wild hills and quiet oases
and affords us the comfort of imaginings.
Indeed, if "this" then maybe also "that"
and there we are:
ideas to make a meal of, a feast of, a harvest table of,
flavoured with toasted cumin and coriander seeds
and heightened by the zest of a lemon.
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Fwd: Accept the Gifts That Come; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 22, no. 11
Accept the Gifts That Come
What an order. How foreign the notion of accepting whatever arrives in your life. For me to accept the unexpected? That will require deep breaths, trust, and a recognition that gratitude is always appropriate—nay, necessary—when gods give gifts. And what better manifestation of gratitude than the full-hearted acceptance of the gift, no matter how strange, no matter how unexpectedly frightening. Gods' gifts don't always answer prayers but may represent the next level—a path we with our limited vision would never have been able to foresee. Accept what will take you beyond, for that will always be where you need to go.
Friday, May 30, 2025
ok
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Sunday, March 30, 2025
Off and Running
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Elation
Elation has been rare.
Moments of happiness, yes,
because that is accessible and can be
stimulated from the outside.
But elation is an inner thing.
One might say you either have it or you don't.
Truer to say we all have it—
it's one of those birthrights,
like creativity.
At a young age you might have been squelched
by the killjoy who,
wittingly or not,
felt it his/her duty to take you down a peg—
over and over
or just one time at a crucial juncture.
When sat upon, the joy of a child
learns to suppress itself
and that joyful energy, frustrated,
turns to misery and depression
or to a sharp-tongued defensiveness
that, like the thorned thicket
round Sleeping Beauty's castle,
repels all suitors.
Healing can happen,
in the right circumstances,
re-opening the possibility of elation.
Aim for it.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Choosing Idleness
I seem to be playing a little game with myself these days: how far can I go? I'm assuming—rightly, I hope—that the answer to that will become clear at some point.
How far can I go in dropping activities before I dissolve into a big puddle of indolence? I don't have a lot of experience with this. I've spent my life doing, sometimes from necessity, sometimes to counter what I fear is an innate laziness—the kind of laziness that brings shame if someone else sees it.
This fear's long history dates back to my childhood. In my memory (which may not be reliable), all I ever wanted to do was read. I see this now as an escape mechanism to avoid my more extroverted, noisy family. But maybe I'm making this up. At any rate, I do know that as a child I read constantly. I did other things: practiced the piano, made good grades (essential if you wanted parental approval in our family), and performed my chores no more reluctantly than did my siblings. Nevertheless Eileen, my mother, saw me as lazy. So she called me, whenever she saw evidence of this trait, "Queenie."
Carrying Queenie in my subconscious for these many decades made me pretty sensitive to the question of laziness, so I've always worked hard. I've not ever been a decent housekeeper (though I did used to vacuum, I'm sure) so I deliberately did other things to compensate: I made all our bread and cooked our meals from scratch, sewed clothes, knitted, and volunteered. Now we have the blessed Cristina who comes twice a month to do the cleaning that I won't do.
My game these days consists of dropping one activity after another, leaving my days (and most definitely my evenings) as empty as I can make them. I think I want to see how I will fill my time once I have, say, two or three weekdays totally empty. Will I just read more? Do more Ken-Ken puzzles? Or will I remove myself to a quiet room and practice my tai chi or meditate for longer periods? Or perhaps I'll rebel, leap up screaming from my chair and race to the kitchen saying, "I can't stand this idleness! I'm going to make six piecrusts and a new batch of walnut-buckwheat crackers. I'm going to make bread until the freezer can't hold another loaf. No more lolling about! Time's a-wastin'." And so much for idleness.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Saying a Hearty Yes! to Adventure
Leaving the house to go to the opera. The adventure of it. Clutch (oh, lightly) the railing as you go down the steps. Look at the flowers and see the weeds--but still, look at the flowers. Here's the next set of steps. Railing. Sidewalk.
Dog-person coming. Flat-faced stupid dog. Don't be unkind. Cute doggie with humanoid face. That's better. Stop judging. Dog owner overdressed for the job: must be going off to work as soon as doggie poops.
Uneven sidewalk. Navigated it well even though ankle twisted a bit. Coulda been worse (our family motto). Delivery van coming. Will it stop at our house? More likely it's for the neighbours because deliveries are usually for them, not us.
Crowd of young people around the subway steps. Do they not have mothers? Do mothers no longer teach courtesy? Stop standing right beside the hand-rail, you idiots! Some of us have to use the rails. And may fall if we don't. I don't say such things aloud, of course, but my inner self screams quite loudly. If any of these louts has good ESP they'll hear it and wonder why the old lady is mutely yelling at them.
