Shoulder-Length and Self-Discovery

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After decades of wearing my hair short because others said it suited me, I finally grew it long—only to discover that the real transformation had less to do with style and more to do with self-acceptance.

In mid-career, when it seemed important to look my best each day, I dragged myself from bed at 4:30 a.m. to shower and “fix” my hair before work. Back then, I used to vow, “When I retire, I’ll grow my hair and put it in a ponytail!” Especially on bad hair days, when no amount of tweaking produced the desired effect, I repeated that promise. At sixty-nine, six years into retirement, I finally fulfilled it.

All my life, people have told me—completely unsolicited—“You look better with short hair.” Some justified their opinions by explaining that short hair frames and softens my narrow face, making me look less somber. Imagine. A haircut can do all that.

I’ve always wanted long hair. The grass is always greener, right? I’m small, and I thought short hair made me look like a boy. In those days, it mattered to me to look like a girl. Still, imagining growing my hair stirred conflicting feelings: self-indulgence and risk. Self-indulgence? How dare I choose what I want instead of what others say is best? Risk? Maybe they’re right, and I would look ridiculous. The project felt too dangerous, so I postponed it, promising myself I’d wait until retirement. Perhaps then, I conjectured, I would care less about how I looked or what others thought. I pictured myself in my senior years as wilder, less risk-averse, less respectable—à la the Red Hat Society. I’ve also daydreamed about spending whole days in my pajamas—haven’t you? But ten years into retirement, I still haven’t done that, either.

As I aged and shyly shared my ponytail fantasies, some asked, “Don’t older women usually prefer short hair? Isn’t it easier to manage with arthritic hands?” Others implied that long hair is for younger women trying to attract men, as if older women shouldn’t care—or couldn’t. I once heard my mother say that long-haired older women are simply trying to prolong their youth.

My reasons for wanting long hair were many. I imagined spending less on haircuts—no surprise for stingy me—and less on hairspray, my chief styling tool. My compulsion to control led me to spray my short, unruly waves into a neat helmet. Yet when the wind blew, my lacquered hair stuck out at spiky angles. Hairspray is a gooey mess when wet and makes hair brittle when dry. Its mist made me cough. Its empty cans clutter landfills. Long hair, I believed, would be more economical, healthier, and more environmentally friendly. Besides, I wanted to relax a little and stop trying so hard. As I grew older, I realized I had fewer years left to experiment in all areas of life—hair just one of them.

At last, I was ready. I found a new hairstylist and confided my secret dream. She was enthusiastic and didn’t subscribe to myths about long-haired older women. We discussed a long-term strategy; I shared my fears and hopes, and she became my biggest cheerleader.

What did I learn as my hair grew?

On bad days, the mirror embarrassed me. One day I’d think my hair looked acceptable; the next, another half-millimeter of growth would plunge me into despair. Somehow, I found the courage to keep going. A week added three millimeters—sometimes enough to make all the difference. “Stay the course!” my stylist counseled.

On good days, I gloried in the drag of a brush through thickening strands or the glee of wind whipping hair across my face, tickling my cheeks and neck. I delighted in sweeping it back with clips and bands, then setting it free to fall around my thin, somber (so what!) face.

What did others think during the growing process? Some joked, “What is an old lady doing growing long hair?” Others asked, “And how much longer do you plan to grow it?” No one was brave enough to say, “I liked it better short,” though some expressions spoke volumes. I steeled myself against discouragement from those not on my team. I told myself this was an exercise in discovering my true self, regardless of approval. But—oh my goodness—two people said they loved it, and I loved them.

As my hair lengthened, I reflected on what I cannot change: wrinkles, scars, age spots, blemishes, and the bags beneath my eyes. The visible residue of traumas, heartbreaks, poor choices, and neglect. Hair, at least, was something I could alter.

Despite my bravado, I harbored a suspicion that what I saw in the mirror was not what others saw. Still, I tried to trust my own eyes. My long hair was luscious and luxurious—if not at this very moment, then surely tomorrow after washing and blow-drying. I accumulated countless clips, barrettes, bands, and scrunchies, convinced that the next accessory would be the perfect solution. My hairdresser bolstered my confidence. “You have beautiful hair,” she insisted.

Twelve months later, I’d had enough.

Once it passed my ears and reached my bony shoulders, I had to admit it wasn’t the look I’d imagined. I’d pictured a high ponytail with wispy bangs and loose curls brushing my cheeks—an older version of movie star Dakota Johnson.

Instead, my bangs were kinky, not wispy. My fine hair fell in lifeless strings beside my exposed, oversized ears, and my ponytail was a stubborn little stub at the base of my skull. Strands clung to my black sweaters and drifted invisibly across the bathroom floor, sticking to socks and shoes. Washing my hair took forever—so much rinsing. My spending on shampoo and conditioner climbed, and I still relied on hairspray for some semblance of control. As I brushed my hair over the sink, I worried about loose strands clogging the drain and the Drano required to clear it.

Finally, one day, a neighbor declared, “Long hair doesn’t work for older folks. You’d look much better with it short.” While I bristled at her generalization—I know many elegant women with long tresses—I had privately reached the same conclusion days earlier. “You’re right,” I replied. “I have a haircut scheduled next week, and I can’t wait.”

Let’s face it, I realized: I am a practical, neat, put-together older woman—not whimsical or breezy. Perhaps long hair doesn’t reflect who I am. I felt both disappointed and relieved; glad I’d tried and learned from the experiment.

