I find myself increasingly preoccupied by compounding transitions. Closest to home, it seems as if all the residents in our retirement community are dealing with ailments, injuries or loved-ones’ demise. TV news bombards us with images of “once-in-a-century” extreme-weather events that are becoming continuous. The COVID virus is stubbornly resurging. Ukraine-war fortunes tilt back-and-forth. Putin threatens NATO, Xi, Pacific harmony, and Trump, American democracy. Inflation drops while gasoline prices bounce. Weekly AI innovations offer promise and peril. Nothing stands still.
Some of these changes seem destructive and disheartening. Others, encouragingly transformative. Here are three examples that captured my attention as Summer yields to Fall.
I’m always interested in different takes on aging. How do diverse thinkers, writers, friends and public figures come to terms with growing old?
In this and other contexts, politicians attract special scrutiny. They’re on display, in the public limelight. How do they accept, downplay or cover up their signature signs of aging? A slower gait or precarious balance? A loss for words or embarrassing gaffe? How should we value their expertise and experience as counterweights to evident physical and mental slippage?
This month a curious pair of case studies captured my attention: Marcus Tullius Cicero and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. Two powerfully influential politicians millennia apart. What can they tell us about effective aging in the public domain?
Growing old can be a twisting journey, like driving on an unfamiliar country road. You almost never know what lies ahead or when you’ll come upon it. Blind curves can lead to disruptive challenges or inviting opportunities. Agile Aging aims to address the former and embrace the latter. June surprised me with a linked pair of examples. The challenge was an unsettling ailment; the opportunity, restorative relief. Here are my journal notes.
Now that I’ve crossed the threshold into my eighties, I find myself increasingly pondering my future. What do I want to focus on and what let go? How long might I have left and how do I want to live it?
Here are three independent journal entries that approach these Agile Aging choices from different perspectives.
As my 80th birthday approached on April 15, friends asked if I was apprehensive about “switching sevens to eights.” [Not at all. I’m already completing my eighth decade, so I won’t miss the sevens.] As soon as the birthday passed, the lead question became “Did I feel any different?” [Not much. Not yet.]
Still, for me this transition was not a non-event. I do feel I’ve crossed a threshold from retirement to old age. This perceived passage is stimulating reflections – on my past, present and future.
In addition to sharing with you some personal impressions, I’d like also to profile a celebration of other octogenarians living in San Francisco just to the north.
This end-of-March post comes to you a few days late. Nancy and I have just returned from a road trip to Cloverdale, California.
Today, Cloverdale is a quiet community of 9,000 residents, 80 miles due north of the Golden Gate Bridge. This placid present contrasts with a dynamic past — booming, multicultural, even exotic.
Here are some journal jottings from our visit.
All through February, I kept encountering descriptions and discussions of communities. Ancient and modern, remote and close at hand. I’d like to share some highlights of what I’ve been learning. If you share my interest in this subject, please send your feedback: rbs@agileaging.net
One continuing objective of this Agile Aging blog is to promote communication among fellow elders on subjects of shared interest. A welcome opportunity arose on January 20 when my Yale classmates kindly invited me to give a Zoom presentation on writing my memoir and blog. Nearly 50 old friends tuned in from Maine to California, with outliers in London and Auckland. In today’s post, I thought I’d try to recapture and report for you some of the highlights of our lively discussion.
Simultaneously but independently, I’ve been experiencing frequent hallucinations that appear to be sparked by my new heart-repair medications. Having given a pass to recreational drugs in our youth, I’m an uninitiated novice when it comes to altered states! I’ve been intrigued but also a tad disconcerted by this steady stream of intrusive images, which is still in full flow. My journal notes are set out below. I wonder if blog readers have had similar medical reactions and might offer feedback. Let’s start a conversation and learn from each other.
My November 31 blog post reported on my recent heart failure and hospitalization. At the end of the post, I invited readers to contribute their comparable experiences and insights. The responses were the most numerous to any post in the past four years: three dozen written replies from subscribers, plus two dozen spoken comments conveyed by retirement-community neighbors.
Since an anchoring purpose of the blog has always been to stimulate elder conversations about issues of common interest and concern, I’d like to share with you the main dimensions of this feedback. To let respondents speak for themselves, I’ll quote key excerpts from their messages. To respect their privacy, I’ll keep those comments anonymous. As I move through this synthesis, I’ll insert some attempted clarifications of my own perspective and takeaways.
Since its launch four years ago, this blog has retained an anchoring principle: to an encouraging degree, we elders can choose how we age. True enough, our physiological changes are determined primarily by our genes and environments. But how we progress through life’s final stage is also markedly influenced by the attitudes we adopt and behaviors we practice.
Last month I had occasion to apply this principle in a medical setting. A malfunctioning heart landed me in Stanford University Hospital. There, I’m convinced that an Agile Aging perspective contributed to my healing progress and positive emergence.
A hospital is hardly a welcome elder destination. But now that many of us are living into our 80s, we’re likely to be hospitalized one or more times. I’d like to share with you what I learned and reaffirmed about making the best of this life-interrupting challenge.
