A Liminal Space
By Pat Gallagher
Where am I now? Nowhere. Not there nor here. Grief is like that.
Knock Knock
By Carl Kopman
Maybe you’ve heard this one before—
Knock Knock,
Who’s There?
Looking Around
By Marjorie Roth
Looking around my dining room where I am choosing a few things to be polished for the holidays, I spy with my little eye a number of things that are important to me. Some have already been polished and are shining out, demanding attention. I spy the well and tree platter which will hold the turkey on Christmas. But outgleaming it is my emotional favorite: a hot chocolate set so attractively designed it speaks to me whenever I see it. It consists of a round silver tray with a beaded edge, a sugar bowl and a creamer, also beaded, with each shaped in a particularly delightful way.
My Accomplishment This Year
By Marjorie Roth
At age 100 it’s a little hard to say I’ve accomplished anything but survival this past year. I feel a little like Ukraine: fighting as I can but slowly losing ground. I have to recognize I’m living an altered life. I’ve begun to think that realization applies to life in toto, if we start with Shakespeare’s Ages of Man. It starts with the infant mewling and puking in his nurse’s arms, and finishes with walking on three legs, one of them a cane. Well, I can only walk on two legs and a counter, or on two legs and four wheels that will move me along. If Shakespeare had known about driving a car, he would have used it for adolescent age and the absence of it for old age. That stage alters life drastically. If I want to go anywhere I need someone to drive me, and then I need to be sure when I get out of the car I will have my walker and that there are railings and not too many steps to climb.
A Long Journey
By Marjorie Roth
No, I’m not talking about a trip in a covered wagon. I’m not talking about a trip to the Camargue, nor a gastronomical trip through Provence. No, I’m talking about life.
The Unexpected Gift Of Being Old
By Marion Bar-Din
Now, at the age of ninety-four and a half, I’m still experiencing things I hadn’t expected. Many are good things that warm my old heart. I have, over the past ten or more years, a new group of middle-aged men and women who come to visit me regularly and are interested in listening carefully to what I say. These are the sons and daughters of my old friends who have already passed away. They call me and want to visit. They ask lots of questions, but soon they are telling me about their lives and look to me as a surrogate parent who may have advice or a story about their mother or father.
Elusive Time
By Margaret Kokka
My sense of time has changed noticeably since I have joined that growing crowd of the elderly who are adjusting to the physical and psychic limits of our aging soul and body. The recent elections have only added to the rampaging climate changes that leave me overwhelmed by situations beyond my control and struggling to grasp our future often leaves me rudderless.
The Time Remaining
By Pat Gallagher
The first time the finite nature of human existence entered my mind was a remark uttered by the writer Harris Dulany in 1970. Harris and his wife Barry and their two young daughters were friends of mine. At the time they were living in a rambling brownstone in Fort Greene in Brooklyn. Harris had worked at the Strand Bookstore, famous for its collection and size. He said one day he’d had an epiphany when he was at the bookstore. Gazing at the enormous collection he realized that if he read a book a day he would die before he could read them all. I don’t know why I still remember this incident but the image of books representing the days of a life was compelling. Compared to the thousands of books on hundreds of shelves a lifetime is a very short shelf indeed.
Just Do It!
By Pat Gallagher
What have I always wanted to try? Nothing comes quickly to mind. It probably says something about me that I have a much longer list of things I have absolutely no desire to try: sky-diving, bungee-jumping, para-sailing, scuba diving…the list goes on. I was reminded of this the other day when I saw the photo of my 25-yr-old grandson facing a concrete climbing wall at Twente University in the Netherlands. The 100-foot-high wall is studded with hundreds of colorful hand and toe holds that allow the climber to scale the wall in different ways. In the photo Rik is harnessed up, waiting to ascend. It is his first time.
Acting My Age
By Pat Gallagher
The memory of doing cartwheels with abandon when I was ten years old gives me the shivers now. Watching young children running pell-mell down a slope, tumbling and bouncing back up is distressing. Did I ever do that? I must have. I do remember the Band-Aids and mercurochrome on skinned knees. For many years I didn’t hesitate to lift small children, set ‘em on my hip, sling a bag over my shoulder, and maneuver a stroller down a set or stairs. Now it’s an achievement to simply descend the stairs. Now, lifting my 10-inch cast iron skillet from the drawer beneath the oven requires conscious attention to placing my feet carefully, bending at the hip crease to protect my back, engaging core muscles to protect the rest of my joints, and remembering to breathe. Isn’t it amazing that the breath is such an important element in all this. And “core”? Who knew? Why did no one tell me this seventy-five years ago?! No need then, I guess.