So off to the stylist I went. She looked slightly let down but acquiesced, urging me not to cut it as short as before. She clipped and trimmed, turning the chair this way and that to inspect her work. Silently, my silver tresses fell to the floor.

An ear-length bob emerged around my still-thin, even more wrinkled face—a compromise. We agreed it suited me. She swept up the clippings and tossed them into her dustbin—a year’s anticipation and a lifetime of dreaming discarded in seconds.

The long-hair experiment was one way station on my ongoing path toward self-discovery and acceptance. As with most of my experiments, I don’t regret it. I’ve landed somewhere between short and long, control and surrender, convention and rebellion. I’m glad I pushed my boundaries; now I feel a little freer inside them.

2025 Wrap-Up: Looking Back, Looking Forward

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I’m closing out 2025 with a review of the most popular articles I’ve posted on this blog since its inception in January 2017. With All Due Respect has a limited audience of just over one hundred followers, composed chiefly of friends, former colleagues, and a few strangers who have found me through internet searches. It’s intriguing what people find interesting. 

LOOKING BACK …

…at my stats over the last nine years, the most popular post, the one with over 1.5K hits, surprisingly is Nursing Homes: Clothing and Incontinence. It has topped the list of most-read annually for the life of the blog, including in 2025. Indeed, five of the top fifteen articles are related to aging, senior health care, and nursing homes. Is this surprising? Is aging of concern just for my peers, or more generally these days?

This article on incontinence and the treatment of patient clothing in nursing facilities gets at the very heart of human dignity and the respect or lack thereof that we demonstrate toward one another. Incontinence is often viewed by those who are gradually losing control over their lives and their bodies as the last frontier, the most humiliating, debasing loss. I’m not surprised that search engines have brought readers to my humble blog post.

I imagine a reader, perhaps a daughter, exhausted by months or years of care for her elderly parents, seeking advice on what to expect if she gives in and places one or both in a nursing facility.  What would upset Mom most, she wonders. What would Dad hate the most about it? Sitting in a urine puddle in a bed or wheelchair, she suspects. So, she searches the internet to find out how nursing homes manage incontinent patients.  Up pops my post, and she is mesmerized and appalled.

Little has changed in nursing facilities in the nine years since I wrote that article. The better-funded and staffed ones do a more acceptable job of managing incontinence and clothing care. However, the direction of senior health care funding in this country does not bode well for the future of even these places. The general societal attitude toward the elderly has not improved appreciably, though end-of-life care through hospice and Death with Dignity legislation have advanced the quality of life approaching death for many.

Curiously, my second-most popular blog post is The Waterwheel, with 803 hits.  It quotes well-known and beloved poet Rumi’s wisdom and was written just a few days after the start of the COVID pandemic. Its message of taking up and letting go, embracing and relinquishing, is just as personally, socially, and politically relevant now as it was in March 2020. I suspect most readers find it by googling “Rumi” or, perhaps, “letting go,” a frequent theme in my writing.

The Anatomy of Respect, with 617 hits, comes in third. It goes to the heart and root of this blog over the last nine years by emphasizing the role of listening deeply to understand and develop respect.  I have tried to link each essay, poem, and story in the blog to the theme of respect and have encouraged my readers to share their experiences and reflections in response.  Truthfully, only a few readers have done so.

The most extensive dialogue with a reader occurred when a self-described, deeply conservative Republican, then Trump supporter, businessman, and father, Ryan, challenged me to engage in conversation about our differences after I posted the next-most-popular article (with 323 hits), Deep Listening, in December 2020. Our exchange of philosophical, political, and religious ideas, recorded in the comments following the Deep Listening article, began in February 2021. It ended in July 2022 when his family and business life became too busy and complicated for him to continue writing. It was fascinating and encouraging to see how much we had in common. Also, it was extremely challenging to be open-minded and respectful when we differed.

Often, at the beginning of a new year, I launch a new theme with the intention of focusing my writing on a particular aspect of respect throughout the year. It’s not always apparent how the theme relates to my overall subject. For instance, Practicing for the Big Let Go, begun in January 2024, initiated my reflections on letting go in everyday situations as a way of preparing for our final surrender at the time of death. What does this have to do with respect? Letting go involves engaging with the fundamental truth of impermanence—constant change. It requires respect for oneself, others, the flow of events, and our nature as human beings.

LOOKING FORWARD

As 2026 looms on the horizon, and I take stock of the world around me, close to home and farther away, I find it disingenuous to wish an uncomplicated and joyful “Happy New Year” to my friends. I wonder which aspect of respect we will encounter, reflect on, and perhaps write about in the coming year.  As I grow older, my journey toward self-awareness takes me into more vulnerable, authentic, and intuitive territory. As I approach the culmination of life, I’m confronted by my affinity, even my oneness, with those whose ideas and actions I find disturbing or even abhorrent. Painful as it sometimes is, I sense my kinship and interdependence with everyone and everything. Thich Nhat Hanh called this “interbeing.” Acknowledging our interbeing, my three-fold aim to do no harm, help everyone, and embrace life just as it is, is a perennial and unrelenting challenge.

So, instead of “Happy New Year,” here’s my wish for us all. May we seek to respect one another, and may we meet next year’s opportunities to do so with courage, accept their invitation with curiosity, and respond with compassion.

Love in All Seasons

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“Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.”

—Anne Brontë

One morning, a couple of years ago, as I accompanied my dog on his first walk of the day along a well-worn trail through the woods near my home, I was surprised by something I had not noticed before. I saw a path, intentionally bordered on either side by clean barkless branches, which led away from the beaten track over dead leaves, broken sticks, and brown ferns shriveled by frost.

