Halloween has never been my favorite holiday celebration. Even as a child, it was not something I looked forward to. For one reason, I had these lovely old costumes my grandmother had made for my older sister. An Indian maiden with a feather headdress (not that one word of that was vaguely PC), a little Dutch girl replete with wooden shoes, straight out of a Hans Christian Andersen book. A clown with puffy red yarn buttons and a nose to match, and on and on. As beautiful as they were, they sometimes felt like hand-me-downs, much like my sisters’ discarded bridesmaid dresses that I tried to remake into prom dresses with little or no success.

Anyway, whether it was the fashion aspect of my costumes or the fact that we were celebrating a night of haunted spirits rising from the dead, it just never blew my skirt up, Dutch girl, bridesmaid, or otherwise.

And it got no better as my children grew up. First, the angst of them running ahead of me in the dark. Then the drama of their first year going it alone, either in a gang or with friends. And finally, the “I am too old to trick or treat, so I’m going to a friend’s house to just hang” stage. Yeah, right. The definition of just hang haunted me until they returned at curfew.

But this year, as I readied myself for the onslaught of hundreds of trick-or-treaters, dreading the chaos and facing them all alone, what to my wondering eyes did appear but my sixteen-year-old grandson, walking toward my house a half hour before the floodgates opened.

Head down, Rams baseball cap pulled over his eyes, which were glued to his phone, I knew it was him when all I could see was knees down. His walk, his pace, his determination in every step.

He arrived at my door, gave me a huge hug, and began helping me count and set out the candy.

Now, you must understand that my street, over the past thirty years, has slowly become THE trick-or-treat street. Not just for the neighborhood, but for the entire village of over 12,000 people. I do not exaggerate. This year, we topped off at 998 little beggars.

So having a 6’2″ assistant arrive at my door, arms open and ready to party, was the answer to my prayers. Not only did he fill my 35-year-old Halloween basket, but he took over the front porch like a street barker. Shaking the basket and yelling, “Candy, get your candy here!” the goblins arrived in droves, non-stop for the next four hours.

He bent over for the tiny ones and stood up to face the high schoolers with no costumes and pillowcases, like a kindly kindergarten teacher and a party bouncer, in that order.

We laughed. We gave kids nicknames and remembered the faces of those who asked for more than one piece or tried to return an hour later for seconds. But the best part. The best part was his kindness, his empathy, his gentleness with the tiny ones.

He would kneel down to meet them at their level and talk softly, sneaking the shyest or most frightened ones an extra piece. Despite our “fight for survival until lights out” agreement to strictly limit everyone to one.

But the highlight of the evening, by far, was a tiny banana, no more than two, who captured his imagination. She toddled up the driveway, bright yellow peel slightly parted to reveal the sweetest little pink cheeks surrounded by white fleece banana flesh. She smiled up at him, and he was history.

He took a knee, and they chatted for a bit. Astronauts, spidermen and Elphabas swarming around them. She said, “Trick or treat,” and it was game over.

He slipped her two of the biggest pieces. She waved thank you and off she went, her little yellow stem of a hat bobbing into the masses.

And occasionally, for the next hour, he would say, “I wish that little banana would come back. I want to give her three.”

I will never know if it was her innocence, her costume, or her gentle nature that melted his heart, but that little girl reminded him of something. Something good.

Whatever it was, it touched his inherent kindness and generosity. And for that little moment this Halloween, his old Yaya felt that all was well with the world, and that we can have hope for this next generation.

“As we age.”  This new phrase has drifted into my stratosphere over the last year or so. At first it was like a distant planet orbiting far, far away.  I heard it occasionally. I read it in health blogs. But gradually it moved closer until suddenly it became the opening line to one sentence after another.

I would go to a doctor about some new ache or pain, and the conversation invariably began with the same three words: “As we age…” At first it was in reference to senile purpura (don’t even get me started on the name alone), those pesky little bruises that blossom instantaneously if we bump an elbow or hang a heavy shopping bag on a forearm.

But, back to the doctor’s opening comment. What is this royal “we”? They’re barely out of diapers, a mere forty or fifty.  Still young enough to state their birth year without doing subtraction. They don’t get purpura simply by carrying groceries. So who exactly is “we”?  Not that I prefer “as you age,” but how about “with maturity”? Or “with longevity”? I will take that. That implies living beyond tomorrow.

