Reflections on Aging
by Jim Freund
© 2021
There may be times when an octogenarian doesn’t think much about aging, but observing one’s birthday during that decade is not among them.
I know that’s so because I just celebrated my 87th last month, and the subject has been very much on my mind these past weeks. So, naturally, that’s what this month’s blog essay is all about.
My advice to those of you who are either too young to care about aging, or who (being old enough) do care but just don’t want to think about it, is to stop reading here. I’ll be happy to send you a copy of Jim’s Choice Jokes to keep you amused, while the rest of us wallow in our current (or incipient or yonder) “golden years.”
Those of you still hanging in there have probably been exposed to prior musings of mine on the subject. I’ve written and spoken about it quite a bit as I hit those big years – 50, 60, 75, 80, 85 – and observed notable events such as major college and high school reunions, and penned a recent memoir. So certain sections of this essay may have a reiterative feel – although keep in mind that you too have been aging along the way and may now sport an updated perspective. Anyway, stick with me, folks, because there’s a significant enrichment this time around.
I’ve gradually come to realize that some other commentators addressing the subject have found pithier ways to express themselves than yours truly. So, with a total absence of shame, I’ve borrowed a number of their observations from a pint-sized book entitled Age Doesn’t Matter Unless You’re a Cheese, in which Kathryn and Ross Petras have assembled examples of what they call “Wisdom from our Elders”. The 377 quotations in the book, all from persons over the age of sixty when uttered, aren’t organized in any particular way beyond a new (wee) page for each quote. I’ve singled out about nine percent of them that “speak to me” and tried to present each in a coherent context.
I’m also a fan of Judith Viorst, a woman of great perception and humor, who has produced several books of poetry on the subject; and I’ve borrowed liberally from two of those volumes – Unexpectedly Eighty and Nearing Ninety.
[Call me a coward, but the pandemic and its multifarious aspects are so overwhelming nowadays that for purposes of this piece I’ve chosen to ignore the whole thing and just direct myself to reflections on aging as if life were back to normal.]
PAST YEARS
I’ll get shortly to what the view on aging is from the vantage point of 87, but first let me supply some perspective by revisiting a few snapshots of my own ruminations from past years.
The first time I remember becoming keenly aware of aging and the passage of time was when I turned 50. Although realizing that nothing actually happens on that date (you’re not suddenly eligible for anything, nor are you precluded from other activities) and that its statistical significance is marginal, I felt the need to concede that “psychologically – the way it hits you in the head, without surveying the details – turning 50 is terrible.” It was a feeling that went back to our youth – to the sense then that anyone over 50 was an old man.
“Even worse,” I wrote, “at 50 you’re suddenly conscious of your own mortality. It’s like 1 p.m. at a ski resort, when they start selling the half-day tickets; or comparable to crossing the Continental Divide – instead of looking up at a peak, you’re heading down the far slope. That’s the real problem – and it’s all in your head.”
For those of you harboring any such negative assessments at 50 or in subsequent years, here’s how actress Helen Hayes advised to handle things:
The best way to adjust – no, ignore, most of the negative thoughts about aging is to say to yourself, with conviction, “I’m still the very same person I have been all of my adult life.” You are, you know.
I went on back then to enumerate some of the negatives I’d encountered at 50 – all of which, I must admit, have managed to survive for the subsequent 37 years. “I exercise, but too irregularly. I try to watch my diet, but my willpower’s weak. I still hate traffic jams, feel claustrophobic if I don’t get an aisle seat, and have trouble with anything mechanical.”
With respect to that bothersome inability to sustain a diet, the only ameliorating aspect has been the growing recognition that I’m not alone. Judith Viorst, for instance, chides herself (in I should be Over This by Now) for still chiding herself over things that should no longer matter, viz:
“I certainly should be over this by now/
considering that I’m a woman of some substance,/
acquainted with symphonies, sonnets, and Socrates,/
And therefore shouldn’t be troubled/
by the inconsequential fact that my stomach/
tends to obscure a clear view of my knees, /
which it wouldn’t if I weighed/
what I wanted to weigh.”
Bottom line, though, I took a hard look at myself at 50 and liked what I saw – feeling young and doing young things, spurred on by having met my exuberant boomer wife-to-be Barbara Fox, “who had directed all her youthful energy at me like the nozzle of a hose – I was dancing to her beat and loving it.” I even wrote a song titled 49.9 – revealing that “the apprehension proved to be much worse than the event,” providing a number of positive examples, and closing on an upbeat note: “This next decade ahead should be the best I’ve ever had – I do intend to thrive.”
And indeed, it lived up to its billing. Then, the year we all turned 60 (1994), my Princeton classmates asked me to address the topic at our annual dinner. But 60 didn't come as readily as 50; and in the face of assorted aches and pains, I had to struggle to find a glass-half-full theme. The motif I came up with was, "Hey, we're entitled!" We've made it this far – now we're entitled to stay in the shower an extra few minutes in the morning, take a day off at the races, forget someone's telephone number or address, and so on. Pretty soon, the whole room was echoing the entitlement refrain.