Dear Readers,
Unanticipated health challenges kept me away from my blogging keyboard in October. Look for a return to normal productivity in November.
Warm Halloween Greetings,
RBS
September has been a transitional month for Nancy and me. From summer to fall, stultifying heatwaves to the first blessed rains. But also shifting gears from our Northwest Coast vacation mobility to more sedentary routines here at our Bay Area retirement community. Unpacking and storing suitcases, dining with friends, rebooking postponed medical appointments, queuing up for our bivalent COVID booster, attacking teetering stacks of unsolicited mail, even participating in a wildfire evacuation drill.
For my catch-up reading, I’ve selected four inviting titles from local libraries:
• A historical novel to deepen my knowledge of the San Juan Islands;
• An ad hoc trio of wilderness adventures featuring reclusive female protagonists.
All are well-crafted national prizewinners. I’d like to recommend them for your autumn enjoyment.
Nancy and I dedicated August to our summer vacation. The plan was to get away from the San Francisco Bay Area during the worst of the summer heatwave. With hindsight, that timetable clearly needed recalibration!
We drove up and back to Washington State’s Puget Sound. (This crowded waterway is in the process of being rebranded as the Salish Sea, in belated recognition of a once locally prominent Native American tribe.) There we boarded a fleet of ferries that carried us through a series of week-long vacation rentals in the San Juan Islands.
Who says old age is dull? Here are three incidents that touched my life within the space of a single July week.
Midnight 9-1-1
I awoke after 11pm with a terrible pain in my chest. Smack in the center, about the size of a tennis ball, so sharp I could barely draw a breath. For the past day or so, I’d been suffering from acute indigestion, waves of gas and sour heartburn. But this pain wasn’t moving, just growing worse. Flat on my back, I re-visualized an AARP sidebar: “HEART ATTACK WARNING SIGNS. Chest discomfort, pressure, squeezing or pain. Shortness of breath. Even if you’re not sure, have it checked out. Minutes matter! Fast action can save lives. That means your own.”
As mentioned in my May 31 post, I’ve been working on restoring a healthier balance in my life. This includes making time and space for positive activities and feelings, plus treating each new season as a fresh beginning with inviting opportunities.
In this spirit, let me share with you four agile-aging explorations I’ve undertaken in June. Two examined differing perspectives on the milestone of turning 80. Another studied four-legged firefighters. The last one carried Nancy and me to a forest sanctuary.
Intimidating political and economic turbulence swirls all around. I’m trying to keep hope alive and feet on the ground.
I was surprised to discover that May marks this blog’s third anniversary, with 50 posts already published. The writing project still feels fresh; there’s seldom a shortage of new topics for monthly exploration. As for the mindful aging the blog was launched to encourage, each day convenes a continuing seminar.
On the other hand, May 2019 seems an eon away. The main reason is probably that the intervening period has been so action-packed. We’ve witnessed Trump’s defeat, denial and a violent insurrection. International stability is being throttled by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Nancy’s and my personal lives have been totally reshuffled by relocating to a retirement community. Dominating both these macro and micro domains have been COVID’s disruptive invasion and stubborn resurgences. Retirement was supposed to be a transition to tranquility. Instead, we’ve been riding a roller-coaster.
Short or long, three years seems a fitting period for stock-taking. What have I been learning about how to blog? More important, about how to age? Here are some candid self-assessments. As always, I’ll value your feedback and your reciprocal progress reports. rbs@agileaging.net.
COVID surges had twice forced Nancy and me to cancel a bucket-list road trip to California’s southeastern deserts. First in 2020, again in 2021. Now lessening pandemic severity gave us hope that we could finally reach there for my April birthday. With luck, winter rains would stimulate the parched landscape’s fabled wildflower blooms.
Simultaneously, my brother Doug’s long-declining health entered a steep slide. We’d visited him two weeks before as he began home-hospice care. [See my March 31 post, “DOWN MEMORY LANES.”] Now we agreed with Doug and his wife Lu that we’d come by to see them again en route to the desert.
The actual journey that emerged from these plans bore limited resemblance to our expectations. My trip journal records stops and starts, twists and turns, sorrows and smiles. Like so much of senior living these days, for better and for worse.
In March, Nancy and I traveled twice to Southern California within a 10-day period. Both trips carried us into the past. Solvang was a sentimental destination for celebrating Nancy’s birthday. We had visited there on one of our first dates, more than 50 years ago. La Purisima Mission was a world apart but just down the road. Los Angeles took us back south for family and friends. We spent precious time with my younger brother, Doug, who’s just starting home-hospice care. We also paid our respects at the funeral of Bill Dahlman, high-school classmate and rediscovered friend. In the midst of healthy, happy seniority, death and dying are never far away.
Savoring small pleasures can be an effective contribution to coping with COVID. If we can’t get out and about as much as before and are feeling trapped, bored or agitated, finding sources of stimulation within shrunken perimeters can nourish our mental and emotional health.