This reference seems to be coming to me from all sides. Food choices, hours of sleep, exercise routines. For instance, when did how to get off the floor without using my hands become my number one workout recommendation? Ten years ago, yoga stances went from the floor to stand up.  Simply become erect with no instruction how to get there. I mean, throw me a rope but don’t assume I will be prone for the rest of the class.

There are a few advantages to “as we age.” We get discounts at hotels, movies and on airline tickets.  We have a senior discount day at my local grocery store. At first, I was too proud to accept them or if I did, I wanted someone to look at me and say, “Oh you can’t be over 62.”  Similarly, I used to tell people how many grandchildren I have and the response would be,  “You are a grandmother?!”  Now folks just ask me how many.

When it started, it only happened occasionally.  In the liquor store, the checkout person would wink and ask to see my ID.  Now they don’t even bother asking. Or perhaps they assume anyone still buying alcohol is from another era now that science keeps nudging us toward CBD and THC.  I am sure they are gentler to your liver but they are just not as convivial.  I understand abstinence is the current drug of choice, but an old girl can have at least one vice.

So one way I handle my evidently “old age” is to defy it.  I did an hour of yoga (including lying down and rising) this morning and walked five miles this evening with my other aging friends.  I do word games in the New York Times. I still finish Wordle most days. But I have to say, Connections has become a young person’s game. Half the time I have to Google what the words refer to before I can even try to connect them.

Then I had an experience that made me rethink one of my own assumptions. I tripped on the sidewalk a week before Thanksgiving and caught my entire body weight with my face because I was reaching in my pocket for my gloves. Now this fall had nothing to do with age. Just a loose piece of cement on my sidewalk.  But I needed to have an emergency nose job as it was definitely ascew between my two immediate black eyes and a face that looked like the street cleaner had used me instead of a brush.

Fortunately, I was referred to a forty-something doctor who quickly worked me into his schedule. After looking at my face he asked for my license–not for my age but to see what my nose actually was supposed to look like. He offered to operate on the day before Thanksgiving.  I thanked him, after this no more than five minute consult, and said I would see him Wednesday.

Then the morning of, I felt a little hesitant about going under for the knife with a doctor I knew nothing about. I am the uncrowned queen of researching doctors to an excruciating level of tedium. So I called his office and asked if I could possibly speak to him before surgery, thinking he might stop by in the hospital.

An hour later, he called me saying he was told I had some questions. Without pausing I said, “Do you mind telling me something about yourself? Where did you go to med school?  What is your specialty? How many of these operations do you do a year? ” With no arrogance, no hesitation, he led with, “Good questions. If I were having surgery, I would ask the same.”  He explained he performs nasal surgery over 200 times a year and did a five year fellowship in the specialty before entering practice. He wasn’t defensive. He didn’t move the conversation to how his extensive expertise would apply to fixing my nose. He did not close with, “As we age, these things happen.”

Perhaps that’s one of the unexpected gifts of aging. We stop apologizing for asking good questions. We become comfortable speaking our truth without worrying how it will be received.

And what do you know? That young whippersnapper doctor set my nose–and my preconceived notions–straight.

Lately I have been thinking about endings. I recently finished two highly acclaimed novels. One ended so abruptly I found it jarring and completely unsatisfying. The other, I was only disappointed because I did not want to leave the world the author had created.

Endings are difficult for me, as I suspect they are for many of us. The end of a friendship, the end of a relationship, the end of a season, the end of a day, the end of a life. Some people prefer beginnings when everything is fresh, shiny and new.  These folks go from person to person, job to job, city to city.  They embrace possibility more than permanence. They start anew, ride out the middles and move on before they have to endure the end.

I remember a friend and I were on vacation together. As I waxed poetic about the orange and purple magic developing on the evening horizon in front of us, she said flatly, “I hate sunsets.  They make me sad.”

At the time, I considered how differently we felt about the same sunset. I am not a morning person. I seldom see a sunrise but rarely want to miss a sunset. Recently, I have been wondering how these sorts of preferences affect how we move through life and inform our personal outlook.

One of the more poignant moments with my father before he died was not our last goodbye or his “touch and go” moments in the hospital.  We were sitting on the couch in my childhood home, enjoying the sounds and smells of my children baking with my mom in the kitchen. Knowing his prognosis was terminal, he patted my hand and said softly, “I just want to know how it all turns out.”

Now that I am older, and I have lived more days than I have left, I can’t imagine I will ever be ready to say this is enough. Even on my bluest days, I am just not one of those people.

