It seems that every year the month of January, that sometimes dreary period following the holidays, goes by more quickly. And this year is no exception. Of course for part of it, I was marching about in New Zealand, trying to keep up with daughter of longer legs and more speed. Following my landing back in San Francisco I continued to battle a respiratory illness that I had carried with me for much of the trip (do I hear a "no fair" in response?), and thus many more days just blurred on by. And now we're staring right at the end of the month, which brings me to my granddaughters birthday (she'll be 15 I think - eek!), and the long uncelebrated anniversary of my marriage to my children's father. And THEN, February arrives and delivers my birthday. This year I will be 70 years old, which is a daunting sounding, daunting looking number, I must say! There's no kidding ourselves now that we're not old. Seventy is NOT the "new 50" or anything like that. Yes, we are living longer, but the old body still ages with inexorable regularity. Old is what we're becoming.
So I decided that before I gather friends and family about me to be celebratory about being 70, I would reflect on pieces of my journey, and on what I see are graceful consequences of becoming older, less powerful and more vulnerable. A doctor told me today that "as we get older, our systems don't respond to trouble (e.g. infection) as quickly..." and to top that off, they apparently continue to respond to infection even after the insult has actually ended! That sounds a tad deranged to me, but sadly it makes some sense. Things are wearing out. But not my brain, I swear it! Much of my life I fed myself knowledge in a voracious manner -- I read books a lot, big important books, I studied Shakespeare and Homer and James Joyce and even William Faulkner...... I became an ongoing student of literature. And happily it has stayed with me. I see it showing up in my writing all the time. The other workout my brain got as I grew was traveling to far away places, and doing it a lot. It all started when I was taken by my quixotic and crazy mother to live in Italy at age 11. I was hooked from then on and have traveled with both the important men in my life and also traveled solo. I think I have been looking for the understanding that we humans are all essentially connected and of the same heart, whether we live in India or Burma or Paris, France. There were love affairs with both music and food, and these too had early roots, as I learned to cook in Italy, and to shop in markets where the most beautiful vegetables could be found, and I discovered the beautiful world of classical music because my grandmother pointed the way as she played her baby grand piano. My heart still softens and melts at the sight of a perfect roast chicken or the sound of a Bach Invention. I have been beautifully educated, and even though the body tires of performing, my mind (and heart) are still beating wildly because of how long I've trained them.
Speaking of training, I thought I could train myself to walk 100 miles in Africa amongst the elephants this summer, but I have discovered that this was more problematic than I had thought. I have bad knees, bad ankles, and I am not an exercise freak who's going to spend every day of the week at the gym to condition myself to walk those 100 miles. So I admit I cannot. So what. I can still journey to Africa and see the grand beasts in another kind of experience. What we need to "get" as we march onward into our last phase is that while we have strong wills and great imaginations, they are no match for the impermanence of the body. Humility and letting go are necessary. What else do I have to relinquish, I wonder? Perhaps the notion that I will re-read William Shakespeare in a definitive way, take down from the bookcase my grandmother's little leather bound books, and sink into deep study. Lovely idea, isn't it? But... I want to read new things, like Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, and Gawande's On Being Mortal, and any number of recent memoirs by sharp and interesting women. And though I am attempting to re-read Anna Karenina, one of my most beloved novels, I may not make it. As yummy as the idea is of losing myself in this glorious book, I somehow don't feel I have the time. There are too many things pulling at me. Like finishing the memoir I've spent the last two years working on and trying to market it (ugh to this last part!). Like planning a trip to the Galapagos with some of my family. Like going to Florence this spring to stay in an apartment alone - a luscious birthday gift to myself to make up for not going to Africa. I used to think I would learn all of Bach's Goldberg Variations, but my wise teacher reminded me that I was in this business of learning Bach in order to have fun, be happy -- NOT to prove something. He was right. Learn the pieces you love and let go of ambition to be accomplished.
What I've been playing with here is the importance of relinquishing expectation, and keeping your vision clear and your intention honest. How do you want your last decades to look? Probably not engaged in a struggle to become something different. You are what you are. And it's good one you are (sounding a bit Irish here!). And the threads of your very fortunate life are still wonderfully present -- the books, the food, the music, and of course your children and grandchildren of whom you're very proud. And on top of that you have summoned the courage to tell a story of your life that peels away many layers, struggles with imperfect memory, and presents a pretty interesting character. Not bad, eh?
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