O.A.S.?

I am woefully ignorant of the texting/social media abbreviations that increasingly occur in the crossword puzzles I used to enjoy as brain stimulation, but now too often toss aside in frustration as unsolvable unless I first take a course in Gen Z culture and textisms. On the other hand I immediately translated my first encounter with OAS – old age syndrome – in an email from a neighbor and friend of my generation even though she used it with minimal context, just saying she was “doing okay other than OAS”.

At about the same time, I interacted with the young woman whose debut website triggered my most recent post. Following from that recently posted reflection has been an extended meditation on the possible benefits of – and my strong inner resistance to – what is now often referred to as Swedish death cleaning.

    (Inserted peeve: the thinks- it- knows- better- than- I- what- I -want- to -say built in grammar monitor is trying to tell me to write “following that reflection” when I do indeed mean following from as in triggered by and derived from, not just coming after in time. I hate the unavoidable, embedded, programmed critics which do not know nuance, nor formal grammar, but try to dictate how I express myself! )

Having undergone the challenge of sorting, selling, discarding or keeping my family belongings after my father’s death many years ago, I fully appreciate the kindness done to survivors by paring down beforehand. Facing the prospect of undertaking such a project myself I equally appreciate how reluctant I am to do so. At first I merely excused myself with the assessment that my energy levels weren’t up to the task (an aspect of OAS). With restricted energy and a goodly number of daily have-to’s, I want what extra energy I have used for more pleasurable activities than sorting and selling or discarding or keeping a lifetime’s accumulations. Having already lost much of what I valued as my personal history to last year’s wildfire, the items remaining seem almost vital to my sense of self.

Yet they are not. Viewed objectively, many of them simply occupy spaces that my eyes are accustomed to seeing them in. Especially the books I have read and will not reread, but keep like old friends, their covers and titles reminding me of the pleasurable time I spent with them in the past.

As I have lived with these conflicting motivations – to simplify and to keep – over the past several days an underlying perspective has emerged. I don’t think the issue is really a tension about things, but rather an inner argument about accepting or refusing to transition from one stage of life to the next. Since retiring something over three years ago, I have not enjoyed the anticipated opportunity to pursue interests that my demanding work life prevented. Covid did not help – nor did the emergence of unrelated health challenges most probably released by my reduction in stress-driven energy. (I relate to the recovering alcoholics who bemoan not being ill until they sober up.)

Looking back over these recent years of retirement, I see a person who achieved (survived) a great deal, coping not just with a health decline but two successive years of wildfire evacuations with extensive losses from the second one, while adding a stepson to my household, overseeing reconstruction of our home, and continuing my role as support to a husband focused on career advancement. Recently several people have described me as courageous. I have not thought that adjective to be descriptive of me – but perhaps they are correct? Is it courageous to push through the demands of each day while trying to be helpful to others whose needs are often urgently disruptive of my planned allocation of time and energy? Or am I just stubbornly refusing to let OAS define me?

I am aware of the often advised benefits to older people that they interact with younger ones to stay engaged and vital. For those with children and grandchildren this sort of interaction often comes naturally, especially when retirement is accompanied by relocation to be nearer to one another (the move usually also producing a paring down of things to the basic essentials). Having no children and hence no grandchildren, my recent acquisition of young step-children feels simultaneously appropriate to following this advice, but also intrusive and an interference with achieving the flexible and free “me” time I had anticipated as a retirement reward. 

“Man proposes, God disposes.”

Now I wait, trying to do so patiently, for inner guidance on how to balance my desire to still be the younger version of myself, physically active and energetic throughout the day, meeting the needs of family – with also taking time for myself and my long postponed travel and new learning interests that were the promise of retirement. Often, so far, it seems that I am that courageous “doing” person from my 6AM rising until about 2 in the afternoon, when I become an exemplar of OAS,  using the description to excuse resting on the couch, reading and extending my Wordle and FreeCell streaks. Not the image of myself I would choose – but apparently the one I need to accept. 

For now, so be it.