 It was the height of tick season in Maine, so I hesitated to step into the underbrush, trailing my dog on his lead, but my eyes followed the branch borders of the path deeper into the woods.  There, on a stick wedged between two conjoined tree trunks, something brown and out of place dangled.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I had to get closer to be sure. 

Taking a deep breath and hoping no deer ticks would crawl up my legs or bury themselves in my dog’s curious muzzle, I stepped onto the path and gingerly picked my way about twenty paces into the woods.  My eyes had not deceived me.  A sturdy pair of men’s walking shoes hung by their laces, artfully draped over the stick. What could this mean?  Who would leave their shoes behind in the woods?  These lace-ups still had a lot of life in them.

Something prevented me from touching them—some intuition that this was a holy place.  I took a picture of them, and retraced my steps, my dog tugging me back to our usual route. However, the image of the shoes stayed with me for the rest of our morning walk, and the place where they hung became the destination for frequent pilgrimages in days to come.

After several visits, I began to suspect that these were my neighbor Simon’s shoes, and that they had been lovingly arranged in the woods where he frequently walked, his camera dangling from his neck.  Simon had died several months before, and I surmised that his widow deposited the shoes in a setting he loved near their home, where she could visit them often to commune with her husband.  I took the risk of asking her if I had guessed correctly, and she, blushing but shyly pleased that someone else had discovered her memorial, confirmed it. 

Over the last couple of years, my pup and I have visited Simon’s shoes countless times.  Cynthia, Simon’s wife, adds bits of flora to mark the seasons—sometimes delicate wildflowers in spring, ferns in summer, red, yellow, and golden leaves in fall, and, of course, winter provides its own decoration. Each time I set out on my pilgrimage, I look forward to discovering these simple but artful adornments.

All I know of Simon are these shoes and the few memories of her beloved husband that Cynthia has shared with me. By the time the couple moved into my neighborhood, he had already begun to decline.  I would pass him on my afternoon walks and receive a silent smile in response to my cheerful hello.  He was, by then, not much of a conversationalist, especially with strangers.  His soft-spoken words were sparing, but the few I heard were direct and gentle. 

I marveled that the memorial shoes were in such good shape.  According to his wife, Simon had worn them on hikes all over Europe and America.  Once, on a walking trip in Ireland, amid a powerful wind and rainstorm, he and Cynthia took refuge in a farmhouse along their way.  The family welcomed them to warm up and dry off at the hearth. So, Simon propped his feet in front of the open fire, scorching the soles of his shoes before he realized what was happening. Thrifty as he was, he saw no reason to replace the singed footwear. Like his shoes, Simon was humble, loyal, and resilient.

Simon’s memorial shoes, their constancy, adaptation, and beauty in every season, have become an icon for me.  A symbol for the humility that embraces and accepts what is, even when the reality is absence. Gradually, these old shoes will succumb to the elements and disintegrate, but not before they have taught many passersby a profound lesson.  We continue after death, transformed surely, but ultimately, reunited with the elements that made us, enlivened us, warmed us, fed us, cleansed us, and sheltered us. Finally, we come home.

Simon and Cynthia are not the real names of my neighbors.

The Art of Life

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Boston, South Station Bus Terminal, Peter Pan Bus Line, August 15, 2024.

Anxious, tired, embarking on an unfamiliar journey. I sit—rolling suitcase parked in front of me, heavy backpack drooping from my thin shoulders, iPhone in hand with QR code for boarding queued for use—trying to take up as little space as possible in the waiting area and the world. My fellow travelers are as silent, anxious, and self-absorbed as I am—our noses all pointed towards our screens, lost in texts, music, or internet searches, earbuds contributing further to our intentional isolation.

I look up as a dark-clad figure passes the window before me, separating the waiting area from the boarding dock, where the bus will arrive in minutes. The man lopes gracefully, quietly pulling a large utility cart behind him. He pays no attention to the passengers waiting on the other side of the window, and none of us pay him any mind either.

I’m only vaguely aware of his presence until he removes a long pole from the cart and attaches a dripping, soapy white window scrubber, which he draws from the bowels of the cart with the dexterity of a magician pulling a bouquet out of a hat. What rivets my attention in these first moments is the fluidity with which he attaches the scrubber to the pole. He presents himself to the first in a row of grimy windows, and, with a well-rehearsed and measured flourish, swishes the plush tool back and forth on the dirty glass, his body flowing with the movement of his arm, the bubbles on the panes lining up in precise rows each about twelve inches wide.

I am watching an artist at work, and now I cannot look away. He dances along the row of windows, spreading suds over the top half of each, covering the entire set in under a minute, pausing briefly to examine and correct his work here and there with another stroke or two. From my side of the window, I can’t imagine what flaw in his artistry he has detected and repaired. Then, plop goes the scrubber back into a bucket in the innards of the cart, and out from behind him, a pocket perhaps, he draws a squeegee, flips it in the air, and catches it with precision. 

Almost before the bubbles on the windows burst, his arm sweeps, with delicate pressure, back and forth across the surface of each pane, creating a clarity I would not have believed possible. He brings the blade to the exact edge of the glass and deep into each corner so that no drip or smudge remains. He stands back and examines his work with the refined eye of an art critic, seems to judge it satisfactory, and then repeats the entire process with the bottom half of each windowpane, his laser attention, poised relaxation, and complete dedication to excellence not wavering for a single second.

I sit, mesmerized by this performance, feeling that I am in the presence of a master who has studied his craft intently with an innocent dedication to excellence. No one else lifts their head from their phone.