My oldest grandson recently got his license.  His first step toward real independence.  He went to bed that evening with a fever and headache. But you can be sure he popped off the pillow the next morning, dripping in sweat, said he was fine and drove to summer school. Alone at the wheel. Going the speed he chose, with the music turned up, no one to tell him how to do it. He wasn’t just driving to school; he was at the beginning of his wide open independent future. I remember that moment. An exhilarating mixture of freedom, anticipation peppered with a tiny bit of angst.

Maybe life isn’t neatly divided into beginnings and endings. Perhaps that is why my father’s words still echo within me.  I tend to feel that we are only assured today, this moment, this chapter. And most days I accept that as enough. But sometimes on an especially good day where everything seems to fall into place and I am filled with the overwhelming joy of existence, I want to keep it all, box it up, and see how it all turns out.

I hope my dad is somewhere sharing those best moments with me. And if he is not, I hold his words in my heart.  And I tell him that, on those best days, it is turning out better than we could have imagined.

 

Well, here I am, pretty much on schedule for my quarterly blog.

The new year blew in with its messy winter storms and sub-zero temperatures. Many of us made January 1st resolutions. Most often they center around giving up or adding something to improve our mental health, well being or longevity. And of course, the proverbial “Dry January” has become as routine as an annual teeth cleaning. Although it always stymies me when someone tells me they’re observing dry January as they sip a THC-infused social tonic. That is my kind of abstinence.

In general, I am not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. I think they are hard to keep and have seldom changed my health or my life in any permanent way. So this year, rather than give up something, I have a different take. I’m thinking more about giving back — resolving to make the world, even my small corner of it, a better place.

I’m not sure whether it’s our present cultural environment of anger, division, suspicion, political overload, or the lack of Walter Cronkite’s nightly “That’s the way it is” reassurance, but I find myself seeking solid, old-fashioned kindness. Reminders that people are, at their core, intrinsically good. The national news many days leaves me worried and confused, yearning for truth somewhere amid the deluge of information and misinformation. I am looking inward, asking what I can do to help myself and others feel a sense of calm. That paternal pat on the knee assuring us it’s all going to be OK.

If life isn’t all about longevity, then how do I live it? And with whom? And for whom?

So many people my age feel they’ve spent their lives doing for others and now it is “our time.” But did we? Really? As I look back at my younger self, I wonder: is there anything better than a child reaching for your hand for no reason, or even better, reaching anyway when they are on the cusp of it being uncool and feeling too old? I think grandchildren are our gift to relive those moments with gratitude rather than the hurried, distracted, often overwhelming years of young parenthood.

But instead of ruminating on those days with doubt or regret, I have a new perspective on my rear-view mirror.

It has come into vivid focus. Not to elicit remorse, but to offer valuable guidelines to inform my present. And shining brightly in that reflection, guiding me forward, is my father.

Forced into early retirement by his company’s new owners, my dad did not see it as an end, but as a beginning. I don’t remember him spending a single day angry, resentful, or wallowing in self-pity.

Instead, he began a new era as an avid volunteer. He was already a member of the Lions Club, repurposing glasses and selling hotdogs at community events for their other favored charities. He delivered Meals on Wheels to the homebound. He mentored two young boys to adulthood with the Big Brother program. But his most impressive feat was joining the women’s board of my hometown’s largest hospital.

Don’t be confused. My dad did not have a flirtatious bone in his body. He was by no means an extrovert, but he was always curious about medicine. With no men’s board available, he joined the army of women in their red cotton jackets and Friday afternoon teased bonnets of gray hair. He first became treasurer, then secretary, and finally president of the auxiliary. Not once thinking of the rarity of his rise but simply doing what he came to do. Helping make the hospital a more comfortable place to be. He changed people’s lives.

Since January 1st, with that memory of my dad in mind, I’ve been musing. Do I do enough? Do I do anything of real import?

I tutor at a downtown Chicago high school, most of the students first-generation college hopefuls. Although it is immensely gratifying, it almost feels selfish, because I receive so much more than I give. Hugs. Renewed clarity. A step toward a long-held impossible dream.

But all of that is what I get.

So my present mojo is simple. Give. And give more. Even if it’s smiling at the checkout clerk at the pharmacy. Letting the obnoxious person who cuts into your parking spot take it. Or finally visiting an older friend who lives alone and says “come see me” every time you bump into them. I’ve realized it doesn’t have to be magnanimous. Just small steps.