Beyond COVID, after Omicron’s hopefully swift, steep decline, that same investment can be a sustainable Agile Aging practice. Not just passive receptivity but proactive curiosity and engagement.
Buddhists and New Age sages have long counselled us to “Be Here Now,” living in the present, surrendering past regrets and future worries. Devoting energy and attention to things we can control, releasing those we can’t. What I’m recommending is congruent but more focused: valuing conversations, contacts, memories, pauses and forward planning as invitations to be more alive.
Let me share a basket of samples that have brightened my winter days.
In last month’s post, I looked back at 2021, recollecting key global and national developments and also recording some local impacts and adjustments. Several subscribers were kind enough to respond with appreciative feedback. This month I’d like to look forward at 2022, linking the two posts by again homing in on the coronavirus pandemic, politics, economics and climate change.
I won’t hazard any detailed forecasts. Things are changing too fast, puncturing pundits’ confident predictions almost as soon as they’re conjured. Instead, as a more modest Agile Aging exercise, I’ll try to sketch what we’re already learning in January and then explore where the new year may be taking us.
Most of my elder friends say they’re stepping into 2022 with apprehension. This is not the secure seniority they’d been looking forward to. While I respect the magnetic appeal of pessimism, in this case I believe it may be premature. Please chime in: rbs@agileaging.net
As I prepare this final post of 2021, I’m in the mood for retrospection. What were the past year’s defining developments from this aging Californian’s perspective? How did those public developments influence and intrude upon my private experiences and impressions?
Two tensions are complicating my reflections. Somehow, late-December’s news headlines are jerking the year around. 2021 won’t hold still long enough for me to complete a coherent profile. Compounding the reporting challenges, my national impressions were mostly unsettling, even ominous; my local recollections are distinctly more calm and contented. How can I share the latter affirmations without coming across as an oblivious shuffleboard enthusiast on the deck of the Titanic?
My December 31 publication deadline is fast approaching. Let me give this personal recap a try. If coming to terms with 2021 holds interest for you, please send your own interpretations. What did it feel like for you as a concerned senior to navigate this roller-coaster ride? rbs@agileaging.net
Long dark winter nights. A comfy chair, a cup of whatever warms you and a new inviting book. Here are some of my recent reads. See if one appeals, enlightens and entertains.
Season’s Greetings,
RBS
This month I’ve invited Agile Aging subscribers to share their recollections of formative life choices that worked out well. How and when did they come to a fork in the road? What factors influenced their chosen direction?
The resulting “Taking the Right Turn” conversation is a sequel and complement to our July 31 blog post on “Paths Not Taken.” Rereading both collections, I’m struck by how all of these seniors made the best of their pivotal challenges, emerging stronger and wiser.
See what you think. And my heartfelt appreciation to this month’s affirming quartet.
In mid-September, Nancy and I headed south to participate in my COVID-postponed 60th high-school class reunion. While in Southern California, we took the opportunity to visit the gravesite of my parents and to rendezvous with my nephew and Nancy’s long-ago friends. Driving down and back, we tried to follow the sensible-senior-travel guidelines proposed in last month’s post. Here are some mileposts along a nostalgic excursion reconnecting past to present and youth to age.
During the second half of August, Nancy and I toured Oregon’s dramatic coastline, riding all the way on US101. With one trip we accomplished two objectives: escaping mid-summer heat and wildfire smoke in our San Francisco Bay Area and becoming better acquainted with a region we knew only superficially from prior drive-throughs. For two weeks we ventured out from basecamps in Yachats (“YA-hats”) on the central coast and Port Orford in the south. For this blog post, I’d like to share with you four trip components: an outward-bound adventure, key roadside attractions, overarching impressions and some reaffirmed travel lessons for seniors.
For this month’s Agile Aging post, I’ve invited fellow seniors to join with me in reflecting about forks in the road on our life journeys. Can each of us recall an occasion when we confronted a choice between diverging routes? What influenced our decision? Have we ever wondered about the path not taken? How might we and our journey have turned out differently if we’d veered in the other direction?
When the nightly news and partisan standoffs get too discouraging, I turn to light reading. But not only light. All play and no stretching make this senior a dull boy. Agile Aging is engaged aging. Here’s a sample of serious recent reading I’d like to share with you and recommend.
This month’s Agile Aging post explores how youthful impacts – encounters and relationships, experiences and inspirations – can influence the adults we become and the seniors we remain.
Seven blog subscribers have generously shared their recollections and reflections.
Like many of our senior peers, now that Nancy and I are fully vaccinated, we’re eager to emerge from COVID isolation. Yet with herd immunity still elusive and new virus variants a rolling threat, our cautious vacation strategy is to drive to a remote destination and enjoy its attractions in relative seclusion.
Our latest excursion took us to California’s North Coast, moseying from Bodega Bay to Mendocino along the Shoreline Highway, State Route 1. We’d been to this stretch several times before over the past 50 years. But rediscovering can be reenergizing. These journal notes home in on two historical landmarks. Both sites have played surprisingly pivotal roles in California’s political, economic and environmental development.
