My 90-year-old stepmother lives in a nursing home now. Paul and I visited her this past weekend. It’s depressing to see a once active person slumped in a wheelchair, her mind and body brought down by Parkinson’s disease.
We don’t have a lot of choice as to what our final days will be like. No one wants to end up like my stepmother. She certainly didn’t. But beyond the uncontrollable, how do we make our final years count?
While I have a ways to go before I hit “old age,” (I turn 58 this week), I do think a lot about what I want those years to be like. Why do some people remain vital and continue on in their sunset years as they have their entire lives? Part of it depends on luck and genetics, which determine whether your body and mind remain functional.
But given reasonable health, pursuing a passion or continuing to engage in meaningful work helps us stay alive in the fullest sense of the word. We have to remain curious. We have to stay in love with life.
The following duet between Tony Bennett, who is 86, and 70-year-old Aretha Franklin, illustrates that point beautifully. At first glance the song seems to be about love and maintaining a relationship with another person, but they could also be singing about staying in love with life.
We recently spent a weekend in Brooklyn. Older son was playing with Raya Brass Band in the annual Golden Festival — two nights of music and dancing. Balkan folk music comes in many forms and celebrates the joy, sadness, and complexity that makes life on earth so sweet.
By Saturday night the festival was in full swing, the sound level and crowds were intense. In one room, an enormous chandelier danced up and down to the beat.
So on Sunday, needing some quiet time, we took a short walk through Brooklyn’s Greenwood cemetery. Our goal was to find Leonard Bernstein’s grave. After a weekend of music, it seemed fitting to pay homage to the maestro.
As we walked through, I wondered about the less famous people buried here. Who were they? Who was missing them? What had they done with their time on earth — and, for that matter, what am I doing right now with mine?
The gravestones provided some information.
But no specific answers. At least not to the questions I was pondering.
But then we came upon this tree with elephantine roots, its grip on the ground made stronger by the passing years.
“Grab on to this awe-inspiring, irreplaceable planet with both hands,” it seemed to say. “We are privileged to live here. Celebrate your beautiful life!”
Before we got in the car, I stood and listened. After two nights loaded with boisterous music, the only sound I heard was the wind rustling through the dried branches overhead. The earth was singing.
Most likely everything that can be said about Friday’s tragedy in Connecticut has been said. Since Friday, I have been weighed down with a sadness that is punctuated by moments of extreme anger and disgust.
There are candlelight vigils to attend and petitions to sign, but nothing will undo what has already been done. As singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler sings below, “If it were up to me, I’d take away the guns.”
Right now, though, the one thing that has made me feel better at all, besides signing petitions and communicating with my own kids, has been to give money to organizations that advocate for children. There are plenty of them out there, but here are two that are near and dear to me.
Mom’s Clean Air Force: Like the proliferation of guns in our society, clean air is a public health issue. Air pollution hurts the most vulnerable among us. By pulling together the voices of mothers, fathers, and other engaged citizens, this organization works to counteract the lobbyists in Washington who fight for polluters’ right to dirty our air. The site provides up-to-date information and lists ways we can act in the interests of ourselves and our children.
Donate now, and for every tax-deductible dollar you donate by January 1, 2013, a dedicated funder will provide two additional dollars tripling your gift.
The Strong Kids Program at the McBurney YMCA in New York. I have a special interest in this program. My younger son taught these kids life skills for several years, helping them learn how to advocate for themselves, and my older son has done some academic tutoring there. I was often privy to dinner table discussions about how much potential each of these kids—who hail from every borough in the city—have, and how, with some consistent, adult attention, their lives could be improved.
“Do we have the courage to stop this?” asks Nicholas Kristof in his column in today’s New York Times, where he makes an excellent case for gun regulation. I hope we do. And I hope that our leaders will exhibit the kind of heroism we need right now, and stand up to, and defy the all-powerful gun lobby.