My dad never advertised his goodness. He quietly practiced it.

Every single day.

Well, here I am, a full season has passed since my last post. I suppose you could say I took the summer off. I spent it back and forth in the land of my people, enjoying sunny days and crisp evenings tucked safely in West Virginia’s “escape from reality” mountains. Lake water lapped at the shore, mornings began with the sun’s dancing diamonds on the water, and nights ended with the moon’s reflection lulling me to sleep.

But now I find myself  in the heart of another fall— a season of beginnings and letting go. Schools are back in session, summer vacation a vivid yet fading memory. But as I do in most autumns, I feel a familiar letdown. Fall feels like its name to me. Leaves change colors and drop as quickly as the temperatures.

I am reminded of a comment my brother made on a road trip years ago: “Autumn is here with its heartbreaking riot of color.” And then the trees are bare. The grass fades and goes dormant to save energy for its first green sprouts poking through the snow with hope for spring.

So as I normally do, I clung to summer and the unnaturally warm days of fall. I refused to empty my begonias and sun impatiens from their pots until a week ago when they started to feel like white pants and flip flops at a Christmas party.  I finally succumbed to the inevitability of our first freeze and planted mums in their place, their smell as repugnant as this season I have never loved. And it got me thinking.

Why do I dislike autumn so much? I liked school as a kid. I was always full of anticipation for the first day.  Blank notebooks, the possibilities of a new teacher, a predictable rhythm returning to my life after the long carefree days of summer. I liked it so much it is most likely why I became a teacher. I loved the energy of a  fall football game under the lights–pep bands, cheerleaders, players all rallying the crowd with a “go team” enthusiasm.

Inspired by those memories and by my grandkids’ joy for all that lies ahead (pumpkins, goblins, candy, turkey, and finally the pièce de résistance — Christmas) I’ve decided to embrace the season.

I am even restraining myself from resenting the retail world’s insistence on blurring all holidays from now to January together. It would not surprise me to see a skeleton wearing a Santa hat and Happy New Year sparkling goggles, driving a sleigh, with pumpkins and turkeys piled in the back in a Walgreens window. Why not throw in a bag of menorahs and a dozen dreidels for good measure. But I digress.

This fall, I am putting away my Halloween grinch perspective of impudent candy grabbing goblins that say “how many” instead of “Trick or Treat” and embracing each holiday as it comes, in proper order of course.  I got my fading and torn dining room chairs seats recovered to welcome family around the Thanksgivng table . I went through all my ancient kitchen bowls, plates, skillets, and bakeware and disposed of  anything plastic or slightly resembling a “forever chemical” so boomers and  millennials can all feast together guilt free.

I cleaned out closets and boxes filled with generations of family memorabilia that held too many memories or brought a sense of  longing for the past. I’m living in the present and accepting it — the good, the bad, and the ugly — all just a jumbled mix of life, love, and happiness. Which is what it is all about, right?

So here is to acceptance of what we cannot change and embracing what we have.  That is my mantra this holiday season.  And I am working to make it last. At least until the first doorbell rings on October 31.  And then if I see a teenager with a pillow case in a Bears jersey as a costume, my resolve may wobble a bit. But I will be damned if I will let it topple me.

I will just ask to see his birth certificate and if his girlfriend is driving the getaway car.

I have come to realize that as a little girl I had a complicated doll history.  A child of the fifties, there were a slew of iconic dolls that came on the market in that decade and the next.  Betsy Wetsy who if you poured water in her mouth she “wetsied” in her diaper or on minature toilet you could purchase as an accessory.  Tiny Tears, as the name implies, cried real tears if supplied by water poured in a hole in the back of her head.  Other options were Chatty Cathy who talked up a blue streak if you pulled a string in her back and the first cloth bodied doll, Baby Dear, who had plastic limbs and head but could be snuggled and hugged with her cushiony torso.

As the youngest of the family as well as ten years after the eldest, a son, you might suspect I owned them all.  Or at least one.  Or none. No, my mama, whose kind heart was no doubt more concerned about saving the world  than following doll trends, chose for my Christmas gift at around age five, Poor Pitiful Pearl.  Yes, you read it correctly.  That was her name and she had looks to match.

She arrived in a tattered patched dress replete with worn black  knee-high socks and  a red bandana to cover her uneven bangs and tangled hair.  But not to fret, included in the box was a a party frock and shiny Mary Janes. The small print in the bubble beside Pearl as pitiful says, “Help, I need a Mommy!” and on the right, dressed in the provided party dress, Pearl pleads, “Change me from pitiful to pretty.” So where do I begin?