The coronavirus has exacted a horrific toll, infecting over 120 million victims worldwide, killing nearly three million. Problematic variant outbreaks continue to flare. But pandemic lockdowns and isolation have also inspired adaptive creativity – telemedicine consultations; working and learning from home; Zoom calls and conferences; remote performances, lectures and panels; exchanged video clips and entertainments.
I’ve been particularly impressed and encouraged by the blossoming of creative writing by fellow seniors. Retirement invites reflection. Isolation seems to have nourished a distinctive vintage.
I’d like to devote this month’s post to three diverse samples, reproduced with their authors’ permission. My hope is that these evocations may stimulate your own Agile Aging energies.
I’ve always been fascinated by border cities, straddling and linking cultures and regions. Istanbul is my prime example, clasping East to West, Anatolia to the Balkans, Asia to Europe, Islam to Christianity, the mysterious Black Sea to the bustling Mediterranean. Its name-changes keeping pace with its waves of occupiers: Byzantium for the ancient Greeks, Constantinople for the eponymous Roman Emperor, Istanbul for the Ottomans.
Nancy and I explored this beckoning metropolis in 1975, primed for a big-city experience after two years in East Africa. Her memories for detail are sharper than mine, but we both shared the enchantment of what was then still a pre-high-rise Turkish hub.
Our Agile Aging blog advocates proactive, mindful maturity. Peer Profiles illustrate this engagement with case studies of exceptional seniors, pursuing creative initiatives or wrestling with daunting challenges. Blog subscribers may remember John Phillips and Rancho Cielo, rescuing teens from the conjoined whirlpools of gang violence and repeated incarceration (Prior Post, July 15, 2019); Shirley Buccieri, figuring out how to organize and enjoy solo sojourns abroad (September 15, 2019); and Bill Dahlman, retraining his nervous system after a debilitating stroke (October 15, 2019). The rest of us may not be able to duplicate these singular achievements, but we can take inspiration from their energy and grit.
Shary Farr is devoted to another facet of enlightened aging, one of increasing interest to us all. She helps fellow seniors plan and prepare for the end of their lives. Her approach is personal, collaborative and confidence-building. In a series of COVID-enforced remote interviews, she explained how and why she does what she does.
I’m pleased to report that my November 30 blog post, “Election Reflections,” stimulated an unprecedented volume of feedback. More important than their quantity, those responses were intensely personal and thought-provoking. Going beyond mere comments on my original reflections, readers offered their own electoral opinions, analyses and concerns. The collective enthusiasm persuaded me to devote this follow-up post to sharing feedback excerpts. These selections are reproduced with the authors’ permission but I’ve omitted senders’ surnames to protect their privacy. Individual readers’ comments are flagged with stars. Some animated respondents are credited more than once.
In the following reprise, I’ve retained the original Election Reflections topic headings to organize the feedback. You will also find updates of my own November observations. A final section suggests organizations we might support and activities we might undertake to contribute personally to national healing.
Let me again thank Shary Farr, whose peer profile had been the planned subject of this December post, for her gracious flexibility in agreeing to a postponement.
November has been action-packed, with the tumultuous election and the resurging pandemic trading headlines. At month’s end, election turbulence thankfully appears to be subsiding into transition. I’d like to devote this post to my coalescing impressions of this historic political drama. Please respond by sharing your own interpretations. rbs@agileaging.net. What have we learned? Where are we going?
A GUIDE THROUGH TUMULTUOUS TIMES
One goal of this Agile Aging blog has always been to keep informed and stay engaged, maintaining a vibrant senior life. Easier said than done in recent months, as the coronavirus pandemic has locked us down and hemmed us in. Compounding these constraints, the hotly contested election has dominated the information flow with fleeting statistics, partisan spin and anxiety-provoking commentary.
In the midst of this tumult, I reached out to a recent publication that takes a longer perspective, looking beyond our immediate stress to ask where are things going and what can we do about it.
From mid-March through July, pandemic precautions at our retirement community forced Nancy and me to shelter in place. August broke this pattern, taking us far off-campus, not once but twice. These unanticipated expeditions caused me to fall behind in blog reporting. With today’s post, I’d like to do some catching up, sharing highlights of that eventful month.
By popular demand, you’ll also find more reading recommendations.
VACATION: GETTING AWAY TO THE CASCADES
As our spring/summer isolation stretched from weeks into months, Nancy and I noticed an increasing number of empty resident parking slots. Our neighbors were apparently slipping away. Casual inquiries revealed that more than nearby medical appointments were involved. Many of these extended absences involved sojourns at second homes or lingering visits to offspring. Since we had neither of these connections, we didn’t pay more attention.
I’m writing this at Morro Bay, where Nancy and I are hovering after self-evacuation from our retirement community to escape the billowing smoke and spreading Santa Cruz fire. More on that adventure next month. For now, let’s focus on the virus.