Women who are in their sixties and older have been on my mind lately. While I have a few years before my own 60th birthday, I’m noticing that late middle-age/ early old age can be one of the most powerful and vibrant times in a woman’s life.
It started at a Patty Larkin concert that took place right here in Concord. I’ve listened to her music for years, but I’d never seen her in person.
If you’d asked me to describe her voice, I’d have told you that it has a smile in it. And after seeing her play, I can now say that, in fact, she does smile when she sings.
From where I sat, Larkin looked and sounded like a woman in her early forties. Her body is toned, and her smooth, youthful voice reveals none of the wear and tear that often comes with time. And the inventive way she noodled around on her electric guitar reminded me of my 29-year-old son, who plays and composes experimental music.
“How old do you think she is?” I asked my husband during intermission. He pulled out his smartphone and looked her up. “Sixty-one,” he told me. Really? Wow.
Close up she may not look quite as young as she does from afar, but the vibrancy and joy she exudes while performing is that of an artist at the height of her powers.
A few weeks later, another powerful, older woman came across my radar. I reviewed Lilly Ledbetter’s memoir, Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond.
After 19 years as a supervisor, Ledbetter learned that Goodyear was paying her significantly less than her male counterparts. She took her battle for fair pay all the way to the Supreme Court.
The court decided against her, ruling that the statute of limitations had run out on her claim. She lost her personal battle, but she had the guts (and grit) to persevere so that the rest of us wouldn’t be treated in the same way.
In one of his first official actions as President, Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which provides a more reasonable time limit for such claims. Now in her early 70s, Ledbetter went from the factory floor, to testify before Congress.
While reading Ledbetter’s memoir — which I could barely put down—I was reminded of how filthy factory work is (I welded electronic bug zappers during college), and of the gauntlet many women must run when they work with men who are unable to check their sexual urges at the workplace door.
Ledbetter isn’t an artist, nor is she a glamorous celebrity (though she’s both eloquent and elegant in words and appearance), but a regular person who grew up in poverty, worked grueling hours to help support her family, and then became a spokeswoman for us all. She is forever on my list of inspirational women.
Then last week, at another event in town, I heard historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, 69, and photographer Annie Leibovitz, 62, discuss Leibovitz’s latest project, “Pilgrimage,” which is currently on exhibit at the Concord Museum.
These two smart, articulate women shared personal stories filled with self-deprecating humor. And while Goodwin awakened my somewhat dormant interest in history, my focus was on Leibovitz.
“Pilgrimage” is a photographic study of places and the personal effects, work, and surroundings of several historical figures. Some of them, Thoreau, Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott once lived here in Concord.
Leibovitz began the project during a difficult time in her own life. She needed to do something that wasn’t an editor’s assignment, but that was instead self-driven and that satisfied her own interests and curiousity. In healing herself, she did what many of us do —what I do when I’m overwhelmed, sad, or in a rut — she shifted gears and focused on the minutiae.
While I might weed the garden, detail the house, or start a cooking project, Leibovitz focused her camera on the light outside Emerson’s window, the beat-up surface of Virginia Woolf’s desk, and Georgia O’Keefe’s box of handmade pastels.
Both Leibovitz and Goodwin agreed that it is these kinds of details that make the person come alive. Later, as I walked through the exhibit past photographs of Annie Oakley’s riding boots, Marion Anderson’s concert gown, and the top edge of Eleanor Roosevelt’s desk drawer, etched with her signature, they came alive for me too.
Rather than becoming diminished as they age, these women are only getting stronger. I have heard women my own age complain that they feel invisible. With no regular job and an empty nest, I occasionally feel this way too.
Women like these show us that we don’t have to fade away. If we keep working, doing, and learning, we can be better, we can do more.
I leave you with another video of Patty Larkin. Check out the way she works that electric guitar with her bow.
Paul and I recently watched Pina, a documentary about the work of German choreographer Pina Bausch, who died in the summer of 2009.
The music, the settings, the dancers, and their stories about Bausch are stuck in my head.