Compared to my friends’ dolls there was no wetting or crying or talking or hugging.  Just a clear message to make Pearl pretty and change her life. The far reaching effects of that suggestion alone is enough to change a young girl’s personal aspirations but being the dutiful child that I was, I did my best to save Pearl.  I tried to make her bangs even but nearly cut them to the roots as they were barely there to start with. I managed to get her unkemp hair into a ponytail, changed her clothes and somewhere between trying to make my parents think I loved her and hiding her in the bottom of my closet to escape her haunting face, I lost one Mary Jane and a black sock.

Luckily, Pearl eventually ended up in my mother’s beloved antique toy basket that sat by the hearth for grandkids  someday to enjoy. I was relieved of the guilt of failing to change her life trajectory and handed the baton for that duty to the next generation. One Christmas Eve sitting by the fire remembering poor Pearl, we searched among the toys to find her.  My sister and I were home with our children who were scattered throughout the house doing what children do as Santa time approaches, being seen but not heard. We found a shoe and Pearl’s head scarf in the basket but no sad-faced doll.  Finally we asked the kids if anyone had played with Pearl.  All looked befuddled, palms flat, elbows bent at their sides until we heard a small voice from my old bedroom whisper, “I put her in the mailbox.” My sister’s oldest son peeked his head from behind the door and shamelessly uttered, “I wanted her to go back where she came from.” Redeemed, the next generation had the guts to admit what I already understood.  Even toys are hard to love sometimes.

A small redemption in my doll collection came when one birthday I received a Barbie.  After my friends had owned the blonde cotton candy ponytail version, plus Ken, the car and the playhouse, I finally joined the ranks of Barbie owners receiving the flash- in-the-pan Barbie Bubble Cut. Yes she existed.  But she came and went quickly as she had thick course “done once a week at the beauty salon teased hair” and clear gloss lips.  Not the signature red pout. I tried to paint her lips with ruby-colored nail polish. In an effort to make it smooth and long, I brushed her hair so hard her head popped off. So poor headless Barbie soon joined the ranks of basket fireside toys.

I won’t go into the gory details of the hard plastic baby doll I owned that had a silver dollar-sized microphone in her stomach that made a mournful cry when you tipped her forward.  Soon after she came along her “voicebox” fell out leaving a gaping hole so she became a tiny alien looking thing.  You may be wondering how I survived a childhood without the requisite hallmark dolls of my era.  Pretty well I might say because never having exactly what you want builds character I have heard.

Truth be told, and I admit this with a bit of chagrin, my doll disappointments only made me more of a perfectionist to find just the right thing or go without until I can. I suppose there could be worse mantras. Carefully choosing a few good men vs. endless consumption shows some self-restraint.

But I am not immune to retail therapy. I can roam a store with no intended purpose. Just like the box directed, sometimes on a bad day, I still succumb to dress me up and make me pretty.

I saw my doctor yesterday, who happens to be a dear friend. He was my friend before he became my doctor. But after too many Saturday night outings with me asking his opinion concerning my medical care, it only seemed fair for him to be my doctor.  The problem was, how would I handle the first physical? I mean, this man has an easy smile and some of the kindest eyes I have ever met, but examining me in a hospital gown was not an option if he was ever going to see me fully clothed again.  So I settled for wearing a hot pink Speedo under the gown and told him my gynecologist would take care of the rest.  In typical good humor, he played along, both of us pretending we were just chatting poolside.

With that, my friend became my doctor and my doctor remained my friend.

So I saw him yesterday for flu, Covid, bad cold, or all of the above.  And after he assured me it was the latter, we chatted as we often do.  Once the medical stuff is out of the way, we will catch up on life, love and happiness. In this conversation, he shared a new TV series he is enjoying that he thought I would, too.  It is a medical show which appeals to us both, his interest obvious and mine being my hypervigilence about my well being, or as some might say, hypochondria.  He referenced one episode he found especially impressive.

An ER doctor is discussing the care of an unconscious 92-year-old man with his adult children. Although the father has signed a DNR, the daughter is fighting vehemently to override this document and the son wants to honor it. As the temperature rises and an emotional power struggle begins, the physician offers a Hawaiian mantra to handle the overwhelming grief, complicated emotions and uncertainty of parting with a parent.  He suggests they might spend a moment with their father, alone or together, and recite his version of the prayer for healing and repair:

I love you.