Habits

I know, professionally, of the benefits to older folks of inter-generational interactions, how wisdom is passed down and enthusiasm for life and continued engagement with what new days may bring gets passed up. Knowing and experiencing are decidedly different. Since my retirement coinciding with the isolation of Covid restrictions, my focus has been on replacing the constantly people-engaged experience of my working environment with a local social network, in order not to become unduly introverted. A simultaneous dip in health, two successive wildfires disrupting my living situation, and an excess of demands for daily survival have challenged me to feel enough energy for any more than what is immediately “in my face” to be done. 

One of my intentions for retirement was to resume being regular about posting to this blog. I clearly have not succeeded in reestablishing a habit of regular writing. I have been aware of this lack, and even aware of missed opportunities, times of quiet where, instead of writing, I have played Free Cell (10,651 games to date with only 12 that I did not successfully complete), done hundreds of crosswords, run good long streaks of Wordle, and otherwise distracted myself. The pastimes are generally ones that can be thought “worthy” and beneficial for maintaining mental alertness – but nonetheless disruptions to the more meaningful goal of writing regularly.

Enter a young person, a quasi-grandniece studying at university in Manitoba who has begun a website to encourage and connect young people, especially African youth like herself. She sent me the link (www.DearDirii.com) and the first post I read was an energizing, thoughtful and educational essay on habits. Oriented as I am to recognizing when spirit, Inner Light, the Master, the cosmos, the ancestors, or whatever other language one uses to refer to that which is not physical or mental but is a real part of our experience is speaking directly to me, I “heard” the nudge to reestablish a pattern of regular posts. And I thank the young lady who is the source of that nudge for also reminding me of the benefit to me of interacting with younger people.

Now I probably will also have to catch up on the language, and slang, of internet and social media writers that I have avoided. A side benefit will be more types of crossword puzzles I can successfully complete. 

Have a good inter-generational day.

Wishing for Spring

After just a few intermittent days of sun and warmth, we are back to unremitting gray, depressing darkened skies and snow – spring snow, that melts into muddy blackness in hours, before the next snow dump briefly hides the muck. Around my home that muck is worse than usual, much of it the blackened ashy residue of last spring’s wildfire that somehow clings far more readily and tenaciously than ordinary spring mud. 

I find it a challenge not to become depressed as the exceptionally endless gray periods of this past winter have extended far longer than usual, through all of February and now much of March. One of the normal blessings of living in New Mexico is how much sun we receive. I remember only one other time in the past 50 plus years when, in my corner of the state at least, we had such week upon week of gray weather. One of those was the first summer I moved up here, near Mora, from my previous home just south of Santa Fe. I never needed my light summer clothing that year – it didn’t get either bright or warm enough to shed long-sleeved blouses.  That was the summer of 1990. I questioned what I had done to myself by moving… thankful to realize by the end of that year that it had been an aberration, not repeated until this past autumn/winter/now spring when it has been gray for weeks on end. 

I have a close friend who lives on the Oregon coast – and have teasingly accused her of sending her natural climate down here to torment me, while she responds that I’ve caused her to have to cope with too much hard-to-tolerate heat. The exchange of “normal”, apparently part of the shifts in pattern reflective of climate change, between here and there displeases us both.

I am mindful of the scientists warning that our concepts of normal must also change. Well aware that I should be grateful for the snow bringing much needed moisture to this still drought-stricken state, I ask for the virtually unobtainable  – winter weeks of sunshowers, those ephemeral hours we sometimes enjoy in summer, when one can be sitting in sunshine and watch it rain hard just a quarter mile away. In past years something akin would occur from late February throughout March and sometimes into April – a heavy dump of snow over a 12 hour period followed by bright sunshine melting the piles, filling the creeks that run into the lake that supplies water to Las Vegas (the original one) NM. It is the unfamiliar gray day after gray day for a week or more at a time, all through this past winter and now into spring, that I find hard to endure.

It is probable that the gloomy weather contributed to my decision last week to get baby chicks. My flock of hens (and a few roosters) is sizable, their egg production more than I can readily dispose of since a few long-time customers have moved elsewhere. I do not need to enlarge, nor really to renew the egg factory. I just want something that, when I look at it, says “spring” and gives me reason to smile. See if you don’t agree.