The incoming bus arrives, the driver emerges, and a few passengers debark. They retrieve their luggage from the underbelly of the still-humming giant, and the outgoing passengers crowd the door to the boarding platform. The window artist gently places two tall yellow hazard pillars on the concrete platform to alert wayfarers to wet pavement. He adjusts them several times, looking around carefully to judge where an oblivious traveler might place an unwary foot. Then he steps aside, at ease in his invisibility.

I’m in the middle of the line of those embarking, and in the bustle of QR code scanning, luggage stowing, and seat choosing, I lose track of the window artist; my anxiety about decision-making and getting things right blinds me again. But once we pull out of the station onto the southeast expressway, I take a few deep breaths, reconjure the window washer image, and secretly smile behind my N95 mask.

I feel the gods have smiled on this journey, fortuitously begun by watching another human give his very best to an ordinary act of labor, transforming it into a labor of love, a dance of dignity, and an icon of respect for self and others.

Everything is an Opportunity for Waking Up

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Heedful of the 15-mile-an-hour speed limit, I drive carefully through the empty streets of my retirement community on an ordinary day. Suddenly, I see something extraordinary.  

A Great Blue Heron presides regally on the left side of the road. Holy s_ _ t! I whisper to myself as I pull cautiously to a stop. The bird is immense, nearly as tall as I am. It looks at me intensely, slowly turning its small head atop its slender curved neck so that one eye can focus on my fire engine red car a mere twenty feet away. Its black legs equal nearly half its height. A pale blue-grey, aerodynamic cluster of chest feathers and folded wings perch atop them. The neck flows upward from this central mass and is crowned by a proportionally small head and a disproportionally long, pointed beak. The bird stares calmly; I stare, slack-jawed and awestruck. Moments pass, each of us immobile. Then, gracefully, the heron lifts one thin pole of a leg, revealing four equally skinny toes, three in front and one in back, bends its miniature knee backward, and steps over the low wooden barrier on the side of the road. It follows with the second leg and glides elegantly down the steep bank littered with fallen oak leaves, broken branches, and rotting tree trunks toward a shallow pond.

Wanting more, I push the gear shift into “park,” slide out of the car and grab my iPhone from my right back pocket. I walk quickly but fluidly—not to frighten the bird—to the side of the road and look down the bank. The heron has already reached the pond and is moving deliberately through the water on its stick legs. It is well camouflaged by autumn golds and browns—bare branches, yellowed leaves, and black water. Its body feathers blend with the trees, and its legs, neck, and pointed beak are almost indistinguishable from the willowy saplings around it.   The Great Blue appears to be the forest gliding through itself.

The terrain is too steep and cluttered with woodland debris for me to descend on the same route as the bird, so I swing around to the right and take the familiar path to the pond, clicking pictures of the heron whenever it emerges into view through the underbrush. Click, click, click. (None of the shots are any good; it turns out later.)

Finally, he stands still at the edge of the pond. I do, too. I am entranced—all glowing eyes and beating heart. I don’t know how to take in such exquisite beauty, powerful fragility, and deep composure. The heron and I are alone together. From my perspective, I am the admirer, and he is the admired—there is no space in my mind to consider his perspective.

For several minutes, neither of us moves. Then I think, I have to tell someone! Quietly and slowly, I turn and walk back to my car, still idling by the side of the road, the driver’s door open. I slip my phone back into my pocket, drive the remaining minute to my front door, and burst in, “There’s a Great Blue Heron in the pond!”

Sarah Faith is impressed and immediately Googles “Great Blue Heron” on her iPad, reading aloud to me the information the search engine pulls up. It is a large bird with a wingspan of 5.5 to 6.6 feet and a height of 3.2 to 4.5 feet. It hunts alone but nests in colonies, usually in tall trees near water sources. It feeds mainly on fish but also eats other aquatic animals, insects, and rodents, and it can eat up to two pounds of fish per day.

In Native American tradition, it is associated with good luck and loyalty. In Christianity, it represents perseverance and patience. In Celtic tradition, it heralds renewal and calmness in challenging situations. It symbolizes the characteristics of balance, strength, clarity, and connectedness.

The facts, myths, and omens wash through my ears and into my brain. Google encourages me to consider my encounter with this bird a fortuitous event. But I’m only half paying attention, impatiently, to the information. I feel a powerful urge to return to the pond as quickly as possible to see if the heron is still there—to feast my eyes on this miracle again. But I don’t go alone. My entrenched sense of responsibility reminds me that my dog needs his afternoon walk, so I leash up the frisky little guy and take him with me, insisting, “No barking!” as we go.

It takes only a couple of minutes for us to reach the pond. Lo and behold, the heron is still there, standing stalk still in the same spot it was ten minutes before. Because it is camouflaged, the dog doesn’t see it, and it is too far away for him to pick up a scent, so while he sniffs the decaying leaves at our feet, I stand and gaze again. The heron is not fishing; it’s waiting. Motionless, we watch each other.

Moments pass, and I have another brilliant idea. I must share this experience with someone likely to appreciate its specialness as I do. I think of my neighbor on the street next to the pond, a woman who loves the forest and its creatures. You stay there, I silently tell the bird, I’ll be right back.

I knock on my neighbor’s door; sure enough, she’s interested in seeing a Great Blue. While she puts her coat on, the dog and I shuffle from foot to foot impatiently. When she emerges from her front door, and we walk toward the pond, we hear a faint drone in the distance. “Leaf blowers!” she exclaims, extremely annoyed. “They ruin this place. They drive me nuts!”