Thank you.

I am sorry.

Please forgive me.

With the doctor’s help, they both eventually let their father go. Listening, I was moved by the profound impact of those four short sentences.

I thanked my friend for his thoughtful sharing and left feeling more spiritually healed than simply treating a cough and dripping nose.

Later, I looked up the prayer to see if is was just a good TV script or authentic, and it is indeed a Hawaiian prayer for healing and forgiveness. I love its simple, heartfelt message.

It got me thinking about the final goodbyes I have had to say in my life. I lost my father, my mother, my brother–all within the span of a few years. Although the circumstances of all three were different, I had the luxury of letting them go while they could still see and hear me. I was also able to choose that moment rather than standing beside their motionless body, their soul drifting away.

People are different that way.  Others in my family wanted to be there for their last breath. And I respect that. But I wanted to tell them what I loved most and what I would miss even more and know that they heard my words. And then I felt OK to let go.  I wanted to remember them alive.

My dad was buried and had an open casket. At the visitation the night before the funeral, I could not look at him. I wanted to remember his beautful carpenter hands moving and creating, his gentle blue eyes consoling me and the smell of his Old Spice cologne lingering on my jacket after a good bye hug.

My mother and brother were cremated.  I still have a portion of both their ashes tucked in special places in my house.  Somehow, I feel this keeps their spirits closer to me.  And often, when I least expect it, I swear I smell my brother’s cigarette smoke in my kitchen late at night or hear my mama’s footsteps in the hall, padding along in Dearfoam slippers, headed to the kitchen for a midnight snack.  Two night owls, just passing by for a visit.

Wherever they all are, I want to believe the three of them are together.  And I trust they know I forgive them. More importantly, I pray they forgive me for every hurtful word I ever said, and understand I am sorry for any slight I might have inflicted. Above all, I want them to know just how much I loved them.

And I will forever thank them for loving me.

Lately I find myself asking where is “home?”  Where is the place that spiritually never leaves me? David Brooks in his insightful and thought-provoking new book, How to Know a Person, muses that a person can leave home but their home never leaves them. In my experience, some people embrace their home and others spend their life trying to erase it. But we all have a place that is more familiar than anywhere else.  Where, if we were fortunate, we spent our childhood. For me, home is where we go when no one else will take us in.  Home is where we can just be. No judgment, few questions, just love.

Whenever I am asked where I grew up and what I call home, my answer is always West Virginia. The mountains, the air, the trees, the people, the colloquial language–it all represents my youth.  It’s the place that first reflected who I was in this life and what my purpose might be.

Still owning a house there, a feeling of peace surrounds me every time I cross the Ohio River and enter my home state.  When my kids were little, and we passed under the “Welcome to West Virginia” sign that hangs in the middle of the span of the bridge, we always honked.  I now do the same with my grandkids and even if I am alone.  It’s a a sort of “Hello there, I am back.” Much like my mother’s goodbye tradition of waving on the front porch long past our taillights disappearing over the hill.

After I married, I left my home and created a life in a new city that my children call home. Now that they are grown with families of their own I, like many people my age, am questioning if I should stay in the home their dad and I created for them. The four walls, the house, this address began as just that, a house.  But through years of having babies and sleepless nights and first days of school and graduations and tears and laughter and heartache and repair, it became a home.  The center of my family’s life.  These four walls are filled with the sounds of all those years.  Memories of the love we shared here that made this house our home.

Unlike turtles, we don’t carry our homes on our backs but in our hearts. And though not all of us have warm and fuzzy memories of where we grew up, it is nonetheless a large part of who we are and what we become.

Home isn’t always a place.  It can be a warm embrace from a trusted face or the hand that reaches out just when you feel you may break in two. It can be the fragance of a familiar flower or the feeling the envelops you in the slow darkness of the twilight hour in a best-loved place.

For me, I still find home in the Appalachian mountains. The people have my grandfather’s Scots/ Irish sense of humor, his warmth, his easy conversations. The air smells clean and crisp even on the rainiest of days and the stars still shine brightly in the night sky. As familiar as it is though, twentieth century American author, Thomas Wolfe, was correct when he wrote the  novel, You Can’t Go Home Again.