The Cruelest Month

March is the cruelest month. Despite years of knowing it is full of false promises of spring followed by bitter cold, often heavy wet dumps of snow, and chilling winds, I am unable to find balance as the temperatures swing from highs of mid sixties to lows in the teens and clouds chase away early morning sun even before I get out to feed the chickens. The persistently inconsistent weather has pushed the replacing of my septic system back and back and back again, as four consecutive days of dry weather are needed to do the work – and the delivery driver bringing the new tank has been unavailable twice, in the only weeks when those four days could be predicted. A lesson in patience that I don’t really need, after the past 9 months of being patient with an untimely contractor restoring my home from its damage in last May’s wildfire.

But maybe I should call May the cruelest month, as the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire catastrophe of 2022 that smoked but didn’t burn me, and the 2023 Las Tusas fire that destroyed chunks of my property and damaged the house both occurred in early May. This year’s May should not be a threat, as there is not enough vegetation left to feed another wildfire. Not that insurance companies recognize that it is quite safe to insure my neighborhood now… but that’s a topic for another day.

Maybe it’s November that is cruel, forcing us out of daylight saving time and back into darkness at the end of the workday, just when we most need a bit of extra daylight to shop in preparation for the winter holidays?

No, I’ll stay with March. The hope-followed-by-disillusion cycle occurs annually and repetitively throughout the month, aggravating my already unpredictable ability to function on any given day due to an autoimmune triggered depletion of energy. 

Yes, I hear you. Appreciating the immediate present is a way to cope. Detach from planning, go with the flow, all those fine sounding suggestions that do sometimes help. They don’t produce a new homeowner’s insurance policy that depends on completed restoration of the property that depends on consistent enough weather to do the exterior finishing work.

April, please hurry up and get here! Thank you.

Solitude (Revised)

My husband works “away” ( in another part of the state ) so I am accustomed to chunks of solitude during the week, enjoying it as a balance to my other-focused weekends with him, and the enjoyment of companionship as we accomplish the chores and entertainments of married life.  Just now, by contrast, my husband is out of the country for five weeks, so I am largely alone, with only intermittent company at home from my stepson, or when I venture out to town for appointments and some socializing. I have previously experienced several equally long, or longer, periods alone as this trip is my husband’s fourth in the past six years. And there have been substantial periods of solitude earlier in my life (before this marriage). I am therefore very clear on the difference between being alone and being lonely. I am fortunate to be able to say I usually experience the former, only very rarely the latter.

Today is qualitatively different, in that I am constrained to solitude by a winter-weather triggered dip in health. It is in the nature of the autoimmune disorder I live with, that a sequence of similar weather days allows me to have energy to accomplish, while a shift from sun to clouds and back again to sun results in energy depletion often accompanied by a lowering attitude that begs for the distraction of company to keep it in check. Coming off several days of promise-of-spring weather that let me forget my health constraints, I am restless and edgy today, minding my decreased capacity to do, rather than enjoying an opportunity to just be.The whining child in me is demanding why this dip had to occur, yet again, despite all that I have done to counteract the barometer body component of my disorder. The annoyed parent tells the child to stop complaining, while the adult feels frustrated at having to mediate yet another silly emotional dispute that is nothing more than misdirected attention. 

Attention given to how I benefit from peace without the distracting presence of others, to contemplate the multiplicity of reasons I have to be grateful.

Attention to the reading (about how to deeply connect with others) that is due for a study group I participate in.

Attention to listening for the inner voice of spirit that is best heard when there is minimal outer distraction.

Attention to putting my current state of being into words, here, where I can see and hear and reflect on them better than when they are merely random thoughts floating in my head.

How many of us, I wonder, use blog posts to hear ourselves think? And feel grateful when the expressed words resonate with at least a few readers who may from time to time encounter the same conundrums?  I wonder, do we come to the same conclusions? Hard to tell in this format that is largely disconnected from the feedback that constitutes a conversation.

