We’re a Changin’

It’s no secret that as we age, changes occur. I’m not talking about physical changes, but rather about the way we react to life. 

For one thing, we no longer worry, or even think, about how other people are judging us. That happens when we come to realize that people have their own worries so they have little time to think about what we may be doing or not doing. There are always exceptions, of course. Case in point, those who sit on their verandas and balconies trying to decipher what neighbors and passersby might be into. Or comment on what they are wearing. I’ve always failed to understand such an amazing disinterest in more meaningful life interests.

Clothes are important to women throughout their lives. It is said that women dress for men or other women, not for themselves. Perhaps it’s true, but one thing is certain, there comes a time in every woman’s life when she gives up trying to impress and chooses comfort. For example, she realizes that wearing four- or five- inch heels (even three-inch ones for that matter) doesn’t impress anyone while it is a serious danger to the health of her back. A bright smile is a much better way to impress someone. And from there things change gradually.

We women, and men too, cease to see the need to wear tight belts when apparel manufacturers have been kind enough to make elastic waistbands. We take to wearing comfy sports shoes when we go walking or shopping instead of the regular shoes—that we now wear only when it’s an absolute must—because we realize that no one ever looks at our feet, just like we rarely notice what type of shoes others are wearing. And because age appreciates comfort wherever it can find it.

Those who went camping over the years, give it up with age—not necessarily old age— for the more pleasurable comfort of sleeping on a proper mattress. We appreciate the comfort of having more leisurely meals now that the kids are out carving their way into the world. And we appreciate doing our own thing.

A grandmother in her eighties wrote to an advice column because her daughter had told her that wearing a long dress to her granddaughter’s wedding was inappropriate for an afternoon wedding. The grandmother said she liked the dress very much and didn’t want to splurge on something new. The columnist replied simply: Wear the dress. You have earned that right.

That’s how I feel. We, of a certain age, have earned the right to do what makes us feel good and comfortable. Let the others think what they want if they have nothing better to do with their time!   

Food for Thought

For the last few years I have been suffering from early spring allergies, with this season seemingly worse. When chatting with some people I know who also suffer they all agreed that this season is worse for them as well. Then, a few days ago I saw a doctor being interviewed about allergies who confirmed that this year, sufferers are more affected than in the past and that it is bound to get worse.

            Great! was my reaction. The good doctor said that one of the main reasons was climate change which is affecting vegetation.  So, if humanity does not wake up to the fact that we are in trouble what will happen to the young people now facing many decades of allergies ahead of them? And all the other problems that will continue to creep up?

            I find it rather amazing that some people still believe that all the talk about climate change is simply not true. Some governments are even deciding to reverse on-going policies and actions that are helping our ecosystem get healthier. I simply don’t understand why these decisions makers feel that it will be beneficial for the world, including their own children and grandchildren. Don’t they see that the price we are already paying today will gradually get more and more exorbitant? Some experts are predicting that the floods and hurricanes we are seeing now are nothing compared to what we can expect in the future if we don’t shape up.  It’s more than time to speak up and let our elected officials know what we really want and really need.

            I have not loss all hope, however. I see how the younger generation is seriously involved in doing their part to improve our future.  All five of my grandchildren are avid proponents of the three Rs, much to my delight.  Two of them are vegetarians.  Even as teens, they decided that red meat was not only a poor food choice, but that it contributed greatly to global warming because of the methane cattle emit.  According to experts methane is twenty times more potent at trapping heat from the sun than carbon dioxide.  By unit, it is the most destructive of the greenhouse gases. To me that means that curbing our taste for red meat would help stop climate change.

I am also among those who deplore the fact that fields used to feed cows could be used to grow real food. A lot of “food” for thought here, don’t you think?

 
Spring is Springing

Every year I find it quite amazing how fast spring springs. Just a few weeks ago we had snow that, fortunately, quickly melted. That gave way to what I call the brown season, the dull almost lifeless look of nature before the sun has a chance to warm things up. That was certainly the case last week as I drove in the country with my granddaughter. She remarked that she couldn’t wait to see green. She got her wish this week as, almost overnight, lawns were once again revived and showing off their green blades. Close to my house the dark red shoots of the peonies are seemingly growing an inch a day as they rush to be able to show off their large blooms. And the buds on the trees are bursting at the seam.