It’s looking increasingly likely that the COVID-19 pandemic will remain with us for the foreseeable future – nationwide and worldwide. For sure, through the end of this calendar year; but probably beyond, through 2021 or even longer. In this post, I’d like to glimpse how fellow seniors are adapting to that extended timeline: restructuring projects; recalibrating strategies for coping with personal challenges.
In response to subscriber requests, I’m also tossing in more summer-reading recommendations.
July kept us sheltering in place in our Bay Area Retirement Community. Early in the month, we were quarantined in our apartment for one week as a precaution after off-campus medical appointments. Let me share with you my notes on mid-summer activities, readings and reflections.
Before getting started, I’d like to warmly acknowledge Nancy Swing’s creative contribution of photos in this and prior Agile Aging posts. Her fresh visualizations of familiar subjects never fail to enhance text and tone. Shabash!
STAYING STILL
One welcome reminder from this pandemic lockdown is that we don’t always have to be busy. Especially for retirees, and even more so for quarantiners, it’s okay just to be still. Jumping up from the breakfast table to scroll through overnight emails may be a habit. But it’s not an obligation. This morning, almost guiltily, I ease into a rocking chair and tune in to the birdsong. A full combo, with riffs and refrains. Are they here every day? Have I not been paying attention?
Coffee tastes so much better consumed aromatic and hot. A different experience entirely from a cooling cup neglected on my home-office desk. The warm flow down the hatch is key to the pleasure.
Marooned in June
The core Shelter-in-Place component of the State of California’s coronavirus containment strategy requires citizens to stay at home, except for limited categories of permitted activities. Our retirement community’s management has further narrowed those exceptions to essential (not routine) medical appointments. CCRC residents going off-campus for such appointments must notify the administration in advance and then self-isolate for two weeks of apartment quarantine on their return. The rationale for this stringent lockdown is to prevent exiting residents from bringing the virus back into our vulnerable elder village; 14 days is the virus’s average incubation period.
At the end of May, California is cautiously reopening. Governor Newsom and county authorities are gingerly initiating a phased relaxation of the shelter-in-place restrictions they’d imposed in mid-March to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a still-sequestered resident of a California retirement community, I’m understandably focused on how this saga is going to play out for me, my wife and my peers.
Here are two forward-looking questions much on my mind:
1) How are we seniors likely to respond if, as seems plausible, we’re kept in lockdown for a continuing indefinite period?
2) And once we do emerge, how are we likely to have changed?
To enrich my own observations, I’ve reached out to a circle of senior friends residing around San Francisco Bay. I find their contributions thoughtful and thought-provoking.
As 2020’s winter surrenders to spring, Covid-19 is dominating our lives. Here in our San Francisco Bay Area Retirement Community, April has witnessed sweeping adjustments.
I’d like to use this blog post to record and report how this emerging “new normal” feels on the ground. When we moved here, Nancy and I had no inkling we’d signed up for a sequestration seminar. But it’s offering a full syllabus of Agile Aging challenges and opportunities.
The coronavirus crisis is escalating so rapidly that a month feels like forever. The pandemic’s global and national dimensions are expanding exponentially, spinning out of control.
Here’s a ground-level journal of how the surging storm began to penetrate the perimeter of our elder village.
March started routinely enough in our CCRC. Our family calendar was crowded with on-campus social engagements and activities. Nancy and I were re-booked for a half-dozen lunches and dinners with fellow residents. (We’d had to defer these welcoming invitations while Nancy underwent marathon medical tests probing her excessive weight-loss. Thankfully, all test results were negative.)
Two live musical performances were scheduled during the first half of the month – a chamber recital and a national boys’ chorus. Weekly movie screenings were also on tap.
Peer Profiles can motivate and mobilize us by sharing innovative solutions to common challenges of aging. Blog followers during the first year of publication have consistently commented that they find stories more instructive than lectures, personal vignettes more relatable than aggregated statistics.
Here’s the story of one senior couple who crafted a distinctive approach for transitioning to a retirement community.
My December 15 blog post, “Moving On: Transitioning to a CCRC,” introduced Nancy’s and my search for a senior residential community. At year’s end, on an accelerated timetable, we made our move. I’d like to use this paired January post to pick up the narrative thread, sharing highlights of our relocation experience plus some first impressions of our new home and lifestyle. Here’s a journal of transitional steps and stages.
Central Coast Goodbyes
We were deeply touched by the kindness of Monterey Peninsula friends, hosting lunches and dinners to say au revoir. We all talked candidly at these gatherings about our respective senior residential plans. What I expected less but appreciated more was that somehow our pending departure seemed to spark opportunities for unprecedented intimacy and bonding. It was as if we were all tacitly aware that we might never again be together on the same neighborly basis, so these last shared moments ought not to be squandered on movie reviews or casual chitchat. Instead we quietly took advantage of these final moments to confirm our feelings for each other and what we care about.
Perhaps because a new year is just beginning, I’m coming across a flurry of stimulating new articles on agile aging. Here’s a sampling for your possible interest and follow-through.