For now, I choose to stay focused on using my alone time productively (for me) and continuing to learn ways to both conserve my energy and boost it without having to turn to an adrenaline fueled rush of stress to push through future demanding days. Which means unlearning the routines that have defined much of my life, replacing them with what I am promised is a much easier path of pausing, relaxing, focusing inward, and listening to the softly voiced instructions which, when followed, allow me to accomplish all that needs doing, easily and without pain. I suspect I may have more to say on this topic, as I practice a way of being rather than doing. Meanwhile, in the present moment, it is time to feed my chickens and collect eggs – yes midwinter the hens are, most unusually, laying well.

 One more reason for gratitude.

The Saint and the Snake

The first truly winter snow of the season , earlier in January, caused me to miss an appointment and reschedule several days of plans as I was confronted with yet another after-effect of this year’s wildfire (not the big one that consumed most of northeastern NM last year but the much smaller one that did in about ten of us who had been only slightly singed the first time around) in that my four wheel drive Envoy was crisped and I have not yet been able to replace it. I am grateful to have friends who enabled the rescheduling, and I did appreciate the gift of a quiet couple days at home.

The rebuilding process has been arduous – delay after delay, poor or no communication as to why, piles of building materials blocking the entrance to my house and creating what has felt like a fiercely threatening fall hazard for my achy body. Thankfully the worst of that danger has been removed as some of the materials just went into a new carport – still unfinished but of some partial use protecting my car these winter days.

Taught to look for useful “takeaway” lessons in the challenges life throws at me, I find I am learning to deepen my patience and to become more clear about when to just let things be and when to push against what feels truly wrongful. In that context, I was much taken with a parable I encountered in Forgive for Good, by Dr. Fred Luskin. It is not long, so rather than summarize, I am copying it out here.

“A long time ago a village had a saint living near it. That saint walked among the hills and one day came upon a rattlesnake lying in the grass. The snake lunged with its fangs bared and made to bite the holy man. The saint smiled, and the snake was stopped by his kindness and love. The saint spoke to the rattler and asked the snake to give up biting the village’s children. He said in that way the snake would be better liked and cause less harm.

Because of the power the holy man possessed, the snake agreed to stop biting. The next week the saint walked by the same spot and saw the snake on the ground lying in a pool of its own blood. The snake used what little strength it had to admonish the saint for almost killing him. “Look what happened to me when I took your advice. I am a bloody mess. Look what happened to me when I tried to be nice and not bite, and now everyone is trying to hurt me.” The saint looked at the snake, smiled and said “I never told you not to hiss.”

I would say that the big lesson for me these past 8 months, and ongoing, is knowing when to stay quiet, and when to hiss.

A parallel ongoing lesson has to do with managing one symptom of a recently diagnosed autoimmune disorder. It causes pain but that is fairly well under control. The unpredictable deep fatigue is not. I am still sorting out how much exhaustion comes from overdoing physical activity, how much is my body’s response to weather changes (barometer body), what arises from digestion issues that the new disorder has exacerbated, and what comes from stress. On a truly bad day, I know that all four are contributing. I have learned my physical limitations, and am beginning to understand the digestion dynamics. I can do nothing about the weather – which leaves stress as the main uncontrolled variable. 

Needless to say, managing a major restoration of my home is stressful. No less so is the task of letting go of a lifetime of being a planner and organizer, and instead to “go with the flow” as weather fluctuations dictate my portion of energy for any given day. Slowly I seem to be learning to sort the absolute necessities out from the list of “want to’s”, to recognize when my energy is waning, and to judge if I can take a break and resume, or need to quickly finish the few mandatory items and postpone everything else. Slowly I am learning to hear the wise inner voice that gives flawless directions for how to negotiate each day. And happily I can hear in myself the excellent indicator of impending energy collapse  – nearly constant hissing.

Next step? Hear and follow the flawless directions, obviating the need to hiss.