I try to be sympathetic, but I want her to focus on the beautiful bird I am sharing with her. However, the noise from the blowers has ruined it for her, and perhaps for the heron too, because he looks around anxiously after a few more moments and glides upstream toward the footbridge. My neighbor and I decide it’s time to move on and leave him in peace. She invites me to walk in the woods a little longer, and we take the dog for his afternoon stroll together, chatting quietly about the quotidian details of our lives: sleepless nights, failing health, and community news.

Later that afternoon, in a pause between activities, I recall the image of the Great Blue. I’m antsy and annoyed with myself. I sense I’ve missed a profound opportunity for communion and insight. I rehearse the compulsive behaviors that prevent me from being fully present in life: photographing experiences to preserve them, researching facts to understand, seeking to share soul-stirring occasions with others to pursue intimacy, and letting responsibilities deflect me from my heart’s call. Why could I not simply stand still and look, listen, and open myself? Why could I not be fully aware of the essence of the encounter? Might a veil have lifted? Might I have seen the truth?

The following morning, during meditation, I calm my agitation and recall the image of the Great Blue, as I first saw it, regal, by the side of the road. I breathe deeply and gaze long, feasting on the mental vision with my third eye, the eye of intuition. The bird, in all its majestic peacefulness, revisits me. This time, instead of analyzing it, I recognize it. I know it for who it is—an avatar. The divine source of everything, incarnate in the form of a Great Blue Heron, stands amid an ordinary day. Solitary yet inseparable from the world, it moves effortlessly through beauty, chaos, and debris, self-assured, serene, and unafraid.

In the last few weeks, I’ve repeatedly returned to my mental picture of the Great Blue Heron. Each time, I feel revisited by an inexpressible peace and humble confidence that the bird and I are kin. I am also an avatar, an incarnation, though partial and flawed, of the source of all goodness. Each time the vision of the Great Blue returns to me, I am certain of the indestructibility of this exquisite world, the love from which it is born, and my intrinsic place within it.

Be Kind

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I must admit up front that I am nervous about holding my mobile phone against my ear for long periods. Research has not conclusively shown that radio frequencies emitted by cell phones cause cancer, but it has not disproven it either. So, when possible, I place my phone in speaker mode, especially when I expect to get an automated response to my call, like when I call the pharmacy to check on the status of a prescription.

            I did this one morning about a month ago. I touched the various numbers that led me along the path to discovering the status of my order but met with a roadblock on the way, so I went back to the main menu and pressed the number to speak with a pharmacist. A woman came on, and I began to explain the situation to her. Suddenly she interrupted me to bark, “Stop yelling at me!”

            I was flabbergasted since I thought I was talking in a normal voice, so I stammered, “I’m not yelling.”

            “Yes, you are!” 

            “Well,” I hesitated, “I have my phone on speaker, and perhaps the volume is too high; let me turn it down.”

            “That’s not it, you’re yelling. Just answer my question!”

            I meekly asked her to repeat the question, answered it, and was told the prescription awaited pick-up. “Okay,” I whispered and hung up.

            Wow, I thought, she’s having a bad day.

            About a week later, I had an unrelated conversation with a healthcare professional in my community. She asked me if I had noticed the signs posted at the local hospital and in virtually all doctors’ offices asking patients to be kind to staff and one another. I had not paid much attention but had a vague recollection that I had seen such signs and that they were also displayed in yards throughout my town. “BE NICE,” “BE KIND,” they reminded. She noted that these signs were relatively new.

Before the pandemic and the concurrent escalating political divide, such reminders were not as necessary because unkindness, rudeness, anger, and frustration were not as prevalent in public as they are now. People, she reflected, are just not as patient and thoughtful of one another as they used to be, and healthcare professionals, while not the only ones encountering such bad behavior, are some of the most frequently abused. The same essential personnel who risked their lives to come to work during the height of COVID, while many of us avoided public places, are being disrespected and insulted. No wonder they are quitting their jobs in droves, she posited.

            Her words and the encounter with the pharmacist started me thinking about two things:  how little we know about the people we encounter daily and how much we need to give one another the benefit of the doubt in every situation.

            To go back to the pharmacist. She had no idea why my voice was coming through the line so loudly; she didn’t know that my phone was on speaker or that my spouse was hard of hearing, and that I habitually speak in a louder-than-normal voice. I didn’t know whether the call she received just before mine had been an unpleasant encounter with a demanding customer or if she was alone in the pharmacy trying to catch up on a several-day backlog of script orders. We experienced each other as impatient and rude, but did we take a moment to consider each other’s circumstances, limitations, pressures, and challenges? Did we assume the other was a good person, needing patience and kindness, or did we conclude that she was obnoxious, demanding, and unworthy of respect? Did we have the capacity to give each other the benefit of the doubt and try to calm rather than stoke the flames of irritability?

            A couple of weeks after my conversation with the healthcare professional in my community, I went to a specialist’s office at the local hospital. I saw kindness signs posted at every turn of the corridor, in every elevator, and at three different sites within the specialist’s reception area—a desperate plea to patients to calm themselves and treat others respectfully.

            How do we increase our bandwidth for kindness and respect in all the encounters of our daily lives? We can start by getting in touch with our own innate goodness, being kind to ourselves, and understanding where our instinctual and habitual reactions come from. Then, we can assume that the other problematic person is also innately good, dealing with some of the same human challenges we are, and deserves to be cut some slack. And we can imagine walking in their shoes even briefly or shifting to see the situation from their perspective.

