GRAFTON — Beware of the story that begins with “Back in my day.” When I was a child and an elder spoke those words, I felt confused. When exactly was that day? I looked around in search of it and couldn't find it.
“Back in my day” often introduced a story with a subtext. “Back in my day, I milked 100 cows, slopped the pigs, and stacked a cord of wood before I walked 10 miles to school in six feet of snow.” Subtext: “Toughen up, kid.”
These stories gave me a skeptical view of history and aging. I resolved to walk into the woods, lie down, and die if I lived to be so old that the words “back in my day” ever spewed from my lips.
* * *
Now my contemporaries begin stories with the same words.
For a fleeting moment - circa 1968 - I believed baby boomers might change the world. Now, we're flapping our gums about some long-ago and better day and sending each other “geezer jokes” via the Internet or the U.S. Postal Service.
It's so depressing, I've considered stepping out onto an ice floe except that, due to climate change, I might not be able to locate one. That's depressing, too.
H.L. Mencken said that “old age ain't no place for sissies,” but neither is adolescence. Neither are all the years in between, and there are too many young children for whom life isn't a day at the beach. I've heard people claim that their high school years were the best years of their lives. (“Back in my day, when all the chicks were barking up my tree.”)
True story or false memory? Wistfulness or braggadocio? I don't know. What I do know is that when the time machine lands on earth, I'll gladly relinquish my seat to anyone who wants to retro-ride.
* * *
There is only one annual occasion when I wish to be younger. It happens in December when I pull a friend's birthday card out of my P.O. box. Every year she sends a variation on the same theme. Psychic powers aren't necessary, but I hold the sealed envelope up to my third eye anyway.
This silly ritual prepares me for the unveiling of a “joke” about memory loss, incontinence, sexual dysfunction, or other afflictions. The accompanying caricature of a toothless old woman wearing a neck brace, leaning on a crutch, and clutching a pill bottle in a withered hand won't inspire me or make me laugh.
What if I were suffering from these maladies? Would my heart be infused with cheer?
And who writes this drek? Probably not malevolent 12-year-olds holding grudges against their grandparents. I've seen the authors, and they are us.
The “happy” birthday messages from my well-meaning friend reflect our cultural fear of aging. Americans venerate youth, equate it with beauty, and spend approximately $10 billion a year on cosmetic surgery. Drug store shelves are stuffed with “anti-aging” creams and lotions.
We feel uncomfortable in the presence of elders with frail bodies and drifting minds, and we denigrate them or make “jokes” in a futile attempt to turn away from the evidence of our own mortality.
Economists predict that soon there will be so many sick baby boomers that our social safety nets will crash and burn. Medical practitioners yammer on the airways. Recently I heard a doctor on the radio proclaim, “Everyone will get sick.”
How many healthy elders - or healthy people of any age - make regular visits to the doctor's office? Everyone will die. Not everyone gets sick. But who among us isn't afraid of the possibility of infirmity and dementia? Of having to give up our autonomy? These fears are natural, but they needn't permeate our atmosphere.
* * *
In his book Shambala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chogyam Trungpa wrote: “Fear has to be acknowledged. We have to realize our fear and reconcile ourselves with fear. We should look at how we move, how we talk, how we conduct ourselves. [...] We must face the fact that fear is lurking in our lives, always, in everything we do.”
Some mornings when I'm mucking stalls or stacking hay bales or carting 50-pound bags of grain to the feed bin, fear flickers through me like a faulty electrical connection.
How long can I keep this up?
The voice of reason answers.
You're doing it today, aren't you?
The unexpected benefit of aging is that I do these tasks today with more agility and ease than I did them 30 years ago. When I was young, I was all revved up, like Mustang Sally in Wilson Pickett's hit song of the same name. I did almost everything in a rush, anticipating the next moment when it hadn't yet arrived.
“Mustang Sally, you got to slow your mustang down,” an observant boyfriend sang to me. His musical commentary stopped me in my tracks. I had to look at how I was conducting myself, how I was talking to myself.
My speed-driven conduct was fueled by an irrational fear of not getting things done. I was exhausting myself with what Confucius called “twisty thoughts.” Racing ahead of the moment squanders energy. It's the flip side of looking back.
* * *
When I first came to Vermont, I sublet my daughter's house in Saxtons River while she was on sabbatical. Every winter morning I walked her dogs on the Vermont Academy trails.
On our way to the woods, we often met two radiant, elderly women on Burk Hill Street. They were bundled in long overcoats, scarves, hats, and sturdy boots, moving at a sedate but purposeful pace. Their smiles added brilliance to the sun.
The dogs bounded toward them, tails wagging.
“Easy, lads,” I reminded them.
They were big, exuberant dogs, each weighing about 85 pounds. They might have startled anyone, but the women smiled and reached down to pat them and tell them what good dogs they were.
Driving home from the post office with my friend's incendiary birthday card burning a hole in the passenger seat, I was remembering those women. When I grow up I want to be like them - undeterred by snow, cold, and rocketing dogs.
I remembered my Aunt Betty, too. She ran a small dairy farm until she was 70. Then she sold the cows and took up downhill skiing. She died in her sleep a decade later, having enjoyed a lot of exhilarating runs.
I also recalled Maggie Kuhn. Forty years ago, when she was forced into mandatory retirement, she founded The Gray Panthers, an inter-generational organization that still works for social justice for people of all ages.
Maggie's prescription for old age was simple. “Learning and sex until rigor mortis sets in,” she advised.
Our doctors won't write that prescription. We must write it ourselves.
While we're at it, let's print some new birthday cards.