All that newness entices us to spring into action. We have a need to take stock, to change, to once again put our best foot forward. As with most people, at this time of year I clean out my closets. The main idea, of course, is to put warmer things in the back and bring lighter clothes to the front, but it’s also decision time. Because most of us keep buying new clothes every year, spring is a good time to thin the herd as it were—but what to keep and what to recycle? I don’t know about you, but I always have problems deciding what to eliminate. Some little devil somewhere inside me says things like: Keep that; it still looks good. Or: Don’t get rid of that; styles do come back. Or: You’ve got to keep that jacket; remember how much you paid for it?

The problem with listening to your little devil is that you end up with too much. Yesterday I tried on a skirt I purchased some ten years ago. It still fits because my weight hasn’t varied much in that time, but I soon realized that the cut dates it even if I feel comfortable in it. It was difficult, but I faced my little devil and the skirt went into the recycle pile. And the pile grew as I found many things I haven’t worn for a couple of years for one reason or another.

It is said that if you have clothes you haven’t worn in more than a year, you should get rid of it. I suppose that’s a good habit to take, but like everything else in life there are exceptions to every rule. Take a dressy top I bought in Hong Kong ages ago that I only wear on special occasions. When I see it I agree with my little devil that I should definitely keep it, no matter its age. The cut is classic and I can enjoy wearing for many more years.  No one needs to know its real age. Nor mine for that matter!

Have a great spring!

I’ll be away from my blog for the next couple of weeks.

The Earth is Mad

On April 22 the world marked Earth Day. Most of us did something to show that we care that the earth is in trouble. We may feel that our actions are of little consequence, but if everyone did something, the results could be significant. 

Earth Day had a modest beginning in 1970 when U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin invited students to implement projects to sensitize their communities to the needs of the environment. Since then, the warnings from scientists have become more dire as our actions have brought us closer to a point of irreversibility. But there is reason to be optimistic because we are changing our ways and becoming more engaged in our efforts to heal the earth. I can certainly see that in my grandchildren. Being green is now second nature to them.

However, when you make that comment to older folks, they are proud to point out that they were green before it became a fashionable modern-day virtue. I remember that my mother who sewed a lot of our clothes kept all the remnants and when there was enough she would braid them and make beautiful rugs displaying an array of gorgeous colors. Braided rugs are still available of course, but they are now made by machine and the yarns dyed to make symmetric patterns. I don’t think they have the same soul!

In the old days, little was thrown away. However, with after-war posterity life changed. Like most of you, I remember a time when cars were long and pink and gas was selling for about 35 cents a gallon. So we fell in love with automobiles not thinking about their growing impact on the air we breathe. Fortunately, we are getting back to basics after decades of spending our resources without much thought to how it was affecting the environment, but a lot remains to be done. 

Each of us should get involved in “greening” our world beyond the weekly recycling of household trash. We should be involved in our respective communities and putting pressure on decision makers so that economic development does not come before environmental protection. There certainly is no doubt that climate change is now a reality. Floods, hurricanes, drought and earthquakes seem to be the norm everywhere. We’ve always had those, of course, but now it seems that they occur more often because the earth is rebelling, or as my grandson puts it: “The earth is mad?”

The earth is not only mad, it is fuming. We have abused it and it is rebelling and telling us to clean up our act. Yet there are still people who believe the whole climate change is just a sham made up by scientists. But what is most upsetting to me is that some elected officials are rolling back ecological standards. Everyone should be up in arms about this and let it be known that voters are ready to rebel to save our poor planet. 

People like my grandmother and my mother did so much for the earth as a matter of course. Nature was respected and little was thrown away. For those who lived through the Great Depression reusing and recycling was second nature. Clothing was mended and hung on a line outside to dry, appliances repaired, not discarded like they are today in our throw-away society. Families had one car, not two. How things have changed! We may have a better lifestyle overall but at a cost.

It seems to me that if everyone was an environmentalist and did their share, the world could be a better place for our grandchildren who may have to pay a high price if we continue to ignore the earth’s message. If we don’t, I fear that the earth will remain “mad” and the future may indeed be bleak for them. Every day should Earth Day.