Monica Guzman’s book, I Never Thought of It That Way, uses the acronym INTOIT (to capture the title’s notion) and encourages us to be open to INTOIT moments when our perspective is changed, broadened, or softened by seeing things newly through the eyes of another. She encourages us to ask, with genuine curiosity, the fundamental question, “What am I missing?” To acknowledge that the picture in my head is not the complete picture of any person or situation; it’s just my perspective.

We cannot know all the conditions and circumstances that have made someone who they are at the moment we encounter them or why they say and do what they say and do that may aggravate or thrill us. But since we long for understanding and respect, we can infer that they, too, yearn for it, along with grace, kindness, courtesy, and indulgence. As the Dalai Lama says, “Genuine compassion is based on a recognition that others, like oneself, want happiness.”

            Kindness is as kindness does. It is not a warm, fuzzy feeling but a way of being and acting. It is not needed now, more than ever, but now as much as ever. Be kind.

In the Twinkling of an Eye

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I’m sitting on the small beach in downtown Bar Harbor, Maine, on a cool, showery day in late June. My sister, Ann, visiting me from Nova Scotia, has just arrived on the CAT, the ferry between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth. We’ve walked the main street, popping in and out of shops, and are now killing a little time before having lunch at a nearby Italian Restaurant—she’ll tell anyone how much she loves pasta!

Ann saunters down the short stretch of rocky beach, eyes trained on the ground before her, searching for elusive beach glass and unusually shaped and colored beach stones. I’m wearing my navy Sketchers with white soles, and I don’t want to get them wet and dirty, so I have decided to sit still on a large stone at one end of the beach and wait for Ann to carry out her meticulous search. 

A few feet away sit two fortyish women, also perched on large stones, chatting easily about summer clothing they have purchased or hope to purchase. A few children—I’m not paying attention—ranging in age from about eight to perhaps sixteen, wander back and forth from their mothers to the water’s edge. A teenage boy settles beside one of the women and sorts through the wet stones at his feet. 

All this is happening within my peripheral vision. I’m staring off into space, focusing on my private thoughts, so I only half see what happens next in the twinkling of an eye. The teenager picks up a stone, large enough to fill the palm of his hand, and raises his arm to toss it into the water. He pulls his arm back, but instead of throwing forward, he loses his grip on the stone, and it flies sideways, out of his control.

I hear a crunch, like a finger poking through an eggshell, then a gasp and an “Oh my God!” I focus my attention on the group.  One of the women clutches her head in her hands, bright red blood spreading through her quickly matting hair and dripping between her fingers. Her face is pink and blotchy, and she is rocking back and forth, gasping for breath. 

“Mom! I’m so sorry. I’m sorry! Mom! Mom!” the boy pleads in a hushed but urgent voice. His mother doesn’t answer. She’s trying desperately to master the pain. The second woman and the children cluster; they whisper urgently to one another, asking what to do. The woman at the center of the circle is silent, rocking. I sit still, saying nothing, willing them to know what to do next. I’m tempted to pull out my phone and dial 911, but I wait. This is their crisis; let them handle it. I have no right to intrude, at least not yet.

“Can you walk? Let’s get you off the beach,” says the other mother. She and the boy lift the injured woman, holding her under one arm and by the other elbow, wrapping arms around her waist. She leans on them, and they slowly and jerkily shuffle toward the parking lot just a couple hundred yards away. As they trudge, the uninjured mother pulls her phone out of her bag, and I hear the beep, beep, beep of the dial tone.

I watch them go, then turn to see that Ann, oblivious to this scene, has almost completed her beachcombing and is ready for lunch. When she approaches, I tell her what’s happened, emphasizing the eerie sound of the stone connecting with the woman’s skull. We talk about how a day, and sometimes a life, can change in a moment—from a relaxed vacation at the seashore to a head injury that may have traumatic and lasting effects. As Ann and I leave the beach for the restaurant, the ambulance arrives, sirens wailing, lights flashing. That family’s day has changed irreversibly, without warning or intent, in the twinkling of an eye.

I cannot get this incident out of my mind for the rest of the day. I wonder how the woman feels, whether she is still in the emergency room or if the injury was serious enough to put her in ICU. Or was it just a minor cut, and she is already back at the B&B with her husband, family, and friends, sipping a cocktail before dinner?

That night I lay in bed before sleep, musing on life’s fragility, insecurity, and uncertainty even in the calmest and most seemingly benign situations. When we wake up each morning, we never know what the day will hold—celebration or grief, joy or tragedy, safety or danger, a new beginning, or a sudden end. I carry my reflections to the extreme, as I am wont to do, and imagine what it must have been like for Jews to wake up in the morning in Auschwitz, wondering if they would eat the usual wormy porridge, freeze while pointlessly hauling heavy rocks, or die in a shower of gas. Or would they see a smile from a fellow prisoner handing them a scrap of bread or hear the sound of the tramping boots of friendly soldiers opening the gates to deliver them from hell?

How do we live with such overwhelming uncertainty? We pretend that it doesn’t exist, that we know what to expect and what the future holds. We forget or do not allow ourselves to remember that circumstances, large or tiny, change in the twinkling of an eye.

After our recent trip to Italy, where my partner spent five days in the hospital with acute asthmatic bronchitis, I grumbled about the time and effort of filing the trip insurance claim to recover the extra medical, food, and accommodation costs. I slogged irritably through the tedious paperwork and bureaucracy, expecting it to drag on for many months. One morning, I determined I could no longer avoid filing what the instructions told me were the last pieces of information necessary to complete the claim. I logged on to the insurance website to do so, frustrated, bored, and tired of it all. Lo and behold, in the twinkling of an eye, my mood and my day changed. The claim status page announced that the company had mailed checks for nearly $1000 more than I had originally claimed. “Hallelujah!” I shouted. We never know, do we?