Jacob Epstein reviewed “Elderhood” by Louise Aronson in the Wall Street Journal:
….This is a serious, useful and important book. According to a study cited by Dr. Aronson, life, so to say, begins at 60. “Data from the United States and Western Europe confirm that most people are around sixty before they achieve levels of well-being comparable to those of twenty-year-olds, and rates climb thereafter.” Arriving at 60 and beyond presumably brings freedom from worry, lessened depression and anger, a firmer sense of one’s self and what one values, greater contentment and happiness….
Virtually all of our senior friends are wrestling with the linked challenges of long-term healthcare and housing. How can we best plan for continuing affordable healthcare when American medical costs are spiraling out of control? And what housing solutions will best fit our evolving needs during our next life-chapter? Nancy and I devoted the past 18 months to identifying and evaluating available choices. We’ve now made our decision.
Blog followers have asked me to share highlights of our learning curve. This post interweaves two strands: journal notes of our transition journey; and a profile of the senior-residence type we selected – a Continuing Care Residential Community (CCRC)
Every senior individual or couple has their own set of influences framing their healthcare and housing choices: needs, values, resources, constraints and obligations. Our experience may give you food for thought.
We’re delighted to be launched on this Agile Aging adventure. How will it play out? Where will it lead us? Who will we become?
There seems to be a strong consensus among experts on aging that pursuing a new creative passion or project is one of the best ways for a senior to sustain alertness, curiosity and productivity. And this fresh start can be most stimulating when it’s distinctively different from a retiree’s professional career. I’m hoping that blog followers will indulge me in profiling my spouse as an example. I believe Nancy’s senior pivot is informative and instructive.
Nancy Swing grew up in West Virginia and pursued a successful career as an international development consultant, working in Africa, Asia and Europe. After retiring in California, she turned serious attention to writing and publishing mysteries. THE SILVER FOXES, the final volume in her Lewiston, West Virginia trilogy, has just been published. Here are highlights from our breakfast interview at Pacific Grove’s Point Pinos Grill.
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that Nancy and I enjoy taking overland excursions to rediscover our native country, after decades spent living and working abroad. Here are some journal notes from one recent autumn expedition.
Getting to Our Destination
We prefer staying off Interstates, if side roads can take us in our intended direction. On this trip we loved the routes above Sacramento, rice fields and silos, then orchards along Highway 70, the Feather River Scenic Highway. Oroville and its horizon-dominating dam were a sobering reminder of the 2017 flood. Highway 32 offered an inviting serpentine into the mountains. Zigzagging along Deer Creek, it was carved out by the Civilian Conservation Corps at the height of the Great Depression in 1934.
Blog subscribers have been recommending stimulating articles and essays linking elders’ health to our focus and attitudes. Here are excerpts to give you a taste, plus links to let you read the full sources if you’re intrigued.
David M. spotted and shared this BBC piece by 76-year-old Sir Michael Morpurgo, former Children’s Laureate:
Strange thing, getting old – because I never thought it would happen to me. Well, it has, and quite suddenly too. Life these days is punctuated with little reminders. A certain reluctance, that I never had when I was young, when it comes to looking in the mirror. Full body or face. Neither merits a second glance. Mirrors are in fact a perfect nuisance. In [elevators] with mirrors all round, sometimes you catch a glimpse of the back of a head that always lacks more hair than last time you looked, less than you had supposed or hoped.
A Chocolate Soufflé
On August 5, I had dinner at North Hollywood’s Garden Bistro with my high school classmate Bill Dahlman and his wife Kathryne. Our evening got off to an awkward start. Kathryne and I were meeting for the first time, but Bill and I showed up 20 minutes late. Soon, however, initial discomfort gave way to cordial sharing. Kathryne and I traded memories of Arusha, Tanzania, where she’d passed through en route to National Park safaris and I’d worked as a young lawyer for the East African Community. Meanwhile, Bill and I were still bubbling over the detour that had made us late, circling the choice new property just acquired by our high school for expanded athletic facilities.
As our dinner moved along, I could feel us drawing together. A special dessert marked the special occasion, low-key, with no candles or choruses. It had been exactly a year since the blow that turned my friends’ comfortable lives upside down. This was Bill’s first restaurant meal in all those months. The soufflé didn’t stand a chance. We devoured every bite.
Probably no subject commands as much senior attention as aches and pains. Ailments and appointments dominate our conversations and our calendars. One friend says that his circle is so exasperated by this preoccupation that they’ve reserved the first 10 minutes of every gathering for medical show-and-tell. After that flurry, the topic is off-the-table. They’ve labeled these roundtable riffs “organ recitals.”
Our blog will return to health issues more than once as we pursue Agile Aging together. Two initial posts in this domain are devoted to contrasting but hopefully complementary contributions: an expert’s refreshingly candid advice on how we seniors can maintain our mental health (September 30); and a profile of a fellow retiree courageously confronting reduced mobility after a debilitating stroke (October 15.)