I wish I’d been aware back then of the neat way musician Bobby Short developed to handle such situations:
Nothing depresses me anymore. For a while in your life you worry about
the passage of time and getting old and . . . after a while you just say,
“My God, does it matter? Get on with it.”
By the way, the high point of that evening came after I opened up the floor to comments. A dozen volunteers rose to bitch about some sign of age that was bothering them – a cacophony of geriatric whining. Then my mother, who was in attendance, raised her hand to be recognized. "No, no," I said, "forget it, Mom." But others in the assemblage cried out, "Let her speak!" Marcy Freund got to her 87-year old feet (my very age now!), surveyed the superannuated crowd, and uttered this memorable put-down: "To me," she said, "you're all children!"
The years of turning 65 and then 70 passed without my feeling the need to publicly note such landmarks, but I did write pieces to mark the occasion of our 50th college reunion (when I was 71) and the tenth anniversary of retirement from my law firm (when I’d turned 72).
For the reunion book, I referred to the ten points of a piece I’d written for the 25th reunion volume and offered “ten fresh ones, garnered from my eldering experience over the past twenty-five years.” Notably, it started off with a true appreciation of the importance of good health – “a subject, incidentally, that I didn’t even allude to twenty five years ago.” But now, I realized, “Everything else – money, status, whatever – takes a back seat.”
I paid tribute to the importance of wives; awakened to the realization that it feels good to “give something back”; noted that “It’s more important to be wise than smart”; cautioned all to never assume a damn thing; celebrated the risk-reward analysis and the significance of resolving disputes; and preached the “challenge” aspect of retirement – finding something to do yourself, involving skill and creating opportunities for further improvement, to balance the biggest negative about retirement: namely, the jolt of voluntarily giving up the one thing you’re best at and most known for.
Having then been retired from my law firm for almost a decade, I thought it important to convey this thought to retirees:
“Don’t be surprised at how quickly they forget. You’re not indispensable – even if you’re missed, you can be replaced. Back then, you were somebody – now, at times, you can feel like a nobody. As for any of that adulation that used to come your way, fuhgeddaboutit.”
I followed that up with this thought on self-esteem – something that has stuck with me through the years:
“Don’t fall into the trap of letting your self-esteem be dependent on the praise or positive reaction of others. Don’t overrate yourself on the basis of extravagant acclaim from those who may not really understand what you do, or what constitutes quality work, or who may have other motives for uttering sugarcoated words. On the other hand, don’t underestimate yourself, either on the basis of criticism received (although this may serve as a warning signal), or – and this one can sneak up on you – based on the absence of an anticipated favorable reaction when you think you’ve done something quite well.”
“At our age,” I wrote, “we should be able to judge for ourselves how well we’re doing. Or as Shakespeare put it, ‘Go to your bosom / knock there / and ask your heart what it doth know’.”
In my 2006 article “A Retirement Scorecard”, I reflected at age 72 on what I’d discovered after a decade of being out of the office. To be sure, I “thoroughly enjoyed my unencumbered decade. But like most things in life, it’s not an unalloyed blessing . . . .” I termed retirement “a package deal” – a “balancing of pros and cons . . . . For almost every positive, a correlative potential negative lurks around the corner.” Some examples included:
The wonderful sense of freedom to do whatever you want is balanced by the absence of structure to your day – so “you have to schedule your activities each morning from scratch.”
The flip side of the delightful absence of stress is that you spend a lot of time alone – “no one is chomping at the bit for an hour of your time” – and you must learn to be good company for yourself.
You can do glamorous things, but “it’s still something of a shock to watch the dollars flowing out when there are no longer any dollars coming in.” And I pointed out “how hard it is to relinquish creature comforts that you and your spouse enjoyed when you were earning enough to afford them.”
Per this balancing act, here’s a thought by writer John Jerome that seems particularly apt in these uncertain times.
It’s worth asking! What do you want? It gets harder to answer as you get older. The answer gets subtler and subtler.
At 75, a special kind of milestone, I decided to take stock (although noting that virtually all my friends of similar age had let the occasion pass in much more stealthful fashion).
I began the piece with a personal anecdote highlighting an embarrassing short-term memory loss – a pesky feature of aging that was very much on my mind a dozen years ago. Today, of course, it’s still around with a vengeance – but it has become so routine that it’s now a subject of jokes. My current favorite goes something like this:
Mr. A: “I’ve been thinking a lot about hereafter recently.”
Mr. B: “Really? I didn’t realize you were that spiritual a guy . . . .”
Mr. A: “It’s not that so much – it’s more like when I go from one room in the apartment to another, and I say to myself, ‘What am I here after?’”
I started out with a little historical perspective to show that 75 is one hell of a lot of years.