 

 

Faces

We see many faces as we go about the business of living. The faces of those near and dear to us could never be forgotten. The same goes for the people we deal with on a more or less regular basis like doctors, dentists, and so on. My dentist works behind a mask that looks like the lower half of a cartoon cat’s face. Not easy to forget.

But every day we see the faces of people we recognize but whose names we don’t know. The cashier at the grocery store who always greets you with a smile, the bank employee who goes out of his way to make certain all your questions are answered. In their environment, we have no problem figuring who they are. However, if we see these people outside their work place, it may take a second or two to figure out who they are. They are after all nameless faces

When I worked full time, I commuted downtown by train. I always rode the same train in the morning and in the evening. Not being a morning person, I was often late and I would rush to make it to the station before the train. The engineer would wave at me as I ran through the open space behind the houses in our neighborhood and he slowed down so I could make it to the station. In the evening, as I walked back home, he would briefly use the train’s whistle as he waved at me. This went on for a number of years.

One day, I went home at noon for some reason. As I was making my way through the downtown station to catch the midday train, I saw a man walking towards me, a smile on his face. I knew I knew the face, but for a second or two I could not place it. Then it dawned on me. I said: “I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you without your train.” He laughed for a long time. After that, he seemed to laugh again as he waved from the train, no doubt my inane remark still echoing. 

 

New Worries

It seems to me there’s always something new to worry about. Not so long ago, we were told that talking on a cellular phone, i,e. with the unit close to the face for any length of time, could cause brain tumors. That could be the reason texting seems to have become the preferred mean of communication, especially among the young. People who use cell phones all the time in their work solved the problem with one of the hands-off options.

            So, while we may have thought we were out of danger, we are not according to the latest research. In Berkley, California, the bedrock of change—that community was the first to ban smoking in restaurants, for example—comes a warning about carrying cell phones close to the skin. By doing so we could be putting ourselves at risk of being exposed to level of radiation above what has been determined to be the safe.

            So, what is the solution? According to those who studied the problem, we should be carrying cell phones at least 5/8 of an inch, or 15 mm, away from the body. So, not in a shirt or pants pocket or in a bra as some women do.

            It seems most things we do in this world have a negative side of some sort, so having to be careful how we handle mobile phones is not an exception, rather something to keep in mind. It’s only a matter of paying attention to warnings. Just like when a doctor warns a patient not to mix some medication with alcohol, we have to get used to the fact that new means of communication also come with caveats.

            One of them is certainly that we should make certain that mobile units do not end up in the washing machine along with clothing!

Brain Health – 2.0

To follow my musings of last week, there is another thing that we may be forgetting as the years go by: writing long hand.

            I received a note from a relative in the mail recently. A very nice gesture to be sure, but I had trouble understanding what was written. The letters were not properly formed—certainly not like the round letters we all practiced in the first grade—but I did eventually make out the message.

            I found it sort of sad that my relative has lost the beautiful penmanship for which she was famous. This is an intelligent person in her forties who has no health issues, but because of her work she is on a computer for hours at a time. Perhaps she was rushed when she wrote the note, but I think it’s more than that. Like many people today, there is no need for her to write long hand. After all, we have e-mail and all the other media for communicating electronically. So we are no longer practicing writing on a regular basis.

            After I got the note, I began to ask around to see if people had given up writing by hand. All those I talked to said there was no need to do so. They said they don’t even write notes inside Christmas or birthday cards anymore because they send e-cards.

            I wonder if the fact that I find it sad that people are no longer writing by hand makes me an old bird stuck in the past? I don’t think so. There is something so wonderfully personal when someone takes the time to write a letter by hand, instead of typing it, don’t you think?

            One of my sons acknowledges that he has very bad penmanship. Always did, it seems, so when I asked him if he ever writes by hand, he said that he no longer does. Not even short notes. “I want people to understand what I have to say!”

            Things are a changin’ as the saying goes. Perhaps we—meaning I—need to concentrate more on the benefits of our new age rather than bemoaning what is being lost. At least, I will try!