It’s a truism, and while we are tired of hearing it, the only way to live with uncertainty is to accept it and face it, moment by moment, trusting that we will have the inner and outer resources to meet whatever arises. Let’s not pretend, though, that the unpredictability and changeableness of life are not uncomfortable. Let’s be real. However, the more we try to resist the constantly changing nature of our existence, the more certainty and control we try to establish in our minds or circumstances, the more anxiety we bring to ourselves. The more expectations we entertain, the more disappointment, dread, and suffering we invite.

“Let go, accept, and surrender” are hard words to hear or say—challenging attitudes to adopt. But they, like all new habits, become easier with practice. Embracing life just as it is, moment by moment, can lead to the only security and confidence we will ever know in the face of our groundlessness. All occasions are opportunities for understanding and insight. There is a kernel of goodness at the heart of everyone and everything.

The only truth we can hold onto as things constantly change in the twinkling of an eye is the promise given to St. Julian of Norwich in the 14th century, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Aging Gracefully

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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.

Noticing Respect in 2022

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“Is treating someone respectfully fundamentally different from respecting him, her, or it?”

I posed this question in my first blog post in 2022, and I return to it in my last. (Though technically, it’s 2023 already, today is New Year’s Day Observed on the iPhone calendar.)

In the last year, I have reflected on, written about, and invited your comments on various instances of respect—situations I have encountered in daily life that have caused me to examine the meaning of respect more closely. For example, I wrote about respecting others through an open, honest, invitational style of communication embraced by Maine’s CDC Director, Dr. Nirav Shah, as he interacted with the people of our state during the height of the COVID pandemic.

I shared the “Just Like Me” practice of recognizing that everyone, even those whose ideas and actions are sometimes antithetical to our own, has many of the same human attributes, desires, hopes, fears, sorrows, and losses as we do. This practice encourages points of identification to generate empathy and nurture even the tiniest grain of respect. In “Respect Amid Conflict,” I wrote about two principles crucial to navigating conflict respectfully: understanding oneself and seeking to understand the other, ferreting out one’s deepest motivations and underlying assumptions, and keeping an open heart and mind about the experience and perspective of the other.

In “Respect in Extremis,” I reflected on respecting the essence of a human being when accomplishments, attractiveness, and self-control are stripped away at the end of life. In the article titled “What Is,” I illustrated the habit of noticing and accepting the ordinary miracle of each moment, welcoming and flowing with it instead of resisting and wishing things were different. In “Two Tales About Respect,” I explored how experiencing disrespect from another may tap into our lack of self-respect. I also exemplified how inner doubt and confusion about the right thing to do in a situation can cause one to act disrespectfully toward others.

The three posts about my friends Jack and Vicky dealt in depth with their experience of years of homelessness, followed by a brief period of stable housing, Vicky’s severe illness, and ultimately their deaths within two weeks of each other. The articles, telling the story of our friendship, were my memorial gift to honor them. Their backgrounds and life experience and mine were dramatically different, yet we came to understand, respect, and love one another.   And finally, “Respecting Limitations and Letting Go.” Recognizing and accepting our limitations and those of others is a lesson we must all learn as we grow older. Learning to let go when the time is right will prepare us for the end of life when we must ultimately let go of everything.

So, back to the original question: “Is treating someone respectfully fundamentally different from respecting him, her, or it?” I’m currently living in a divisive atmosphere. There are many perspectives on the problem we share, but for clarity, I think I can safely say that two slightly porous camps have emerged. Each wants respect from the other. Each desires to be heard, understood, honored and treated kindly and politely. Trust has been damaged, and respect is frayed and floundering. 

But can we treat each other respectfully, even if each camp has done and said things that have damaged the esteem we formerly felt for one another? And would respectful words and actions move us toward restoring genuine respect? Would they help us navigate this situation, repair the divisions, and solve the problems? 

And what would treating each other with respect look like, even if we are not feeling it? We could begin with the old gem, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That might include giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, not presuming to understand all the complicated nuances of the situation or the difficulties others face. Listen and communicate. Recognize defensiveness in yourself, but don’t act out. Don’t say hurtful things, be gentle, and practice courtesy. Don’t avoid one another (downcast eyes, looking away) but take risks to build genuine relationships. Listen; communicate. Keep things in perspective by remembering to be grateful. Notice the good and speak up about it. Keep working at the solution, don’t give up or bail. Listen and communicate directly, face-to-face, and eye-to-eye. Behave respectfully, and you may earn respect.

So, I would posit that treating someone respectfully is not fundamentally different from respecting that person. Famously it is said you can’t make peace; you have to be peace. You can’t create respect; you have to be respect.

Respecting Limitations and Letting Go

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One of my dreams for retirement was to adopt a dog and train it as a therapy dog. I had owned several cats over my 63 years but never a dog, and I wanted one badly, almost like some women long to have children. I had admired service dogs for many years—their calm, competent demeanor and the trust between them and the people they serve. But I knew I didn’t have the patience or skill to train service dogs. Still, I imagined I could meet the training standards for a therapy dog—well-behaved in public, gentle, reliable, and willing to allow himself to be petted to comfort others. 