“Someone who was 75 the year we were born (1934) would himself have been born in 1859 – a year before the Civil War began! Why, back then his mama and daddy didn't even know that Abe Lincoln was going to be such a big hit. . . .”
By the way, at 85 the calculation went back to 1849 – the start of the California gold rush.
Then I turned to what I called The Big Plus and The Big Minus. On the positive side, there was this indisputable plus to turning 75 for me and my chronological compatriots: WE MADE IT! The satisfaction over simply having survived had to be my first significant reaction. It was an achievement underscored by the disturbing reality that a growing number of contemporaries hadn’t made the cut.
But if survival was the big plus, there was also one indisputable minus to turning 75. PSYCHOLOGICALLY, IT SUCKS! How did we get to be so old? Where did the years go? The very number was awesome, creating a problem in our heads and making us conscious of our mortality.
Shakespeare was no help – it was clear we’d passed from the fifth stage ("the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lin’d . . . full of wise saws and modern instances") and eased into the "slippered pantaloon" of the sixth age, whose occupant’s “youthful hose” is much too wide for a "shrunk shank".
I also apologized for one segment of my "turning 50" piece, comparing the ages of man to the calendar months. I had June down for the good stuff that comes in your 30's, I awarded the prime month of August to the 50's, and so on. I was ashamed to admit, however, that I had coupled the early 70's to November – a month to which, back then, I ascribed a "penultimate feeling" (when, in the songwriter's words, "the days dwindle down to a precious few"). I then compounded the insult by comparing 75 with December – "the final chapter," I called it, although with the throwaway caveat that "there may be plenty of good times to come."
Here’s how I reacted to this at 75:
“Hey, Mr. Whippersnapper Freund, I don't feel even a little bit penultimate today – let alone mired in a final chapter. If I could go back, I'd renegotiate the month allocation with my younger self – asking for September, although perhaps accepting October by way of compromise.”
Now, a dozen years later, I’d still make a fuss, but probably settle for November . . . .
I concluded (and still feel) that much depends on how an individual stands in four key areas, which I then proceeded to assess myself on.
Health – I’d made it to 75 in pretty good shape. Hey, even for those with a myriad of health issues, it beats the alternative. As someone said to me back then when I voiced that thought, "Yeah, you're mowing the lawn instead of looking at the root system."
Family and Friends – obviously important, and I was pleased to score myself high on this.
Financial – I could well understand how it would be hard to feel positive about "the golden years" when you're under a lot of financial pressure. The year that had just passed (2008) was an especially trying one to many people in that respect. Barbara and I endured those financial shocks to the system like everyone else, but as my good friend Fred Bacher likes to say, "It's not how much you've lost – it's how much you have left." So, my paean to 75 sprang from a satisfactory (albeit reduced) level of financial comfort, while recognizing how much this factor can affect one's views.
Work, Retirement, Interests and Skills – And here I launched into an extended evaluation of retirement, which was going well for me. I left the practice of law relatively early and had then been retired for over a dozen years. [Today it’s two dozen-plus!] I'd managed to fill my time with a number of mostly pleasurable and gratifying activities. Other retirees I'd encountered ran the gamut from enjoyment to satisfaction to boredom to unhappiness.
A prime reason I had a positive youthful outlook on 75 was that I was poised in space and time between two strong women whom I loved dearly. At one extreme, there was my remarkable mother, still very much with us then at 101; at the other was my wife, many years my junior, whose multiple activities and energy made me constantly strive to keep up. Neither of these tenacious ladies allowed me to feel elderly for a minute.
Mom is gone now, after celebrating her 105th birthday. But my wife Barbara hasn’t let up taking care of me for a moment. I very much second this comment by historian Will Durant:
The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his wife.
In facing up to aging, I recommended these words of General Douglas MacArthur, which my mother introduced me to some years back as representative of her philosophy of life and which I still unequivocally endorse today:
"People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul . . . . You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When . . . your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then and only then are you grown old – and then indeed, as the ballad says, you just fade away."
I then referred to what remains my favorite song on the subject – surpassing even Young at Heart and You Make Me Feel So Young – Bob Dylan’s Forever Young, which closes with these stirring lines:
“May your hands always be busy / May your feet always be swift / May you have a strong foundation / When the winds of changes shift / May your heart always be joyful / May your song always be sung / And may you stay / Forever Young.”
MORTALITY
Now, onto the 80’s. For me, the biggest difference between octogenarian status and prior milestone birthdays was summed up in a quote I saw some years ago from Gloria Steinem (a contemporary) along the lines of, “80 isn’t about aging; it’s about mortality.”
Ugh! But much as I try to disregard stuff like this, it’s a reality that hovers out there, refusing to be ignored – even when I’m feeling full of beans.
I think a college classmate of mine put it best. Several years ago, our class lost three prominent members in the span of about a month. Standing outside the church after the third’s memorial service, I asked my classmate, “What’s your take on all this – what does it mean for the rest of us?” His answer was prompt and very much to the point: “Well, we may not be in the batter’s box, but we’re sure as hell on deck.”
