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.

Year-End, My One Word – Rest

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As the year winds down for those doing One Word practice, many of us have turned our attention to discovering or choosing a new word for 2021.  Because Carolyn, whose blog has guided my practice this year, has been hosting a lively and inspiring conversation about selecting new words, it’s been tempting to let rest fade away quietly in December.  But I am a dutiful sort, and I know I owe rest a debt of gratitude and a summation of its impact on my life this past year.

It’s taken me nearly six years of retirement to settle into a slower, more mindful, less frantic pace of life.  Old habits die hard—the tendency to say yes and get involved before really thinking, in particular. But 2021 has offered me more open space and more free time, and the word rest has lent focus for settling into a new mode of living. 

These days, in both winter and summer, I routinely wake up at around four a.m. and, unable to go back to sleep, get up and begin my day while it is still dark and silent.  I’ve watched and photographed many glorious dawns, sat completely still in my cozy den with my dog beside me and a cat on my lap, just breathing and listening to the silence. So, each day begins gently and quietly. 

There is always at least one long, slow-paced walk early in the day, amid the beauty of green summer foliage or among stark bare winter branches.  I delight in the dog’s excited sniffing, in watching the trees sway, or searching for wildflowers. I try to get outside my head on these walks and observe what is happening around me. Just watch and listen.

After that, work—connecting, communicating, planning, writing, gardening, cleaning, errands, appointments.  Following the teaching of the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, I try to do each task mindfully. Of course, it’s going to take many more years of practice to be as aware and attentive as I aspire to be, but I’ve noticed tiny incremental improvements over the last six years, and that gives me hope.

For instance, I now sit down to eat meals most days, departing from my previous practice of grabbing bites between tasks or standing at the kitchen counter and spooning food into my mouth, often coughing after swallowing each mouthful. In summer, I may eat breakfast and lunch in the garden; a pair of clippers and a watering can close at hand so that I can roam from bush to flower, watering, and pruning as needed. When I first sit down at dinner time,  I pause and become fully present in the room, at the table, to the person(s) across from me and the food before me.  I give thanks and smell the delicious odors.  I try to put my fork down after each bite and concentrate on chewing and swallowing.  I still eat more quickly than anyone else at the table, but slightly more slowly than I used to do.

Swimming has gotten slower, and I spend more time luxuriating in the hot tub and the sauna after my swim.  I often take short naps, sometimes only 20 minutes, but they are deliciously relaxing and bring balance. Though I’ve not read nearly as many books as I would like, I’ve read more than in past years. 

These settling changes have come about gradually and naturally, but my mental and spiritual exploration of the word rest has influenced and provided new motivation for them. Using resources provided by Carolyn, monthly check-ins have enabled me to probe the meaning of rest for myself and the world around me.  Definitions, synonyms, word associations, visual images, sounds, and watching others have opened new doorways to understanding.  

For instance, I spent significant time contemplating balance, juxtaposing effort and rest using this image.  I would not know what rest is without exerting effort, and vice versa.

The Roots and Fruits image of a tree with many branches helped me hold all my discoveries about rest together, organically and systemically.

The Foundation and Building Blocks diagram teased out basic concepts intrinsic to my experience of rest.

Living with rest for the last year, reflecting on its meaning, has been not so much an attempt to change as an experience of noticing—observing the gradual transformation happening within me. With intention and practice, with patience, acceptance of failure, and beginning again, I’ve come to a more restful way of being.  Watching the process brings joy. Discerning progress, however small, gives hope.

I still have a long way to go.  My habits are tenacious.  But I am not leaving rest behind.  Indeed, I’ve chosen next year’s word(s) to take me further along the path to accepting, letting go, and resting.

Links to my previous posts on rest in 2021.

