Head and shoulders, knees and toes...

The Vicissitudes of Aging

“These days I’m the advance scout for the experience of aging, and I’ve come back from the scouting party to bring good news. The good news is that the spirit is more powerful than the vicissitudes of aging.”
Ram Dass (Still Here)

I’ve reached that age when body-parts start talking back. Yesterday I spent several hours working in the labyrinth at my church. Some of the white stones marking the path had washed away, and weeds were growing in it. I remembered to bring a kneeling pad with me, since my knees looked like hamburger meat after last week’s work session. Even so, after a couple of hours, my knees said, “Excuse me; we will not get you up from here if you get down again—just a warning.” My back echoed the sentiment. I kept going for another half hour. Who wants their knees dictating what life will be? Getting up was slow and deliberate, walking even more so. Today, I’m sore all over—the revenge of the scorned body-parts.

Ram Dass wrote Still Here after having a stroke in 1997. It is a funny, poignant telling of the lessons learned while recovering. I, fortunately, have good health, but at the age of sixty, I realized that if there was something I really wanted to do, I’d better not procrastinate. Age is a great boon to goal setting. After the movie, The Bucket List, came out in 2007, many of my friends made lists and began checking things off. My list has only two wishes: to visit Ireland, from which my family came, and to publish a book. The first is relatively easy. The second is proving to be a challenge.

I have several friends in their eighties and nineties. One of them went birding on Dauphin Island last weekend. Another still occasionally drives to the beauty shop and to church and doesn’t kill anyone on the way. Both of them can run circles around me in the ‘brains’ department. One thing I’ve noticed is that they say what they think to whomever they choose; they don’t try to dress up that pig to make it more attractive either. They just lay it out there, take it or leave it. That’s what happens when there are no role models and no authority figures left.

My back and my knees have become independent entities, and so has my spirit. She corrects me all the time. When I say an obscenity, for instance, I hear, “Un-uh—take that back.” She’s getting louder, too. Before long, I won’t have a say about anything.

In the spirit,
Jane