If you don’t consider making it into the 80’s a feat to celebrate, I bet you haven’t looked recently at what the Old Testament has to say on the subject. It starts out very matter-of- factly – “The days of our years are three-score years and ten”. That, for you non-math majors, comes to 70. Then the prophets appear to throw the elderly a bone: “or even by reason of strength four-score years” (that gets us to 80) – but then it’s quickly snatched away with this bleak caveat: “yet is their pride but travail and vanity; for it is speedily gone, and we fly away.”
Don’t worry, though – I’m not going to dwell here on mortality, a topic I find quite difficult to deal with. Pertinent subjects like whether or not to pull the plug, or burial vs. cremation, or what comes after, are just not my cup of tea. I’m roughly in the same camp as my son Tom was at age 12, when I asked him how he was doing in terms of his spiritual education in Sunday School. “Dad,” he said, “when they start to talk about those things, I’ve just got to get up and walk around.”
An old friend of mine believed in reincarnation and told me several years ago that he was actually “looking forward” to his passing – which did occur soon thereafter. It seemed like an enviable way to approach the subject, and I’m also sure many of you find comfort in the teachings of your religion. For me, though, so far it’s still a matter of getting up and walking around – I’ve obviously got some work to do here.
So I took a look at what some notables had to say about mortality. One way to deal with the subject is to ignore its reality, which is what W. Somerset Maugham used to do.
Dying is a very dull, dreary, affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
Or you can crack jokes about it, like journalist Max Lerner did:
I want to die young at an advanced age.
But Agatha Christie was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing.
I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then – I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One luckily doesn’t have to bother about that.
For Judith Viorst, husband-wife relativity was important, so she concluded, upon reaching 80, “I’ve decided not to live longer than my husband.” Her initial solution (in After Giving the matter a Great Deal of Thought) sounded like this:
“I’ve decided my husband and I should die together,/
Pleasantly and painlessly,/ Of natural causes, of course,/
And at a ripe old age, whatever that means . . . .”/
Leaving our children “to remember a marriage both wonderful
and strenuous,/Actually, far more wonderful then strenuous,/
Or so I have finally decided/
After giving the matter a great deal of thought.”
But by the time Ms. Viorst neared 90, she no longer was as confident about that solution. In A Warning (or maybe a Love Song) for my Husband, she is worried about her husband dying before her (“widowhood’s not my Plan B”). Sure, he’s “a pain in the ass,” and yes, “we have what are called issues;” but
“After six decades of marriage/ I’d rather not go it alone./
The sentiment here may not thrill you/ But listen, my love, carefully;/
Keep staying alive, or I’ll kill you./ Don’t you dare die before me.”
As for yours truly, in view of my difficulty in dealing with mortality, I approve the spin that actor Edward G. Robinson puts on this:
If He has given us one marvelous gift, it is that He does not permit us to know the future. It would be unbearable.
I also find comfort in the following dialogue, quoted by Ram Dass:
Zen Student: “What happens after death?”
Zen Master: “I do not know.”
Zen Student: “How can that be? You are a Zen Master!”
Zen Master: “But I am not a dead Zen Master.”
What about once you’re gone? In Missing, Ms. Viorst strikes a plaintive note that many of us silently share:
“I think I will miss myself more than anyone else will,/
Myself as a part of the world that holds all I hold dear./
Since they make no exceptions / the time will arrive/
When it’s my turn to disappear,/ and the world will keep going on./
And on/and on/and on/
How can the world still go on/ if I’m not here.”
Then in My Legacy, Ms. Viorst follows this up with: “Here’s what I’m hoping to be remembered for.” Some of the things seem trivial (“Never, ever, leaving the house without eyeliner,” and “making a transcendent Matzah ball”), but others carry more weight (“sticking with what I’ve started until it’s done,” and “keeping the secrets I promised I would keep,” and “doing work I’m able to be proud of”). It ends with this hope and wish:
“Coming to terms with mortality . . . ./
Enjoying whatever there is to enjoy
until that final, time’s-up, closing bell/
And hoping – just a reminder – that I’ll be remembered.”
Meanwhile, buoyed by the fact that my mother, Marcy Freund, lived to a ripe 105, I like to assert, “Hey, I’ve got almost two decades left in the genes” (ignoring my father’s untimely passing at 67), and thus put off having to deal with any morbid stuff for the time being.
HEALTH
Much of how we deal with life after 80 (and this is true in spades at 87) has to do with the issue of health. It’s dangerous to start a conversation with a contemporary by using the standard greeting of, “How ya doin’?” That used to evoke a “Fine – how’re you?” response, at which point the two of you could get down to business.
Nowadays however, it can lead to an interminable medical/therapy interlude. As for the initial 15 minutes of a dinner out with senior friends, one wag has dubbed the invariable exchange of bodily info, “the organ recital.”