Why I Resist Change

Three AM is not the best time to be awake, when a good night’s sleep is needed in order to have the energy for the next busy day. But three AM is when, on some nights, my inner self alerts my mind to what it is misperceiving, or not giving sufficient attention to, with subsequent unaddressed emotional stress further depleting my already age-limited energy. My most recent three AM wakening first brought out a well of anger at banks for forcing abandonment of payment by check, through outrageous fees for using checking accounts as they were originally designed to be used – to pay monthly bills, for non-local purchases, and daily expenses when carrying much cash is putting oneself at risk.

Apparently we are now supposed to set all regular payments as automatic withdrawals from an account. I have already experienced the humongous hassle of trying to stop one of those when it is no longer appropriate, and swore I would not go that route again for anything less than a gun to my head. A few current monthly expenses are paid by direct withdrawal, but only as I initiate them each month – nothing automatic. And every time I do provide account information online I cringe, too aware of the risks from hacking, fraud and phishing that we are constantly warned to be alert for.

So what is left? Constant use of a credit card – while monitoring the totals so it can be paid off in full each month, obviating fees. That carries some risk, however – in that the issuer can put a hold on the card at any time, if they suspect there may be a fraudulent charge, and apparently there is no requirement that they promptly notify the legitimate card holder of the fraud alert hold. I was left stranded overseas, my card refused, in one such case. It took three days of long distance calls to get the hold released. And just recently a similar silent hold prevented local withdrawal of cash from an account, again without any notice to me.

We older people are persistently urged to “keep up with the times” as technological “advances” flood our lives. This older person appreciates some of the benefits of interconnectivity, and as a writer I most certainly appreciate the ease of editing and rewriting online, compared to using the typewriter with which I began. Not all the changes and supposed helpers that change my words or think they know better than I do what I am trying to say and how I wish to express it. I still turn off every autocorrect that I can. My grammar remains far superior to that which is programmed into current software.

What I don’t appreciate, and I think gives rise to the misperception that older people are resistant to change, is the present conviction that change is always positive. Nope, sorry. Especially not when the changes are rooted in a serious shift in ethos, values and worldview.

I am far from alone in pointing to major changes in how politicians, pundits, the press and the now fashionable “influencers” present themselves, and their perception of what matters – or should matter – to the rest of us. If I were given the right to name the current period of time I would call it the era of personality cultism. How many followers can I collect, in order to sell their information to advertisers and thereby support myself without having to work for someone else? How do I acquire power to use as I see fit, without regard to the good of others, not even that of my constituents (Mr. Manchin)? How loudly can I scapegoat, point fingers, deflect blame, vilify and generally disrespect anyone who doesn’t bow at my feet? How high can I raise narcissism as a virtue, making it the norm rather than an aberration?

In company with many elders, I resist change when it goes so dramatically against the values I have lived by – that respect and a following are to be earned by honest conduct, thoughtful engagement, respectful listening to different viewpoints, and the search for collective wellbeing. I resist the marketing of absolutely everything, and the abandonment of a belief that not everything has a price. If that makes me a “stodgy old fogey” so be it. I suspect I am still in quite good company, though I accept that the current ethos, especially online, deprives me of the opportunity to find and connect with most of that company.

Would that we had louder voices, more stamina and energy to make our presence, our values and our concerns not just heard but listened to! With awareness that the years ahead of us to act and perhaps make a difference are rapidly diminishing, it is difficult not to despair. If all I can do now is stand firm in my own life, for what I perceive is right, that is what I must do.

So bank be advised – if you won’t let me write checks, I will close my account and go elsewhere!

Mind the Mind

As I strive to be patient with what is beginning to feel like an intolerably delayed process, I repeat to myself that things can’t happen on any different time schedule, just because I want them to. I remind myself that stressing about delays moves nothing forward, only wears my patience down further. I think that I would be handling the situation better if only there were meaningful communication. Are the workers coming today, or did their cancellation due to weather yesterday (never communicated to me until after dark last night) set everything back an unknown length of time?

As I try to stay in the present, and enjoy the quiet that I know will be lacking in days ahead, my squirrely mind jumps to the self imposed approaching deadline – that I want to be able to enjoy entertaining guests for a joint birthday for my stepson (his first in the US) and me in just a few weeks, in late October. No way can I do that with the inside of the house in its present dismantled state, everything off the walls and away from shelf edges, to prevent crashing disasters as the outside walls are pounded, in the process of putting up new siding.