One Word – With All Due Respect

REST – My One Word – Mid-Year Check-In – With All Due Respect

The Tyranny of the List

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I’ve been making lists since, well, probably first grade.  As soon as homework entered my childhood world, I began making lists:  assignments for the next day or the next week; vocabulary lists; when playmates would come to my house, and I go to theirs; lists of things to do, lists of things to buy, lists of Christmas gifts requiring “thank you” notes, lists of letters or cards due, packing lists, bill paying lists, phone call lists, email lists.   Virtually all of my lists focus on things that I must not forget.  Sometimes, they are things I feel I must do to be viewed positively by someone else. 

Usually, making a list calms my anxiety about forgetting or failing. That function is a useful and helpful one.  A thorough, prioritized list can talk me down off the ledge of panic.  For most of my career, I was responsible for accomplishing my work and helping my bosses keep track of and achieve their goals.  I could not have been successful or, indeed, survived without an advanced “list-making” technique.

And then came retirement, and I went right on making lists.  To this very day, five and a half years after I left my last job, a list sits next to my computer—this one I have highlighted in multiple colors indicating the urgency of various tasks.

I’ve heard it said that there is a great deal of satisfaction to checking off a task on a to-do list.  I’ve experienced mild pleasure in doing that.  But invariably, for each job I check off, I add at least two and sometimes ten new ones. The sense of accomplishment does not last long or feel deeply gratifying.  Indeed, when I go to my list to check off a recently completed item, my eyes will stray to the rest of the list where I will note, with a sinking heart, the number of things I was NOT doing while I was finishing the one thing just checked off. Even as I initially choose one item to focus on for half an hour, I am aware that fifteen others will go undone in that timeframe.  Truly a depressing and discouraging realization—perhaps the epitome of the “glass half empty” syndrome.  Here are the things I am not able to do right now because I AM doing THIS.

It’s a vicious circle—a vicious list.

I have friends who make fun of me because of my “obsessive” list-making. The implication is that I am at least a little odd, if not downright bad.  It has been hard for me lately not to subscribe to their point of view.  And, truthfully, I’d like to do away with list-making as a thing of the past, no longer necessary in this more relaxed stage of my life.  But remember, I have been doing this since I was six years old. 

Realistically, I don’t think a complete about-face is likely.  I can and have moderated my list dependency, and I give myself breaks from it periodically when I am on vacation, sick, or on retreat. However, as with most other aspects of my life these days, the most helpful approach is to take myself less seriously, to “hold it lightly,” as one of my friends might say.

A few quotes from Pema Chödrön’s The Wisdom of No Escape (Shambala, Boston & London, 1991) might shed some light on the “path” I am currently cultivating:

“…if we see our so-called limitations [habits, crutches, addictions] with clarity, precision, gentleness, good heartedness, and kindness and having seen them fully, then let go, open further, we begin to find that our world is more vast and more refreshing and fascinating than we had realized before.  In other words, the key to feeling more whole and less shut off and shut down is to be able to see clearly who we are and what we are doing.” [p.13-14]
“The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself.  The other problem is that our hang-ups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth.  Our neuroses and wisdom are made out of the same material.  If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom…So whether it’s anger or craving [for comfort through list making!] or jealousy or fear or depression—whatever it might be—the notion is not to try to get rid of it, but to make friends with it.  That means getting to know it completely, with some kind of softness, and learning how, once you’ve experienced it fully, to let go.” [p.14-15]
“Our life’s work is to use what we have been given to wake up.” [p. 30]

Thank you, Pema! 

So, I am not going to pour a lot of energy into reform.  Instead, I’ll look deeply at what lies behind my list-making.  What are its roots?  Where does it come from?  What’s life-giving in it and what is not. I will offer acceptance to whatever I find in that investigation and hold it gently, lightly, and kindly. While I do that, perhaps I will find myself understanding and feeling compassion for others who, like me, have compulsions, coping mechanisms, and addictions.  I’ll wonder about the roots of their behaviors. And I’ll try to open up—wake up—to the other side of the coin of my neuroses and theirs, our wisdom.