But such talk can have its uses. In What to Talk About, after complaining about the screaming, snarling, and “unseemly free-for-all” that today seems to accompany conversations on almost any other subject, Judith Viorst says:
“But there’s one question that unites the pack:/
Does anybody here have a bad back?”/
The world’s your friend when speaking of the spine./
Civility is never put at risk./ [So] stay focused on the herniated disc./ There’s animation rather than attack/ For everybody’s sharing /
And everybody’s caring/when everybody talks of their bad back.”
I’ve had my health problems over those years – dealing mainly with my aching back – and these have hampered me some, slowed me down physically; but this doesn’t compare in seriousness to the ailments that so many of my contemporaries have suffered from. Still it has produced an increased self- awareness of the fragility of my ongoing physical well-being. The prideful hubris I used to feel on the subject of health is gone.
And at some point, the common sense of Jimmy Carter’s surprising observation does become evident: At my age getting a second doctor’s opinion is kind of like switching slot machines.
(I must pause here, though, to voice a complaint against the terminology used by doctors. If there’s one phrase they use that I hate (e.g., in describing a bad back), it’s that I have a “degenerative” disease. It sounds to me like an indictment – the depraved patient having committed some immoral act that goes much deeper than a merely aggravated physical condition. . . .)
Here’s what gets me about adjusting to the role of a partial invalid (which occasionally happens to me, as was the case with a knee I twisted playing tennis which required use of a cane). Everything appears more complicated and time- consuming than usual – I seem to be operating in slow motion. Staircases become a problem, and uphill climbs a real chore.
But what most fascinated me was how much I came to resemble an old- fashioned octogenarian (you know, the kind that existed before 80 became the new 60 – but more on that point later). When you shuffle along tapping a cane, people feel sorry for you. They get out of your way, they encourage you to “go first”, they offer you their seat – and if you should chance to drop something, they jump in to pick it up.
I didn’t recall having experienced this previously and found it somewhat off- putting. Don’t they know that I’m really a splendid physical specimen with only a minor temporary patella problem? So when anyone who knew me asked what was up – and in some cases, even before they inquired – I was quick to implicate tennis as the culprit. I guess this was my way of underlining how fit I usually was and implying I’d soon be that way again.
On my most last solo airline foray before the pandemic, I wasn’t tapping a cane, but people just seemed to know when I needed help. The escalator wasn’t working; it looked like I’d have to lug a heavy carry-on bag down a long flight of stairs; presto! my savior materialized, hoisted the bag and deposited it at the foot of the stairs. I must look old and helpless for that to happen. I’m glad people are helping, but it’s a bit of a shock to the system that I appear so vulnerable.
MEMORY AND DEMENTIA
How about memory? Well, my sense is we overdo the significance of those memory lapses that are such a common source of complaints in our senior years. Most of us can remember what’s really significant (like the name of our spouse), even if our minds take a hike on other names, phone numbers, and the location of car keys.
But one aspect of this keeps getting worse, and I addressed it two years ago in a poem titled “The Noun Nemesis”. I started off by complaining about “The way you feel so damn absurd / when you forget a chosen word” . . . . “You’re vexed at the lack of text / irate at your empty plate / dismayed by the dumb blockade.”
Then I analyzed the problem and arrived at this conclusion: “When a verbal abyss casts you amiss / (so you feel like a clown, face wreathed in a frown) / the word that’s escaped you is usually a noun.”
After illustrating why this was so, I contrasted it with other stuff. “Each other form of speech conceivable / is much more readily retrievable.” I went through each of them, e.g.: “With an adverb I’m superb”; “with a participle I’m no cripple”; and “I can run errands with gerunds.” But sadly, I concluded, “I’m not aces / with nouns, names and places.”
I wrote a long article on this subject a few years ago called Senior Moments – all about those pesky brain freezes that many of us experience with age. The good news is that we’re not alone – and the article contains many humorous examples of others who have failed to cope – but I also tried to distill some of the sobering (albeit conflicting) views on whether we should be worrying about any of this stuff. Let me know if you’d like a copy.
On a lighter note, my favorite joke in this area is one that I used to tell to break the ice when stepping up to the lectern – to plead my imperfect memory and justify why I was using notes for my speech.
My wife and I are dining at another couple’s house. After dinner, the wives repair to the kitchen, with the guys still at the table – and I’m complaining to my buddy about my failing memory.
“Oh,” says he, “I had the same problem, but my wife got me a great book that explains how to deal with it – by making image associations and such.”
“Great,” I say, “I’d like to read the book – what’s the title?”
My friend’s brow furrows, he thinks for a moment and then says, “What’s the name of the flower you give to someone for a special occasion?” I don’t answer right away, so he continues, “You know, the one that’s red and has thorns on the stem.”
“Do you mean a rose?” I offer.
“That’s it!” he says. Then, turning toward the kitchen, he yells, “Hey, Rose, what’s the name of that memory book you gave me?”