According to Pina‘s website, filmmaker Wim Wenders
… takes the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, he follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal – the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch’s creativity.
These works are performed by dancers who are fearless. They give their all, each one pushing him or herself to the edge while maintaining a level of control that only the very skilled have mastered.
For example, in the clip below a dancer flirts with the edge of a cliff throughout his frantic, headlong performance. In another dance, a woman dives off a chair toward the floor through a “hoop” made by her partner’s arms. The move was as nonchalant as a shrug and it took my breath away.
The dancers’ thoughts, which are dispersed throughout the film, reveal a leader who was generous about soliciting participation from others in her vision. Rather than hold her performers to her own closed concept of what a particular dance should be, Bausch had the confidence and the courage to let them fly.
One dancer remembers Bausch telling her “you just have to get crazier.” Another says she told him to “scare me!” Bausch trusted her dancers, and by doing so she taught them to trust themselves.
Exhibiting mastery of a discipline without being shackled by it, while eloquently expressing the human condition, is something artists strive for. It must have been thrilling to have a leader who asserted her authority by encouraging those in her dance troupe to “let ‘er rip!”
One of the great things about having adult children is that, well, they are adults! Adults who are also fabulous hosts. Our son Ben recently moved into his first roommate-less apartment. And he has a sofa bed, a really comfortable one. So on this visit, we stayed at his place in Brooklyn.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon. A professional trumpet player, Ben needed to finish his warm-ups for a gig that night. He sent us off to the nearby subway station with instructions for how to get to an interesting shopping district.
We checked out the shops and waited for Ben to join us at a local cafe. Dinner was at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant.
That night, we heard Ben play with Sxip Shirey. Wild, crazy music that makes people get up and dance. There are no videos on Youtube of this particular evening, but the one below gives you the idea. (Warning: language!)
I’ll bet you’ve never heard anyone make music with a megaphone and a siren before! Paul and I were also impressed by Xavier, the group’s vocalist. Xavier sang some sexually nasty-in-a-good-way lyrics with the voice of an angel while maintaining a look of wide-eyed innocence.
For example, he sang this one by Minnie Riperton, reminding us that her repertoire was much bigger than her well-known hit, “Loving You.”
I love it when young musicians turn music from my generation into their own. One day I’ll find a video of Xavier singing this. When I do, I promise to share it with you. In the meantime, here’s a clip of Xavier that Ben just sent me. Given my previous simile, the song is appropriately entitled, “Angel.”
A couple of nights later, we heard Ben play at the annual Balkan Shout-Out with Raya Brass Band. You can view the video below to get a taste of their music and what it’s like to attend a performance, but definitely take some time to listen to clips from their new album.
We have seen this group play many times — two of those times were in our own back yard. It has been a lot of fun watching Ben develop his skills in this genre, which has unusual rhythms, and allows for improvisation. As you see in the video, it also involves a lot of dancing.
There were some quieter moments as well. Not only did Ben provide us with a place to stay, he treated us to a mouth-watering and memorable dinner at Flatbush Farm in Park Slope. The three of us talked and joked — I am so grateful that both my sons are willing to let us witness and experience the people and things in their lives that are important to them.
We also took a walk through the Brooklyn Museum. I wanted to see the Keith Haring exhibit, but I was most impressed by a section of the museum called “visible storage.”
Items not currently on display are housed behind glass in a darkish area. Here I am wandering through.
A cool bike with raccoon tails — familiar accessories to those of us of a certain age—has its own case.
You’ll have to forgive the quality of these photos. They were taken with my phone and, as I mentioned, it was kind of dark in there.
Each encased item had a corresponding number. You can learn more about a particular object by entering its number into one of the iPads attached to pedestals throughout the area.
Something about this space reminds me of green design. Perhaps because every inch is used in the most engaging and educational way.
Parents Weekend ended with brunch on Sunday morning. I’m not sure when the next one will be, but I’m thinking maybe once a quarter would be nice. Often enough, but not so often that we wear out our welcome.
