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.