No. 3 The Reality of Aging

 

Physical Therapy has replaced exercise. Meditation has replaced thinking. Staying in daily contact with friends has replaced making art. Doctor’s visits have replaced movie going.

The problem with the once seduction of a book as excitement of living and learning with thoughtless embrace of words, ideas, manifestos is besieged by the unanswerable and absurd, “why?” Yet, when I hear the word clanging around in my brain, I want to rip it out and stomp it into this new ground upon which I walk now, aging. It’s time to forget the whole matter of age otherwise it will pull life straight from under oneself. “Is this important?” “Is this a priority?” “Does this contribute to legacy?” Pondering against the backdrop of dying has become the daily tedium.

Most of life’s banality once a din of necessity is now an endless repetition without end or reason. Washing the dishes, cleaning the oven, taking out the trash, the cat box, sweeping and moping the kitchen, vacuuming, scrubbing the tub, toilet, sink, floor, laundry, making the bed, paying bills, opening the mail, returning phone calls, oil changes, car washes, reading the paper, buying groceries, making meals . . . the incessant chopping, chewing and the brushing of teeth and the flossing or loose them. Then there is sleeping followed by awakening, beginning the repeating of it over and over again. The volume has been turned up on these everyday chores that besiege all humans on the planet and I didn’t mention childcare or sex or dressing or pressing and the terror of hairstyle and let us not forget manicures and pedicures.

Thinking. The problem of the omnipresent mundane taking over like some crazed kudzu is a side effect of spending too much time at home alone. Aha! This aloneness is the problem, not aging. Well, I’m glad I got that figured out and so now to change it, otherwise I am going to go crazy or give up.

8.8.12

No. 1 Who is she?

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Well beyond 60, I am asking: Who is she? Why is she looking at me? What does she want? How can I understand her? How do I make her move or want to move (her body), shop for essentials, wash the car, unpack the books – want to do everyday things? She has visions of the couch, of resting, of sleep.  In the dusk of the day around 8 PM her energy picks up and if she is not careful, the day will begin while everyone else is sleeping and the next day will be lost to fog.

At 11 PM I began watching Waste Land, a documentary about Photographer Vik Muniz and his amazing work with the garbage pickers (actually recyclers) of Rio de Janeiro; the poor who make an honest living they proclaim often, sorting the refuse of others in order to survive. The women are soft and pretty, and the men are kind and gentle. One young sweet woman has two children that are off living with their dirt-poor grandmother.  At the end she is pregnant and has another child. No man in sight. The workers get held up at a bank and lose $600 of their earnings.

I watch this film and sense that Vik is who I used to be or might have been and dreamed of being. I look for clues in his upbringing and foundation of life as a way to excuse myself for being unable to do this work anymore. Gender matters. It opens doors still for the male artist.

©Ann Smith 2012

Saturday August 11, 2012

No. 2 Sundays

Sunday morning is different, quieter, and pregnant with past memories of church, family and conflicted new week challenges and fears. Each Sunday since I returned from the Pacific Northwest feelings of aloneness creep upon the dawn of this ominous day. The NYTimes delivered to my front door in the blue blaster wrapper immediately sparks the familiar memory of breakfast at Zabar’s or a sidewalk café, all of us together or alone enjoying the weekly ritual of reading the Times, people watching, strong coffee and bagels. Instead I make my own coffee and toast; plop down on the sofa and begin rummaging through the nine folded sections laying before me, once my cultural sustenance, my unconscious conjures the empty chair at the table; a reminder of what I once loved and enjoyed in my life that is now absent. The irony is: the paper does exist; the person sharing a meal does not. And I understand the value of physical presence; the very reason I sacrifice to pay for the hulk of pulp in Texas. I want to experience the long held moments of joy and connection that I have know for forty years living in Manhattan.  I need it. But really, what we need may not be what we truly need.

To stave off the loneliness, I decide to attend the Unitarian Circle service: event, ceremony, performance, the spiritual church alternative. I get dressed, put on dangling earrings, and at the last minute cut some bangs from the long pieces that are thin and dry nothingness around my face. My forehead has always been a site of contentiousness. In one sense, it is a troublesome feature that hairdressers always want to cover but in another sense a high forehead is very much a memorable characteristic of my odd Modigliani face. Without it I am ordinary. But, at this moment I justify the value of being ordinary especially if I want to be less alone. Most of the world is ordinary, and if I want to join them, then the forehead will have to go. Then I remember what a smart friend sent recently.

Fixing and Editing Ourselves Rachel Naomi Remen A great deal of energy goes into the process of fixing and editing ourselves. We may have even come to admire in ourselves what is admired, expect what is expected, and value what is valued by others. We have changed ourselves into someone that the people who matter to us can love. Sometimes we no longer know what is true for us, in which direction our own integrity lies. We surrender our wholeness for a variety of reasons. Among the most compelling are our ideas of what being a good person is all about.... Few of us are able to love ourselves as we are. We may have even become ashamed of our wholeness. Parts of ourselves which we may have hidden all of our lives out of shame are often the source of our healing.... Reclaiming ourselves usually means coming to recognize and accept that we have in us both sides of everything. We are capable of fear and courage, generosity and selfishness, vulnerability and strength. These things do not cancel each other out but offer us a full range of power and response to life. Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world. In calling ourselves "heads" or "tails," we may never own and spend our human currency, the pure gold of which our coin is made.

I arrive late but the vibe of music and enthusiasm is so alive I lose myself suddenly noticing that the performer is beautiful and handsome to my eyes. I try not to look at him because (he is married).  Besides I feel invisible and the idea of “somebody” as in “lover,” causes panic.  I loved so much and cared so much and grieved so much when last divorced in 2004, my open heart closed down and the worst part is I still want this “Ex” (hate the term) and somewhere deep inside me hopes I will be with him again, although I really don’t want to; not really, not really. One cannot go back yet how does one go forward?  This is what we’re about here; finding a way to move forward and not stay stuck in the past. Older people do that. They do. I have always heard and now I am experiencing it. It’s repulsive and terrifying to be a statistic, an archetype of the aging divorced woman, man too for that matter.

I photograph my hand often looking at the empty ring finger remembering how hard it was to take it off and how I lay lifeless for days and days and days feeling like a small leaf of great weight drifting to sea bottom. I didn’t see light for a year.  In the interim I had spent all my money, moved out of my home in Manhattan, waking up far away from what I knew and loved. Now a shocking eight years later I am trying in my mind to conjure up a loved one and to see myself as a woman in love with another. Any interested man has suffered my rejection for no good reason. To one nice, really nice man, he learned by email. “It’s time. I don’t want to see you anymore. When he legitimately asked, “Why?” I didn’t have an answer. For now I am heartened to be attracted to any man.

by Ann Smith August 12, 2012