Probably no ESP in this group. Is the midriff really an attractive body part? Well, I guess if you want to show off your navel ring you have to bare the midriff. But still...
Lady with stroller at the top of the steps. I used to offer to help carry strollers down the subway stairs. I'd take the front end and the mommy could hold the handle. Now I don't even offer since I'd end up missing a step and we'd all tumble down like Humpty Dumpty, landing with stroller and baby on top of me. Broken bones all around. I feel like an insensitive brute when I walk right past but who wants a dumb conversation like "I'd help you if I were younger but just look at this decrepit self. Hope someone stronger comes along soon..."
Subway train arrives. Find a seat. Everyone's masked, thank goodness—and whip out the TLS that will last for this trip. Three seat-units away is a pair of middle-aged men, one of whom has a not unattractive but very loud bass voice. Mansplaining occurs. I thought that was man-to-woman, but apparently there's a version that's man-to-subordinate-man. He never stops talking, giving obvious and marginally offensive opinions on every topic of the day. Can I compete with this by reading an article on classic Greek architecture?
Shut him out. Reach the stop and—watch out, lady—don't cut in front of me—are you really in such a hurry?
As I walk south, a couple overtakes me, both wearing Sunday best. She's a fashionista, in her knee-length taupe wool coat, cocoon-shaped. Until she's walking ahead of me and I see the kick-pleat in the centre back. She's failed to remove the tacking at the bottom of the kickpleat and now I no longer see her as a fashionista. Or perhaps I'm so out of date that I don't recognize this as the latest thing—to leave in that tacking at the bottom and probably also to leave in the pocket-basting designed to keep the pocket from gaping as it travels from sweatshop to your back. Oh, I'm so out of the loop!
Wait. Where am I? I didn't know there was a curve here. Am I lost? Will I have to walk three blocks out of my way? Will I be late? Am I lost? No, there it is, beyond the curve. A familiar sight. I just keep going south. Am I late, though? Will I have time to pee before the opera starts? Anxiety, my faithful companion, enlivens every trip.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Baby, It's Cold Outside
I could talk about how depressed the weather is making me this year. It isn't the lack of light; that is not my issue. My problem is the cold. One year I promised myself that I wouldn't complain about the winter weather—and I pretty much kept that promise. But I promised no such thing this year, and I've been making the most of this opportunity to kvetch.
Briefly, not to dwell on it ad nauseam, can I just say this? I've figured out how to be warm when I go outside. The problem arises when I reach my destination—say, a restaurant (remember going to restaurants?) or a concert. The maitre d' says, "May I take your coat?" He has no idea! He twiddles his thumbs and smiles fakely while I disrobe: remove the gloves. Set the purse on the floor. Unwrap my big outer scarf and move the hood from my head. Take off the hat and then the neck-warmer (over the head, being sure not to dislodge earrings or hearing aids). Set these aside for the moment. (Where?) Now unzip the coat and slip it off. Insert the hat and neck-warmer into the coat-sleeve, with the gloves in the other sleeve. Give the fully loaded coat to the bored, waiting man, who certainly has things he'd rather be doing.
Now I straighten my hair. Tug at my fancy jacket. And voila! I'm ready for my close-up. And then, at the end of the meal/concert I have to load these fifteen pounds back onto my frame. But it isn't finished yet. Once I've braved the sidewalk and the transit system (please, TTC, let me make it all the way to High Park before you call another system-wide emergency), I reach my own sweet home, where I have to remove again every item of clothing. And put each in its proper place. PLUS boots! No wonder I can handle only one outing a day.
I have a dim memory of summer. Of walking out the door in sandals and whatever indoor clothing I'm wearing. I will revel in the summer, should it arrive. Delight in it, even. I promise not to complain about the humidity.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Remember Me
Say no prayers for me when I am gone
but don't you dare forget me.
Even if all you can remember are
the less flattering moments of our time together--
even then, don't you dare forget me.
They say there's no such thing as bad publicity
and that's what I'm going for here: just remember.
It's little enough to ask.
We never, here on earth, fully know another,
so what you will recall of me—
whether good or bad—
is likely to be half true
and just an imagining of your mind.
You'll never be remembering the real me,
but always just a simulacrum, my stunt double.
But I don't care.
Right or wrong, hero or villain
or just plain ordinary schmuck,
I want to linger in your heart
and lie in the depths of your being.
Remember me.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com