One guiding principle of this blog is that Agile Aging is neither automatic nor accidental. It requires awareness and creative imagination, knowhow and sustained commitment. Our final phase of life can be joyful, full of learning, growing and sharing. But dividends demand investments.
One reason Peer Profiles are so inspirational is that they introduce fellow seniors who have figured out how to do things the rest of us aspire to but haven’t yet made happen. Shirley Buccieri has developed innovative solutions to not one but two common senior travel challenges:
- What if you like to travel but don’t have anyone to travel with? Maybe you live alone or your partner isn’t interested or available.
- What if you’d like to linger and get to know a single destination, but hotel rates are prohibitive for extended stays and group tours too fast-paced, with rigid itineraries?
Imagine traveling where you most want, when and how you want. Custom-tailoring your trips to suit your personal passions, energy and budget. An impossible dream? Read on!
Richard, in response to the post, “Agile Aging: An Introduction & an Invitation”
In my getting-older world, caretaking aside, I enjoy immensely watching my continuing family.
David, on the post, “Retirement as Our Admission Ticket to Satisfying Seniority”
The elephant in the room, of course, is the notion of mortality. It seems to accompany retirement in a major way and occupies many of our thoughts, even if we are loath to share them. Yes, there are those who, for religious, spiritual or other reasons, are little bothered by the upcoming end of life. One friend is counselled by a woman in Colorado who has written extensively on the afterlife which she is convinced is available, not from religious teachings, but because of the study she has made of persons who have reported out-of-body experiences where their “soul” has floated above their bodies in an operating room before being brought back to life. I have one relative who cheerfully announced, when his father fell ill, “We all stroke out in our seventies in my family.” Another has noted that she doesn’t really want to live much beyond eighty as, by that time, “I will have had the whole enchilada” and sees no reason to keep on trucking.
It’s the first morning of my Amtrak ride from Emeryville to Denver. I’m so absorbed in my Sunday newspaper that I don’t detect the Observation Car tables and chairs filling up around me. The fact that my new neighbors are almost totally silent contributes to the surprise. I look up to discover a distinctive party of two adult couples and six kids, ranging from teens to a toddler. Full beards and a bouquet of bonnets catch my eye. I’m about to meet the Millers of Orwell, Ohio.
In my roomette and ready to roll. I love my Amtrak sleeping compartment — snug, comfortable and private. I’ve never traveled in a single compartment before. Nancy and I usually book a larger double. This one reminds me of a shipboard cabin — no wasted space, everything in its place. Eight feet long, five wide, two facing benches, a shelf for my hand luggage, wall hooks for robe and pajamas and a giant window. All this on the upper level of my sleeper car, with great visibility. At night the attendant will work his magic and convert the benches into a surprisingly wide bed. The common bathroom is five paces along the corridor. My suitcase is safely stowed on the car’s lower level. I’m purring in my solo space, all set for the next two days and a night. Nine-fifteen a.m. — the first surge of movement. Right on time. Away we go!
There are no two ways about it: Nancy and I have always been suckers for trains. She recalls the thrill of feeling very grown up traveling alone at age 12, en route to Washington D.C. to visit her Aunt Anne and Uncle Bill. I’ve a fading childhood memory of a family rail excursion from L.A.’s historic Union Station, bound for San Diego’s enchanting Balboa Park Zoo.
Decades later, our shared infatuation for rail travel intensified during 15 years living in Italy. From the modest railhead 20 minutes down the hill from our Umbrian olive farm, we scooted by train all across the European continent. Throughout Italy to be sure, but also to Vienna, Prague and Budapest, Zurich and Geneva, Munich and Frankfurt, Paris and even London through the submarine Chunnel.
In your most private moments, what do you think about aging? Does advancing seniority fill you with distaste, or with relief? Apprehension or contentment? Are you grinning or grimacing?
What image of aging first pops into your mind’s eye? More memory-making with the grandkids? More midnight shuffles to the bathroom? A lengthening shelf of unpronounceable pills? A closet-full of business attire dry-cleaned for schlepping to Goodwill?
Have you dreams deferred or nagging irritations? A Danube cruise? Elusive words on the tip of your tongue? Performing with the Community Players? Being nibbled to death by ducks?
Like most of my peers, I’m aware the aging glass is both half-empty and half-full. We have to take the sour with the sweet. But it’s my impression that we tend to over-emphasize seniority’s downsides. If that’s correct, this reflexive pessimism exacts a high price. Not only can it impair our mental and emotional health. It can also neglect and undervalue seniority’s rich offsetting opportunities, passions and pleasures. This blog is dedicated to helping rebalance the scales. I want to make the case for a positive approach to growing old.
Whether at home or at the beach, summer somehow seems to invite settling in with a good book. For enlightenment or entertainment. Here are some suggested titles for your bedside table or satchel.
Officer, where can we see the best redwoods?” The State Parks Ranger and I had a half-mile to walk together from Point Cabrillo Light Station back to the parking lot, so I thought I wouldn’t waste his expertise.
“Around here? No Contest. Hendy Woods.”