So, shortly after retirement, I adopted Digby. I had not planned on getting a puppy, but he was so darn cute I couldn’t resist him. When I met him for the first time, he had just had surgery to repair a broken leg, and he lay on the couch beside me, a huge cone circling his head, licking my hand like crazy, trying to make friends and quell his anxiety. He weighed about ten pounds and was white and apricot, a mix of Pomeranian and Papillon. I thought he would make a perfect therapy dog. His cuteness alone would bring joy to those he visited, and he was small enough to lift onto beds and into laps.

And so, the training journey began. Digby was six months old; still an exuberant, sometimes crazed puppy, and I was sixty-three, inexperienced, with limited energy and patience. The mixture was not quite a recipe for disaster but certainly portended frustration and exasperation for both of us. I could not control his barking, chewing, cat chasing, and peeing indoors for a long time. Likewise, he could not figure out how to please me.

Once we started training classes, I quickly learned I needed training as much as he did. Consistency was my biggest problem. I could not remember to act or react using the same commands in the same order (click, praise, and reward) each time I taught a new behavior. But I persisted, for almost three years, class after class—beginners’ obedience, intermediate, tricks, agility, nose works, advanced obedience, and Canine Good Citizen, repeating some of these classes multiple times. Eventually, he stopped chewing everything in sight and peeing indoors and could walk calmly next to my left knee, which I called “walking nicely.” However, he’s never stopped barking or cat chasing.

Finally, Digby and I made it to the moment of truth, evaluation by a representative of a therapy dog licensing organization in a real live therapy context—a senior healthcare facility. We were both nervous and needed correction and pointers from the evaluator, but after three trials, we were certified. He got his little red heart therapy dog tag, and I got a certificate I could show to volunteer coordinators in settings where we would visit to offer comfort and entertainment. Along the way, I learned that Digby was a performer and a ham. He loved doing tricks to entertain an audience, but he was less comfortable being trotted around from one person to another for pets and cuddles. He loved children and was great at Read to Dog programs in local libraries and schools, but he was terrified of being surrounded by a group of college students seeking the calming presence of a dog during exam week. He was more freaked out than they were. Digby had his limitations, and I had to tailor our volunteer commitments to those.

After discovering his strengths and weaknesses, I focused our therapy work on tricks shows. We offered them to seniors in various healthcare facilities and children at a local library. He loved the mental stimulation, the applause, and the treats he got as rewards. His audiences loved him! “What an amazing little dog!” they clapped and shouted. To keep him stimulated, I taught him more and more tricks, up to 35 or so, and built him an indoor agility course, including a hoop to jump through, a tunnel, a teeter-totter, a ramp for climbing, and poles to weave around. He danced, shook hands, rolled over, crawled, spun, played soccer by rolling a ball through goalposts, and dazzled in many more ways. 

Watch Digby training to roll a ball through goalposts.

Performing together created a special bond between us. I was so proud of the little guy when he turned on a dime and did precisely what I asked, trick after trick, for over half an hour. He looked to me for guidance during the performances in ways he didn’t in other situations. We depended on each other. I loved seeing him succeed and bring joy to the audience; he loved my excitement and praise.

But he got older, and so did I.  After nearly four years of performing, Digby’s formerly broken leg began to show some weakness. He barked more during shows (sometimes frightening the children), tired more quickly, and became impatient during some of the tricks. On the other hand, I found it harder to load the heavy agility equipment in and out of the car and set it up in various venues. And it was hard for me to keep up with Digby as he ran around the agility course. I’d often be nervous about his behavior and enormously relieved when he performed well. We’d come home after a show and take a long nap together, both stressed and tired.

It seemed like Digby’s run as a therapy dog performer had been a short one, barely four years, but I decided we needed to retire, for both our sakes. It was a hard decision. I had invested much time, money, and effort in training. But it wasn’t just that; I would also miss the interdependence we had developed as we trained and performed together and the intimacy it brought to our relationship. And he would miss the mental and physical challenges of doing tricks and the admiration of his audiences. I wondered how I would keep him stimulated and exercised, especially during the long, cold Maine winters. When they heard of our retirement, the volunteer coordinators we worked with were disappointed but said they understood.

I tell this rather long story as an illustration of how many of us feel as we age and bump up against increasing limitations—our inability, for one reason or another, to continue doing the things we love or keep longstanding commitments. Sometimes it feels like failure to admit I no longer have the energy, skill, or interest I once had for certain activities. I hate letting others down, and I may experience a sense of diminishment as the circumference of my life shrinks.

I have three choices. I can try to push myself beyond my limits, whine about my losses, or accept and respect my limitations. Like all living things, I am of a nature to grow old, lose my freshness and vigor, decline into poor health, and eventually die. I try to mitigate these inevitable changes as long as I can—exercising to stay healthy and strong, eating well, and staying involved in work or leisure that stimulates my mind and keeps me connected to others. But do I know how to let go gracefully, when the time is right, of things I can no longer do safely or happily? I built my ego around the things I have accomplished, and when those accomplishments fade, who am I? Do I have anything to contribute? Do I matter to those I love or to the world around me? Respecting my limitations and letting go of what no longer serves me is an opportunity to turn inward and get to know who I am at my core—the I who will survive, transcend, and continue beyond the increasing outward limitations and diminishments.

Digby, reputed to be a fantastic trickster, will soon blend into the growing pack of aging dogs taking shorter and shorter walks around our retirement community. And, though it may not happen quickly, I will one day acquire a walking stick to keep me from tottering as he “walks nicely” beside me.  

Accepting and respecting my limitations is an opportunity to learn graceful letting go and practice it daily as I approach the biggest “let go” of all. As Pema Chodron’s recent book says, How We Live Is How We Die.