As adults when we do go home again, it is often not the same people. Many family members are long gone. Your high school has been torn down and redistricted for population fluctualtions. Restaurants are closed. Ball fields have new commercially sponsored names. But somewhere among all the changes, I still find a sense of peace I experience nowhere else.  I slide back into a slower pace of life. In those mountains, I feel a safety unlike any on earth. I find a feeling of belonging I think many of us spend our whole lives searching for.

My nephew, who also grew up in West Virginia, recently sent me a podcast from Today Explained that explored the international, universal appeal and popularity of John Denver’s famous ode to West Virginia, Take Me Home Country Roads. Although it has only recently been officially made our state song, Denver’s ballad has become profoundly popular in the far reaches of the world.  Folks in the United Kingdom sing it with tears of pride, Nigerians sing it and change the name of the destination.  It is sung in Japan, Sweden, France–the list goes on and on.  After exploring this phenomenon, the podcast delved into “why.”  And finally they concluded the reason is quite simple. “Everyone has a home and every home has a road to it.”

Human beings inherently have a deep pull toward a sense of place.

A place to call home.

During the holidays, I think about my parents, gone for over a decade, and my brother who died a few years ago. They each left a palpable hole in my life, and my heart. My father was quiet and reliable, a reassuring lap and as comforting as the sun rising each morning.  My mother was a dreamer, a warm, loving, gregarious woman, a bit of a flirt, who always had a ready hug. My brother is nearly impossible to describe.  A true individual, a wild and determined spirit who could not be told anything but what his soul dictated. He loved hard, played harder, laughed easily and sent himself to an early grave doing it all full throttle with no regrets.

Growing up in my family was unique in some ways. My brother was nine years older, my sister, who I still have in my life, six years before me and I was the “the caboose.” The church, where my parents met in the choir, was the center of our social life. We attended services Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night prayer meeting. We had Sunday night potlucks and summer Bible School. We didn’t go to movies on Sunday. So you might think we were a buttoned up, serious sort heeding only a life that kept us on  the staight and narrow.  But we were so much more than that.

Our house, when money was not being discussed, was full of laughter and people from all walks of life. People my mom might have talked to for ten minutes in the grocery store that she would ask to “stop by” for tea and her famous homemade brownies. My grandfather who lived to be 103, was often around captivating us with one of his tales.  He was a great story teller and had an even better sense of humor. Neighbors came and went, some not even bothering to ring the doorbell. There were animated discussions of politics, religion, school curriculum and the weather.

Snow days were a great neighborhood event. Living in West Virginia, our neighborhood was hilly so the fathers would block off the steepest street with saw horses, build a bonfire in a huge black metal garbage can and we would all sled, moms and dads included, until dark when the last of the marshmellows had been roasted on the dwindling flames of the fire.

But what I loved most about my family is that we danced. Just us. Whoever was in the room or in the mood. We would push the coffee table against the couch to clear the floor. Someone, most often my dad or my sister, would being out the faux leather suitcase-like turntable case, plug it in and flip the lid.  We usually played some old Mills Brothers album. Setting the speed to 33 rpm, we’d drop the needle on the vinyl and after a few seconds of muted crackling, “Paper Doll” would fill the air.  My dad was shy but on a dance floor he fourished.  He took my mom’s hands in his and he would lead her around the room. She would smile up at him as though he was the only man ever born and whenever she missed a step or bumped into his shoe, she would throw in a girlish giggle and keep gliding.

As kids, my brother and sister and I joined in with our own version of “gliding” and later we were the DJ playing The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, if my brother was home from college.  He always did hitchhiker, thumbs out pointing directions just below his hips while my sister and I just tried to look cool.

So on this first day of 2024, I passed this photo of my dad and me dancing at my bestfriend’s wedding and I am reminded to dance.  With music blasting in my car, or with my grandkids or alone in my kitchen. Forget what others might think or what is happening in the world and for a moment find the joy in letting go.

Just dance.

As Mark Twain wrote so perfectly, “Sing like no one’s listening, love like you’ve never been hurt, dance like nobody’s watching, and live like it’s heaven on earth”

On February 27, I went to bed in my sixties and on February 28, I woke up “old.”  I was on a Mexican vacation, where I have had the privilege to be for birthdays in the past few years, and I assumed this one would be the same.  All sunshine and balloons and happiness. But this birthday was different. I turned 70.  It is a sobering number.  But rather than dwell on the sober part of this transition, I drank tequila whenever it was offered, sat in the winter-break sun and wrinkled my skin and pretended I was still just 69.

