Month: February 2015

Every birthday, Mom chuckles, “Now I have to learn to be…” and then she adds her new age. 94 this last one.

Whenever I complain about a pain or being tired, she counters with, “well, you’re learning how to be…” and she says my age.

Aspiring to the next age cohort seemed common in my younger days. As a child, I
coveted teenage, when I would be allowed to stay up for The Red Skelton Show or Bold Journey. Being recognized at age nine to be older, and obviously wiser, than 7 or 8 year olds was important.

At teenage, I counted the days until I could drive. Undeterred by having to pay my own insurance, I applied all of the money I had to buying a used 1958 Chevrolet Impala with more horsepower than I understood. The car represented my ticket to adult-­‐like freedoms. And didn’t we all want to be 21?

In adulthood, better jobs, starting a family, buying a house, earning (maybe even
saving) money, achieving status; these became mileposts on our journey toward
responsibility, influence, authority. Maybe even some measure of power.

Always becoming. A virtue—growth—became a burden; if you’re not growing,
you’re dying. Where was the time for just being?

As retirement nears, further anxious anticipation arises. “I can’t wait until I can
retire” or, a modern lamentation, “I don’t think I will ever be able to retire.”

At lunch, a friend observed that a pastor-­‐acquaintance of his was staying in his post past the point of effectiveness. He was becoming a problem to his parish, beloved but an embarrassment. My friend called it “the Willie Mays syndrome.”

David Heenan has written a book on the topic, Leaving on Top. That calls for
knowing where the top is and how near to starting back down you are. Like Kenny Rogers says, “you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.”

Not easy.

Learning how to be one’s age is not to be confused with resignation or giving in.
Rather, viewed as a positive, that learning helps one to accept and enjoy the experiences available to all of us every day as part of an unfolding story in which we are the heroes. Tough spots can become plot points.

Hrumph, you say. What’s to enjoy about not being as strong as twenty years ago or the stiffness even a twenty-­‐minute drive into town introduces to your legs or the increasing frequency with which you read the obituaries and know someone
there?

Point taken. As the lady said, getting old is not for sissies.

People my age and older might still twitch for accomplishing or becoming in the
same way they always have, even still doing what they have always done, and
effectively. No Willie Mays effect evident.

There is no rule here.

I said that to my friend at lunch, and he smiled, understanding. He’s still twitchy.
That’s who he is.

Kareem Abdul-­‐Jabbar, writing in The Rotarian, called retirement “transition.” Elegant idea, transitioning from gainful employment to taking a class in Marine
Science for fun, teaching Tai Chi as a volunteer, collecting food for the Food Bank,
playing more golf, learning Italian for your upcoming journey, and so on. The
“transitioned” people I know all seem busy as ever, now doing what they choose, not what they must.

Another friend heard my recent schedule of activities and referred to me as “hard-­‐ working.”

“Busy, perhaps,” I said. “But the hard work is past, left to others still striving for the next job.”

William Chace teaches literature to adults now that he has retired from being a
college President. One physician/student of his explained that he was seeking the
wisdom he had little time to seek before. Chace described him as “recovering lost
time.”

What a pleasant prospect, to recover lost time!

I have not met retired people itching to be the next age up. They might still be “becoming,” but there is much less urgency and far more understanding that “being” is a good place to be, too, at least some of the time. You notice the little things more the less you fret about becoming.

Becoming is a lifetime habit, though, certainly learned, perhaps even inbred. For
hard working people, just “being” can be a challenge.

I can’t claim the same mindset as Mom yet. I think I have evaded my Willie Mays
moment but is 68 really that different from 69 or 70?

Maybe there is a “learning how” to “learning how.” Probably a mindset.

Dan White

February 19, 2015

I looked at Ike differently today. He might be my version of the Big Chair.

Jo Smith, my inspiration for “About Aging,” wrote a column about her long-­‐time
friend, the Big Chair. She bought the chair for her mother when Jo was nursing her through ill-­‐health. When her mother died, the Big Chair “wrapped its arms” around Jo and her newborn son.

The Big Chair symbolized “her whole life,” spanning periodic transcontinental moves, bouts of sick children, three re-­‐upholsterings, and settling into the one  room that defined Jo’s living space in her final days.

The Big Chair suited TV watching, knitting and naps. It shared scores of books with Jo. It “never advises, never criticizes…it accepts,” Jo wrote.

Chances are, we all have a Big Chair. In a life that speeds change and impermanence at us at ever-­greater velocity, there is some tangible thing to
touch or see that provides some psychic safety, a rock of dependability, connecting us to ourselves through time and space.

It helps to be older, I think, to understand Big Chairs. I remember my grandmother, after Poppa died, spending time in the passenger seat of the Cadillac DeVille purchased in the 1960s by him. The Caddy sat in my parents’ garage next to the small apartment to which she had moved after his death.

So far as I know, Nana shed no tears sitting there. Her visits were as routine and
matter-­‐of-­‐fact as her taking vitamin supplements at every meal. Sometimes, Dad offered to take her for a short ride. She would agree but told him it wasn’t really necessary. It’s good for the car, he would say.

My folks sold the Caddy when she died. It was a valuable used car. I know now
it was something more.

I am among the fortunate to enjoy a long marriage to my best friend. I don’t equate a best friend with a Big Chair. She is so much more. Friendships evolve,
grow, mature, engage one’s whole being.

I am certain many people would think about their religious faith as a Big Chair. I can relate to that. But faith isn’t really a Big Chair, either. It is harder to touch, and it often is tested.

I have quoted Robert Frost’s encouragement to “take something like a star to stay
our minds on and be staid.” I believe in the importance of that, too, a fixture, there without fail when the clouds clear and the sun is gone. Valuable, but still not quite the Big Chair.

My mother has TW. She made him. He is a teddy bear that has sat on the Hokulea, sailed through the Panama Canal, and settled for years on my mother’s walker, day and night, usually in his Aloha outfit. It is hard to think of Mom without seeing TW there, too. I wonder if she thinks of him as a Big Chair?

When I was 10, our family adopted an orange male tabby cat, with stripes in a
darker orange and green eyes. We named him Tiger. It fell to me to feed Tiger and carry him every night to a door to underneath the house where he could sleep and eat in fresh air without worrying about competing cats or the odd
raccoon popping out of the canyon across the street.

When I was 13, we took Tiger on a driving vacation to Yellowstone and the Grand
Canyon. The day we got home, Tiger did not come in at his regular time. For 16 days, I searched and whistled for Tiger.

Late one night, Dad awoke me to put Tiger on my bed. Tiger fell asleep, purring.
So did I.

Ten years later, it was the Red Baron (RB for short). Sadly short-­‐lived, he was
succeeded by a champion jumper, Rigby. When Rigby had a heart attack, Mo
replaced him. All of them orange, male and neutered.

These days, Ike is never far away from my writing desk. That requires periodic
dusting of the desk because his orange fur does not always stay attached to his
chubby body. He supervises when we work in the yard. His face fills the translucent kitty door when we drive into the garage at night, welcoming us. We have spent time together in contemplation.

I spoil him. Cats bond with food sources, if at all. Maybe that is all I am to him. I
know other people have fingernails more satisfying for scratching his back than
mine. That does not stop either of us.

Maybe Ike himself is not as permanent as the Big Chair. Unlike Jo’s, he might “criticize,” however cats do so. Still, for 57 years, there has been something about
the purr and the fur.