In It’s Time, after Judith Viorst runs through a number of things that it’s time to do (like say ‘yes,’ when offered a seat on the bus) or not to do (like dancing the Lindy Hop at weddings), she hones in on a very significant consideration for us jokesters:
“It’s time, whenever we tell a joke / that before we even begin/
we should first make sure we still remember the punch line.”
If I sometimes sound like a guy who's filling every waking hour with productive activity, let me now confess to you how I spend up to ten percent of my waking hours - doing puzzles. It used to be crosswords and acrostics, but lately I've become enamored with ken-ken, kakuro and sudoku, some word games on the NYTimes app, and playing backgammon against the computer. I'm not world-class at any of these, although good enough to take on some difficult stuff and at times succeed. The added element here is that in a world of increasing complexity, where definitive results are hard to come by, it's reassuring to tackle something that has a single successful outcome - quite satisfying when achieved and not all that devastating when you come up short.
* * *
Turning serious now, an especially troublesome and sad condition here is coping with Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. At my age, it’s impossible to deny having wondered whether this might be in store – especially right after you’ve forgotten something you should have remembered, or repeated yourself, or lost your way, or misplaced possessions.
When my wife Barbara comes into contact with someone who’s deep in the throes of Alzheimer’s (the real thing, not just imagined), she’ll often say, “If I ever get that way, just take me out in the backyard and shoot me.” To which I reply with something inane like, “There’s no backyard in our apartment,” and we move on.
For me, the ultimate issue is less clear-cut. I enjoy living so much that it’s hard for me to envision situations dire enough as to make me want to bow out voluntarily. But, then again, I realize that if I went way downhill, I wouldn’t be in the best position to decide whether I’d had a change of heart on the subject.
This was brought home to me recently when a good friend, who had been experiencing a protracted run of serious health issues, said to me, “I’m now in an assisted living facility. I’d rather be in an assisted dying facility.”
So I’ve devised my own test, which I have conveyed to my wife on more than one occasion. “If I’m really losing it, Barbara, seat me at the piano and place my hands on the keys. If within 30 seconds you hear something resembling those two B-flats that kick off Blue Moon, then keep me around.” (And by the way, I’m charging the rest of you with the sober responsibility, assuming I pass the Blue Moon test, of not letting her take me out into the backyard, assuming we had one, for at least a while longer.)
I’d like to close this section with Judith Viorst at her best (in At the Nursing Home), capturing in a few words the tragedy and startling pathos of the whole experience.
She gets on the crowded crosstown bus to visit him once a day./
Though there’s never a seat/ And people push and shove you/
She goes without complaint or fuss/ In order to hear him say,/
“I don’t know who you are/ but I know I love you.”
ENJOYING (and otherwise reflecting on) OLD AGE
Now let’s segue into a lighter mode. We’ll start by examining some quotes authored by those who actually enjoy old age (or at least are advising us to enjoy it).
After all, says composer Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber, Aging seems to be the only way available to live a long life. And writer Richard Armour chimes in with, I hope I have a young outlook. Since I have an old everything else, this is my one chance of having a bit of youth as a part of me.
Here’s Federico Fellini’s take on this, which may not seem accurate at first but I recommend pondering to see if it applies to you.
There is a certain kind of carefree that returns to you in old age, different from the carefree of youth when you didn’t know any better. It’s more like being free of caring. It isn’t joyous at all, as it was in youth, but it is a kind of freedom, and all kinds of freedom are precious in some way.
The acclaimed musician Artur Rubinstein urges us to enjoy life, in this forceful appreciation of living:
I live by one principle: Enjoy life with no conditions! People say, “If I had your health, if I had your money, oh, I would enjoy myself.” It is not true. I would be happy if I were lying sick in a hospital bed. It must come from the inside. That is the one thing I hope to have contributed to my children, by example and by talk: to make no conditions, to understand that life is a wonderful thing and to enjoy it, every day, to the full.
Agatha Christie might not be quite so happy as Artur lying sick in a hospital bed, but she too manages to come out the same way:
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Here’s a helpful thought by Freya Stark that seems to apply to the previous three commentators and also to those who, in her words, “have some doorway into an abstract world”:
On the whole, age comes more gently to those who have some doorway into an abstract world – art or philosophy or learning – regions where the years are scarcely noticed and the young and the old can meet in a pale, truthful light.
In a poem which takes first place in the-length-of-title contest – One Hallmark of Maturity is Having the Capacity to Hold Two Opposing Ideas in Your Head at Once – Judith Viorst sums up the whole thing this way:
My scalp is now showing/ My moles keep on growing/
My waistline and breasts have converged./
My teeth resist brightening,/ I’m in decline, it’s positively frightening./
A new moon’s arriving, Sinatra is jiving,
My husband is holding my hand./
The white wine is chilling / I’m still alive./
It’s positively thrilling.
Are there any perks to old age? Statesman George Clemenceau thought so when he confessed that,
I am old enough to tell the truth. It is one of the privileges of age.