It wasn’t until I returned home that the number really hit me.  When I mentioned to someone that I went away for a big birthday, the ever too often question was, “How old are you?” I innocently replied with the truth. And the response was “Wow, you don’t look that old.”  Now where I come from, that is a backhanded compliment. I was both flattered and nagged by the “that old” part.

Turning 70 does give one pause. It is more time lived than time left.  No matter how you swing it, unless you live to be 140, you have passed the halfway mark.

I remember a time in North Carolina at a family beach vacation when all of us were married and alive. Mom, dad, my sister and brother and I had traveled to the ocean with our families.  The first evening, I sat watching my mother feeding my six week old (yes we flew without all vaccines in the unenlightened times way back then), children running everywhere, my eldest nephew throwing cheddar cheese spit balls at everyone and everything until one glued itself to the vaulted ceiling. Adults were scattered on the deck, by the beer cooler, in the porch rockers. The moon was rising over the ocean, its reflection sparkling on the black night ocean and in a moment of clarity, I realized this was fleeting. I said,” This is as good as it gets, isn’t it mama?  And she answered, “Yes, it is darlin’. Savor it. Enjoy every minute.” And so I did. I have. Most of the time.

But, suddenly being “old” is a startling reminder of the truth of my mama’s words. Now that life has slowly chipped away at my sense of invincibility, I understand her insight better, and the evidence is everywhere. Actors I admired and idolized as a younger me are dying and I am shocked. I hear Raquel Welch is dead and my first thought is, “Oh my, was she hit by a car?” Instead, the news reports she died peacefully in her sleep after a short illness surrounded by family. What?! The iconic sex symbol of my formative years died of the obit euphemism for “old age”?  Burt Bacharach and Chuck Jackson, who sang many of Bacharach’s songs, died also, their ages startling me as much as the fact that they were gone.

Mulling over this new found reality that I, like many of my peers and idols, are sliding toward the downward slope, I have diverted my thoughts to the positive aspects of being “old.” One advantage is I don’t take bullshit answers for much of anything anymore. I am making a conscious effort to spend time with people who replenish me. Value my input. Make me laugh. Share my tears.

I watched an interview with one of my favorite, quirky, beautiful girl-next- door actresses, Andie McDowell, who was asked why she was letting her signature dark curls go grey.  Her reply at 65 was simple.  “I want to be old.  I am tired of trying to be young. I don’t even want to be young. I have been young.” Easy to say when her perfectly salt and pepper hair tumbles around her still model-worthy face, but I loved her honesty. Her acceptance.

I was recently watching a great new show my daughter introduced me to called Shrinking.  I was so proud. As an “elderly’ person, I signed up for Apple TV+ all by myself, copied the QR Code on the TV screen, matched it on the computer and then triumphantly I got to the show but it had subtitles which I couldn’t figure out how to switch off. Just too much technology for me to tackle in one sitting.

So I watched it anyway. And at first, I found it distracting and then two episodes in, I realized it was like reading before bed with visuals.  I didn’t have to turn up my volume so loud that the neighbors could hear it and I didn’t have to rewind to hear “what did she say?”  It was perfect. I am not hard of hearing, of course, except in crowded restaurants where people across the table always whisper or straining to understand my grandchildren’s soft voices or my adult children when I don’t want to hear what they are saying.  But this subtitles discovery is perfect and not to mention, magic.

I have always had a nagging yearning to do one memorable thing before I die.  As I get older, I realize raising three kids into adulthood, and seeing them as compassionate, responsible adults, makes a beautiful mark on this world. That is quite something to have accomplished. And I actully like them all.  Alot.

They have six and soon to be seven children between them. I always say grandchildren are our chance to love a child unconditionally without the angst of making them perfect. My youngest, due later this month, is having her first in her mid-thirties.  Her pregnancy is called a geriatric pregnancy. Don’t even get me started on what that makes me as the grandmother. I feel certain the word would be right up there with senile purpura, the medical term for those ugly purple ink blots that appear on my forearm if I look at it wrong or sneeze too hard.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backward but must be lived forwards.” When I was younger, I mused about its irony but recently I better understand its grave validity. I constantly remind myself to stay in the “now” and live life as it is happening. And I attempt to temper my experiences with some comprehension in the present.

One thing I know for sure, we only get one chance at this life. And I plan to live the hell out of it, no matter my age or society’s notions about that number.

For now, I am going with 70 is the new 50.  And if I am still standing at 80 or 90, I will  just up it a decade and keep it on repeat.