Aging Gracefully

Nice phrase. Has a certain ring to it—a kind of quiet aspirational quality. But. But aging is seldom pretty, calm, or comfortable. Though, in some older people, you have probably witnessed a peaceful grace that shines from the inside out.

Consider this:

Today at 7:00 a.m., after my morning swim, I sat in the hot tub at my local Y, soothing sore seventy-one-year-old muscles. As I aimed the jets at painful spots and rested amid the frothing water, I again observed a scene I had watched many times before. A ninety-ish gentleman emerged from the nearby therapy pool, gripping the rail and stepping up one watery step at a time. Close behind him came a similarly aged woman in a black bathing suit, also taking it slow and easy. The man grabbed the cane he had stowed in a large blue bucket at the top of the steps, jabbed it soundly at the damp poolside tile—clack, clack, clack—and shuffled gingerly over to his walker, a black rollator with brakes and a storage compartment below a vinyl seat. He grabbed the rollator, swung it around, and I noticed it had a helium “Happy Birthday” balloon attached. Sweet, I thought.

The woman, who I assumed was his wife, was now at the top of the steps, so he grabbed a low-tech aluminum walker with two wheels in front and small plastic ski-like slides on the back and pushed it to the edge of the pool so she could steady herself with it. Then he picked up a faded bath towel from the seat of his walker and handed it to his wife, who deliberately unfolded it and spread it gently over his wet back. The woman then removed her cane from the plastic bucket, clutched it and the walker handles, and they hobbled slowly off together in the direction of the family changing room.

I had watched this scenario—shall I call it a carefully choreographed dance—and marveled at its unwavering precision at least a dozen times before as I soaked in the hot tub. Each knew exactly what to expect from the other; no instructions were given, and no questions were asked. This morning, the gracefulness of their movements, the serenity of their faces, and the harmony of their interdependence struck me anew, and the phrase “aging gracefully” rose in my mind.

For the last nine months or so, I have regularly joined a group of women about my age on Zoom to discuss aging. The conversation has ranged from how we are experiencing the physical and mental effects of aging to our concern for aging spouses and friends, worries about giving and receiving care, and our fears about losing our capacities and our impending death. It’s been a rich conversation, and I believe we have learned much from one another. I think I can safely say that each of us aspires to age gracefully but fears we will not.

A wise Buddhist Nun, Pema Chödrön, has written a book about the dying process called, How We Live is How We Die. I highly recommend it, even if you are only 45. I think she would agree that the same applies to aging: how we live is how we age. Gracefulness is a habit—“a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.” Good habits, like problematic ones, are acquired over time by returning to and reinforcing a pattern of thought, speech, or behavior.

We will not age gracefully unless we live gracefully now. And it is never too late to start practicing and, therefore, reinforcing habits of gracefulness. Who do you want to be when you are 90? Strive to be that person today, tomorrow, and the next day. And when you flounder, gracefully and kindly pick yourself up, throw a warm, dry towel of kindness over your bruised, scared, and diminished ego, let go of self-judgment, and start again on the walk toward the perpetual “changing room” of your life.

Chodron has written another book called, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change. How we respond to the inevitable experience of constant uncertainty and change, the unavoidable human condition, will determine how graceful we become. Like a martial artist—a Tai Chi practitioner, for instance—instead of resisting, we accept what comes, flow with it, and transform ourselves into skillful and graceful old warriors.

It is possible that the aged couple described above hate each other, fight constantly, and are bitter and angry, but I don’t think so. That’s not what shone through their wrinkled faces and bodies. A couple of days ago, I attended my neighbor’s hundred and first birthday party. Another neighbor, a talented photographic artist, snapped photos throughout the celebration and sent the collection to all the guests afterward. Laughing faces, raised champagne glasses, attentive gazes, looks of joyful abandon, kind understanding, quiet admiration. I thanked the photographer for his knack for making old people look beautiful. He responded, “It is because they are beautiful.” He’s right. His lens captured graceful aging in that moment, in that place.

I look forward to my next visit to the hot tub, not just for its soothing effects on my body. I’m longing to see the graceful dance of that beautiful old couple again.