• undertaking personal projects that can energize and enrich our lives’ final phases;
• shaping those projects to fit our senior capabilities and constraints.

This month I had a welcome opportunity to put both sides into practice: directing a performance of Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by our retirement community’s Play Readers.

I’d like to devote this year’s final blog post to sharing journal notes from this senior project. These are solely my own impressions. They don’t attempt to represent the opinions of other Play Readers members or the group as a whole. Although all personnel references are positive, I’ve kept them anonymous to respect everyone’s privacy.

Pundits and politicians have been competing to parse the election results. What happened and why? Who was to blame? Why did no one foresee this electoral sweep? Leaving recaps and recriminations to others, I’d like to pivot to what comes next. (Developments are evolving daily. I halted my data-gathering in the middle of this month.)

What are the priority items in the President-elect’s emerging agenda? Who is he tapping to lead implementation? What does the combination of actions and actors reveal about his overarching approach to a second term?

What strategies are available to opponents to resist this implementation? Are there adaptable precedents from foreign democracy defenses? What domestic responses are already being mobilized?

Within the ambit of tumultuous transition, how might American elders, like most readers of this blog, aim for personal security, engagement and serenity?

In the spirit of full disclosure, let me preface this examination by acknowledging my grave concern that the President-elect’s new tenure may present a historic threat to American stability and world peace. I realize these are complex, controversial subjects. Not all blog readers will agree with me. But the stakes can hardly be higher. I want and need to speak up.

Life-long learning is a core aspiration of Agile Aging. Not just staying informed about new developments and discoveries, but also willingly re-examining and, if appropriate, surrendering past beliefs now called into serious question.

This month I became better acquainted with the Portola Valley Library, a mile’s walk from our campus. Libraries have always attracted and delighted me, from paneled college reading rooms to Andrew Carnegie legacies up and down California. On this occasion I was impressed and encouraged by our local library’s evident qualities: dedicated leadership and services, high energy and expanding activities. A grassroots dynamo addressing transitional challenges.

I’d like to share with you some Walkabout highlights.

I’ll conclude the post by tying the two trip phases together. What are Nancy’s and my main takeaways from this round trip? And how do we contemplate shaping our future travel plans to benefit from what we’ve learned?

Welcome aboard!

Amtrak seemed an inviting solution. Spicing a cross-country railway route with layovers would let us visit friends and family along the way.  And speaking of routes, why settle for a boring identical return? A jump to the north could bring us back across Canada. The loop of a lifetime. We started to plan. Our actual itinerary ended up spanning 44 days and 8,500 miles.

In this month’s post, I’d like to share encounters and impressions from our expedition’s trans-American first phase. Next month I’ll do the same for trans-Canadian Phase Two. Both installments will feature lessons Nancy and I learned and relearned about the attractions and challenges of North American rail travel for oldies like ourselves. A candid journal of a transformative journey.

Welcome aboard!

I’ll lead off with the recent family incident that bumped this simmering tension to my front burner. Then a few personal preconceptions about striking a sustainable balance. Next, the experiences and opinions of a Zoom circle of friends who agreed to share their own perspectives. Finally, some takeaways to distil what we’ve been learning together. 

This month I visited our two neighborhood restaurants. One well-established and respected, the other just starting up, both are owned and operated by immigrant couples. After introducing myself and my blog project, I was invited for cordial, candid conversations with the owners. Their small-business histories and strategies were fascinating. Their personal life stories were inspirational.