“Sounds like a blues band.”
“In a way. But it’s the best kept secret on this section of the North Coast. One hundred acres of original-growth Coast Redwoods hiding right off the highway.”
“US 1?”
“No. California 128. Do you know it?”
I told him we did. Nancy and I had driven to the coast through this marvelous canyon, climbing up the Coast Range from Cloverdale, easing down past Anderson Valley’s vineyards and apple orchards, and emerging onto the Pacific shore at the mouth of the Navarro River.
“Reverse your tracks,” the Ranger instructed. “Head inland and look sharp eight miles above Booneville, or you’ll miss the turnoff. That’s why I like it. No one stops. I have the place almost all to myself. That’s where I’m based.”
The boy standing below him seemed to personify the layered failures of Monterey County’s juvenile-justice system. Barely 17, this street-scarred veteran was already a gang leader, a violent bully, a convicted felon and utterly without remorse. The boy’s family had brought his grandmother 200 miles from Visalia to Salinas to witness his sentencing. The old woman sat in the front row of Judge John Phillips’s courtroom, dressed all in black. In truth there was no suspense. California’s criminal law left the judge virtually no sentencing discretion, mandating that juveniles be treated as adults for serious felonies. He pronounced long-term incarceration, and the grandmother collapsed. The macho hood burst into tears. John vividly remembers telling himself, “There’s got to be a better way to protect society than warehousing no-hope kids for life.” That gut-wrenching protest germinated his driving passion.
On our Riverside/Tejon Pass excursion, Nancy and I learned and reaffirmed some prudent rules-of-the-road for seniors. Here’s our daily checklist. How does it compare with your own guidelines? Minimize contact with trucks and traffic by maximizing use of secondary roads, in the process enjoying superior air quality and scenery. Keep the gas tank at least …
Our first destination after Riverside was Big Bear Lake. We hadn’t been there it in 50 years. Our drive up into the San Bernardino Mountains was an abrupt reminder of the risks of ad hoc touring. Soon after starting off, we took a wrong turn and had to work together as a pilot/copilot team to navigate back on track. Next we detoured to a foothill valley heralded by a regional guidebook for its scenic apple orchards and hospitable roadside cafes. Both promised features proved a bust. The prolonged drought and high temperatures had parched the orchards. The cafes and their parking lots were crowded with weekend tourists, besides serving inferior, overpriced fare. This forgettable day ended in a colorless chain hotel in Big Bear Lake Village. But we accepted these setbacks as a cost of adlibbing. There are no guarantees when you make it up as you go along on the road.
Introduction & Invitation (May 15) Bob is bullish: “Congratulations. I’m already a fan and new subscriber of your blog. The snappy prose has an infectious quality and the focus on Agile Aging is most welcome as I klutz my way forward.” Bearish Chuck is not convinced: “Why would we be interested in something about growing …
NAVEL-GAZING Sometimes we wonder if an ordinary individual – leaving aside emperors and prophets – can truly have an historical impact. Eliza Tibbets is proof positive. In 1873, this Washington D.C. suffragette and spiritualist, recently relocated to the West Coast, implored a friend back in the national capitol to send young trees for her Southern …
I’m getting a kick out of rethinking senior travel. And definitely not as merely a slow-motion version of travel-as-usual. My target is a thorough redesign, customized to suit our elder interests and capacities. Why, where, when and how to travel are all on the drawing-board. With imagination and ingenuity, I’m confident we can create senior …
Helen Dennis is a nationally prominent specialist on retirement planning. Her experience and expertise can be glimpsed on her website: www.HelenMdennis.com. In response to my question about retirement-preparation readings, Helen has been kind enough to recommend a half-dozen titles: Don’t Retire, REWIRE! by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miner. Project Renewment: The First Retirement Model for …
We normally think of retirement as an ending – the completion of life’s working phase. Agile Aging is dedicated to original thinking, looking ahead to shape mindful seniority. So let’s reexamine retirement in a new light. Not as an ending, ringing down a curtain, but as a beginning, opening a new act. From this perspective, …
In your most private moments, what do you think about aging? Does advancing seniority fill you with distaste, or with relief? Apprehension or contentment? Are you grinning or grimacing?
What image of aging first pops into your mind’s eye? More memory-making with the grandkids? More midnight shuffles to the bathroom? A lengthening shelf of unpronounceable pills? A closet-full of business attire dry-cleaned for schlepping to Goodwill?
Have you dreams deferred or nagging irritations? A Danube cruise? Elusive words on the tip of your tongue? Performing with the Community Players? Being nibbled to death by ducks?
Like most of my peers, I’m aware the aging glass is both half-empty and half-full. We have to take the sour with the sweet. But it’s my impression that we tend to over-emphasize seniority’s downsides. If that’s correct, this reflexive pessimism exacts a high price. Not only can it impair our mental and emotional health. It can also neglect and undervalue seniority’s rich offsetting opportunities, passions and pleasures. This blog is dedicated to helping rebalance the scales. I want to make the case for a positive approach to growing old.