I realize now that this truth-telling “privilege” of age was a factor for me in deciding to tackle my own life in a recent memoir. It forced me to acknowledge that the insights I’ve chosen to live by have often arrived as a result of a mistake I’ve made or an adverse experience I’ve endured. Also, it encouraged me to be candid in attempting to evaluate myself in terms of my varied persuits. To be sure, where I thought I was pretty good, I said so (in synch with the octogenarian cabaret singer Marilyn Maye, who observed, “At my age, I’m too old to be humble.”) But where I knew my performance was underwhelming, I talked about that also.
What else works well in old age? Well, here’s a recommendation by Maggie Kuhn that you may not have thought about – and which I’ve never specifically tried, but like the sound of:
Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.
How about the flip side – things you shouldn’t entertain as you age. For instance, feeling sorry for yourself – uh, uh, says Millicent Fenwick:
Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.
And Victoria Holt offers another emotion never to indulge in, although adding a positive twist.
Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.
And speaking of experience, I like humorist Andy Rooney’s take on its interaction with aging:
Age is nothing but experience, and some of us are more experienced than others.
W. Somerset Maugham offers a thought that sneaks up on you – at least until those final explanatory six words.
When I was young, I was amazed at Plutarch’s statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
Maybe not, though, says Lady Nancy Astor, as she counsels against dreading old age:
I used to dread getting older because I thought I would not be able to do all the things I wanted to do, but now that I am older, I find that I don’t want to do them.
I found two writers who had taken now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t approaches to aspects of aging, although with differing results. J.B. Priestly was negative about the whole thing:
When I was young, there was no respect for the young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for the old. I missed out coming and going.
By contrast, I.F. Stone assessed the entire situation and reached a more balanced result.
When you are younger, you get blamed for crimes you never committed, and when you’re old, you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
Leave it to Judith Viorst to have the last words here – first, belying what others may think about oldsters, and second, questioning what oldsters themselves often use to ease the way forward. In Man Mowing the Grass, she lets us in on a dark secret:
“Maybe you haven’t noticed that bare-chested fellow,/
That flesh-bellied, slim-waisted fellow/mowing the grass./
The one with the black curly hair,/ And the tattooed shoulder,/
And the low-slung blue jeans lovingly molding his ass./
He’s bobbing his head to the music that streams through his earbuds./
He’s mouthing the words to some seethingly sensual song./
You think I’m out here on the porch just reading my novel?/
You are so wrong.
But then, after noticing the “appreciative glances,” “longing sighs,” and “politically incorrect but rave reviews” from males for young women strolling by, and further observing that “none of these fellows is taking notice of me,” Ms. Viorst (in Been There, Done That) takes aim at today’s ubiquitous epigram:
I mobilize the wisdom of a lifetime/ And tell my envious heart,
“Been there, done that” –/ To which her envious heart replies,/
“But I want to be there again/ and do that some more.”
DISCLOSURE OF ONE’S AGE
A recurring issue as the years pass – but with extra resonance over 80 – is whether or not to reveal one’s age to others. Attitudes on this range across the spectrum – from those who don’t give an inch (“It’s none of their goddamn business”), to those who flaunt their longevity for all to see, or to such wags as financier Bernard Baruch who put a little twist on it:
To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
For many years, my mother was fiercely protective about her age, and would grow furious if she thought I had told anyone how old she really was. If someone asked about her age, she would reply with relish, “I’m as old as my little pinky,” waggling the fifth finger at her interrogator.
Once I took her to the hospital for some tests, but had to take a call while she was being checked in. Upon returning, I looked at the nurse’s computer screen and noticed she had inserted a 1917 date of birth for Mom. Assuming it was a bookkeeping mistake, I corrected it and then went over to tell Mom. “They got your birthdate wrong and put 1917 instead of 1907.” She replied with vigor, “They don’t have to know how old I am” – at which point I realized this was no mere clerical error.
And then, as she neared the century mark, her age became a badge of honor. One day I was receiving a community award for leading singalongs at Goddard Riverside Senior Center, and I’d invited Mom to the program. In my acceptance remarks, I paid tribute to her as the woman who had started me on the piano and made me practice as a boy, concluding with, “I know she’ll kill me for saying it, but Mom, who’s sitting right over there, will be turning 100 this Christmas.” At that point, the entire room of several hundred people stood up and applauded loudly.
When I returned to our table – worried over how Mom would react to my disclosure – she smiled sweetly and said, “Did you ever get a standing ovation?” From then on, I would hear her asking people, “Do you know how old I am?” – and then proudly trotting out the big number in response to their invariably lower guesses.
In Telling My Age, Judith Viorst says she used to enjoy telling people her age for the “shameless pleasure” of hearing their denials (“I don’t believe it!”). But now that no one is any longer “being amazed”:
“I’m done/ I’m finished/ It’s over/
Forget about it/ I am through/ with telling my age.”
