Giving It All Away (or most of it)

I love this painting. What an atmospheric room!

I've downsized from a 2 bedroom house to a room in a house because I had the bright idea to give most everything away before I pop the cork.

I do prefer the phrase "popping the cork" to the word "croaking" or even the phrase "kicking the bucket." I mean--croaking? That is not at all celebratory. And kicking the bucket has the feel of a person who is sullen about leaving and who is taking it out on the bucket.  Whereas "popping the cork" is a bit more spirited. I prefer that approach.

So I got rid of many things. My younger daughter took what appealed to her and the rest I sold, gave to friends or trucked to Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity.

The result is that my stuff is all over the place now. I see my pretty pencil holder by the phone when I visit Tashi Choling Center for Buddhist Studies. My Chinese vase is at Linda's, beloved art prints and wine glasses at Frannie's, a turquoise pitcher at Barbara and Renato's and...well you get the idea. My stuff has been shared.

It felt exhilarating to do that giveaway. I think it's good practice for the moment when I will have to let everything go.  I've lightened my load quite a bit. Okay, I do have some boxes stored in the garage of a friend's house. I kept a small Tibetan rug, some books, objects that I use in meditation and prayer. Pots, a futon, linens.  It's a lot less than I've had for years, but it is still a collection of stuff.  Let's face it, one needs some to make daily life work comfortably.

I still am planning to head to Mexico this winter, after the sale of my flower cottage is completed, which it should be very soon. Meanwhile I am living with various friends until the end of October.

Currently, I am living with Linda. Her place is near an historic cemetery.  I often walk there, contemplating the state of the world, the state of my  heart and the transitory nature of life.  The state of my heart is generally salubrious. I feel good. But the subject of popping the cork is never far away. Friends are becoming ill, and some have died. We are stunned and saddened at the loss of them.

During a recent visit to San Francisco  one of my dear friends and I were sitting at the table eating some dinner. It was a beautiful summer evening. We're both Buddhists and Buddhists have no qualms about talking about death. Our conversation went like this:

When I walk in the Eastwood Cemetery, I muse about human life--how brief it is, how challenging, and what opportunities it presents.

"I don't know if I will be alive in 10 years," I said to her and she replied, "I'm pretty sure I will not be." From there we both acknowledged how strange and inevitable it was to confront the truth of our mortality.  I know that  I am somewhere towards the end and that gives everything an edge. 

P.S. I read a wonderful book recently by Anyen Rinpoche called Dying with Confidence. It's a guide to preparing for death from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective. I recommend it.

To change the subject ever so slightly-- moving the veil from one side to the other-- how about the topic of living with confidence? It seems easier with age. I feel a lot more confident in my 70s than I did in my 30s or 40s or 50s. I've already digested a great deal of experience and some things have lost their glamour. Am I jaded, world weary, or it is just because I've been around the block quite a few times? Yes. And my varied life experience makes me appreciate the spiritual essence of human life even more.

It's a paradoxical business, aging. As the body begins to dismantle itself in one way or another, the spiritual aspects of being emerge more fully.

Most days I think, "If only I were more like the Dalai Lama."
 
Now there's an elder worth emulating.

Oh, that's it for today. If I keep on writing, I will just get preachy and that is so tedious. How about this: by the time one is older, one's character is fully developed, or one is a character--or both.

The sacred and profane
danced in the rain
and there were times when
they looked quite the same!

How's your end of summer? It was delightful here today. Delightful.

Old is Beautiful

 In the 60s, we saw broad social movements that demanded positive change in our attitudes about women and people of color. Slogans like Sisterhood is Powerful, The Personal is Political and Black is Beautiful were popular ways of sharing new perspectives about race and gender.

The word ageism was coined by gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler  in the 60s at the same time as civil rights, Black Power and womens' lib swept the country. But there was never a broad social movement to revolutionize our perceptions of aging and our attitudes toward older people. Not yet anyway. She said, smiling. But I think it is coming.

As part of my creative aging work, I visualize broad positive changes that create a social climate that supports positive aging and acknowledges the value and contributions of older adults.  Imagination is a very important part of any change, whether personal or social.

How do you imagine your own aging experience, and how do you imagine the social climate around aging? Do your attitudes and beliefs need to lighten and expand in positive ways to allow you to celebrate the experience of aging? 

I often find myself thinking about positive aging slogans. Slogans have a way of capturing our attention and they have the potential to raise our awareness and shift consciousness.

I was thinking about what a great slogan Old is Beautiful is the other day. When I did a Google search, I found a wonderful Pinterest site titled Old is Beautiful.  

 These three images are from that site. Angela Wheelock, a writer based in Vancouver, Canada has done a wonderful job of assembling images of older people that illuminate the beauty of age.

I love this image. I love this old woman's clothing and her cheerful smile as she stands with her garden tools in front of an old shed. She is a person who is unconcerned with what the mainstream fashion police might say of her unique and beautifully eccentric attire.

One aspect of growing older is becoming ourselves even more fully, and that naturally involves eccentricity. That's something that gives oldness its character. I am thinking of Jack Nicholson's appearance at the Oscars the other night. Nicholson's suit seemed a bit too big for him, and his glasses were definitely eccentric. All in all, he appeared as a bit of a character, which he is.

You can have character and also be a character when you grow old. It's part of the pleasure of aging.

And this is another wonderful picture, of an older man who decided to take up dance after he saw how much his granddaughter was enjoying it.

I love seeing how happy he is. Don't you?

Creativity, joy and celebration are important in all stages of life, but especially so in the later years, when we are presented with the choice between growing, integrating and moving into wholeness or stagnating, collapsing, giving up.

I feel invigorated when I look at this image, just as I did when I looked at the other two photos.

You may enjoy looking at the whole collection of pictures that Angela has collected at the link I gave above.



I also wanted to share a pro-aging video that photographer Vicki Topaz has created using some of the photos from her collection Silver: A State of Mind.  In this video, the dialog that accompanies Topaz' photos of women with silver/gray hair is quite wonderful.

"I feel that beauty is not about subterfuge; it's about authenticity" is just one of the comments from the women Topaz photographed. Take a few moments to enjoy this powerful and sweet film clip of women talking about how they are embracing aging and their silver hair, too.

On the home front here, I've been digging in my garden, adding compost, and getting ready for spring. The garden is always a place of delight for me. Yesterday I planted two kiwi vines, and am planning to move a BIG rosemary bush to another location, to make room for more vegetables. Gardening, dancing, walking in the park and woods, visiting with old friends, singing, writing, meditating, cooking---these are some of the ways that I celebrate and appreciate life.

How about you? What are your favorite ways to celebrate and enjoy?