I do not lack for alternatives. Several friends have offered us retreats to their homes during the noisy reconstruction, and I’m certain I could even plan a party in one of those spaces. As deeply appreciative as I am of these offers, my mind keeps me hung up on it “not being the same” as entertaining at home.

Why does this aspect of identity (a demanding mind) that I know is not “the real me” keep interfering with acceptance of what is? Can’t it be content with its prowess at Wordl and crossword puzzles, and let go of the false and illusory pretense of control? How many times must it subject itself (and me) to the hard lesson that no amount of planning and preparation can ever envision all possible outcomes? No matter how many past experiences I reflect on, where in retrospect I see that things worked out exactly as best benefited me despite not being what mind intended, still today sitting here waiting for the possible arrival of a crew (or not), that mind resists relaxing and letting me just be.

It helps, verbalizing the dilemma, so that I have a focus for the spiritual exercise I will engage in as I walk out to feed chickens and go down the hill to empty the mailbox, grateful that the sun is out and that there is green showing on the tops of many of the still-standing burnt trees both on my own property and its surrounding areas.

Mind, please be at peace.

Summing Up Another Year

Apparently I have been engaged in a transition, recognized by others on the spiritual Path I follow, as a key shift in both focus of attention and sense of identity, that requires limiting one’s outer engagements to just what is necessary for daily life, with much of what occupied my time and energy stripped away. Hence my writing has been set aside, along with most social interaction, social media usage, even the number of books I am accustomed to getting read in a week. Undoubtedly the considerable demands to adapt imposed by acquiring a teenage stepson, and being displaced from home (again) by wildfire, have played their part in my largely unconscious decision to pull in, focus inward, and go relatively silent to the unseen audience such as I may still have for this blog.

The aftermath of fire damage is still unfolding. My house was saved, its exterior severely damaged and about to be remade (projected to take about a month). Garage and large shipping container of stored life history are gone. The electric meter, and therefore power for the well, was destroyed and took several months to be restored to code specifications, during which time I was evacuated to a location 140 miles away, traveling back twice a week to care for animals and receive my scheduled weekly health support treatments. Friends housed me near home for those overnights. I am deeply grateful for their caring assistance.

Learning to live, three of us in a small one bedroom apartment where my husband lives during his workweek, in a big city near its airport, was a challenging adjustment for the three months of being evacuated from home. I have known intuitively, all my life, that I am not a city person, despite living in them from early childhood until my late 20’s when I moved to New Mexico. Once here, I have lived rural, delighted to visit cities when necessary but no longer confined by them. Despite the view from some of my windows now being of charred trees, I still savor the rural landscape that has been my daily blessing for more than thirty years. And there are patches of green reemerging on many of the trees, the grasses have come back in full, along with sunflowers and some other small wildflowers. Additionally, the grasshopper infestation that has plagued my neighbors living outside the burn area has not come near my surviving perennials. Doves never left, and songbirds have returned. The only thing I missed this summer season was hummingbirds. I expect them back next year.

It is too soon to say what may be my biggest gift from this year of upheaval, but as I approach both the anniversary of meeting my spiritual teacher and my own birth anniversary, both in late October, I acknowledge my gratitude for finally learning to release mind’s iron grip and dictates, freeing me to be flexible, adaptable and trusting, experiencing satisfying outcomes I could not envision with my limited mental outlook. My Teacher repeatedly reminds us that Soul is a happy entity. Seeing that I can be happy despite outer tensions and challenges is a lovely indication that I am approaching knowing myself as Soul, lovingly guided on what to say, when to say it, when to be still, when to act and how to simply Be.

Thank you to all who continue to follow despite my long silence. I appreciate you.

Forced Change

I set out to post a cheery spring picture so as to counter the dreary, unending gray winter weather that I am beyond fed up with.

Instead of easing through my familiar steps on WordPress, I was forced to change to this new application.

Maybe not so inappropriate since the hyacinths have been “forced” into bloom indoors.