So, if you’re an oldster, where do you fall on this disclose-or-deny continuum? I’m not embarrassed to say that I’ve been volunteering the information to my friends and acquaintances. (I’m not, however, stopping strangers on the street to report the news.) As for why I’m doing this, I suppose it’s that I’m proud to be belying my age by engaging in various activities associated with younger men.
As for the reactions I receive, everyone purports to be overcome with disbelief. “You, over 80? No way!” After I verify the number, they say something like, “Well, haven’t you heard? – 80 is the new 60.” I’m flattered by these responses but realize they may stem less from genuine surprise than diplomatic nicety – mindful of Washington Irving’s wisdom here: “Whenever a man’s friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure they think he is getting old.” (If I had any doubt that everyone already knows my age, it was dispelled when, the phone rang recently and a voice greeted me with, “Hello – you’ve been selected to receive a medical alert device. . . .”)
When I used to fly pre-pandemic, there were signs at airport security which assured me that at my age I was entitled to keep on my shoes when passing through the checkpoint. Nevertheless, I often took them off and deposited the pair in a bin for x-ray inspection. I used to tell myself that the reason for this was that if I were to be questioned about my footwear, the I.D. containing my proof of age would still be wending its way through the x-ray machine. But I suspect the real reason, deep down, was that I resented the implication of the age exception – namely, that someone of my advanced years was too old to be dangerous.
Some of the liveliest observations about aging come from the ladies, including these five that cover the waterfront:
Bette Davis: Old age ain’t for sissies.
Lucille Ball: The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.
Gypsy Rose Lee: I have everything now that I had twenty years ago, except now it’s all lower.
Billie Burke: Age . . . doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.
Ann Landers: Inside every seventy-year-old is a thirty-five-year-old asking, “What happened?”
But a smart woman whom I hadn’t previously encountered, Agnes Repplier, refuses to go for those gimmicks and puts the case quite plainly:
I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts – facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment or confused by nobility of phrase.
Which leads us back to Judith Viorst once more. In Exceeding Eighty, she takes direct aim at one of those ubiquitous bits of pablum that pepper the aging landscape:
“Although you are nimble of brain and unflabby of thigh,/
Eighty is not the new sixty/ Eighty is eighty . . . ./
Whatsoever will slow down time’s sands you are eager to try/
But the years that remain are in shorter and shorter supply,/
And eighty is not the new sixty./ It’s two decades older than sixty./
It’s closer to ninety than to sixty./
It’s exactly halfway between one zero zero and sixty./
No, eighty is not the new sixty,/ Eighty is eighty.
* * *
Well, I could go on forever here. For instance, I might discuss my favorite theory of “sheer happenstance.” I could wax ecstatic about my wife and express positive feelings toward her extended family who have been so welcoming to me over almost four decades. I could display my enthusiasm over the warm relations I have with my sons and marvel at my delightful granddaughters. I might say how blessed I feel to have so many friends. I probably should acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Raymond and other wonderful people.
But I won’t – not here. (That’s all in the memoir – along with my various achievements during retirement which – don’t worry – you won’t be exposed to in this essay.) As for the blog that occupies many of my days lately, you’re in the best position to judge how it’s working out. The one thing I will say is that over the past 87 years, I’ve managed to do just about everything I ever wanted to do – there’s no pressing bucket list.
* * *
I’d been wondering how to close this essay. And then the answer came to me unexpectedly on a recent morning, as I awakened from a lengthy dream that had dominated a restless night’s sleep.
Although I tried to retrieve its particulars immediately after opening my eyes, the specifics of the dream remained hazy, fragmented by my several awakenings during the night ( for reasons of . . . uh, personal hygiene and to shift sleeping postures). Yet I was quite certain about its essence.
During the entire dream, I was engaged in trying to accomplish something desirable, although sadly I can’t recall what it was (so let’s label it a “project”). But in each segment of the dream I encountered a new and serious reason why it wouldn’t work, or why not to do it – in short, an obstacle that would have to be overcome if the project were to be completed. I can’t recall the specific hurdles, though I do recall jousting with each of them, so as to accomplish the project.
But although I was hanging in there, unfortunately no definitive outcome ever occurred. The final verdict – if there were to be one – was still mired in dissonance when the alarm clock went off, extinguishing the dream.
That’s too bad. But I’m choosing to treat the experience as a partial metaphor for my own life at this time. Lots of negative forces press in on us oldsters daily, seeking to depress or discourage us from what we’d like to be able to accomplish. And too often, they have their way. But for me, not that night.
And what then came into my mind was one of the quotes in the Petras book (by business executive Mary Kay Ash) that I had been attracted to but didn’t know where to insert in the article. Now the placement was clear – right here:
If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.
In recent years, I’ve been wearing a cap that has the letters “ndy” on the front. When someone questions me about what the letters stand for, I point to the answer embossed on the back – “not done yet”. That’s just the way I feel.
And on that note, I’m ready to get on to the rest of my life –
– Movin’ slow toward the big nine-O.