Land of Ageless Beauty

Stephen wakes up wondering why he is in a malaise.  After traveling from east coast to west, we have landed in Old Town Pasadena to begin a long weekend of wedding festivities for my son.   This boy, errr, young man, is tall, lanky and fit.  His wife to be is a just-graduated dietician, tall, lanky and fit.  They appear to be a good match.  We are also a good match, short, squat, aging gracefully (or so we believe), trying to suck in tummies that have enjoyed a bit of too much good living in our lives.

We sit in the sparsely decorated room of our discount hotel (trying to save money to sleep in order to splurge on the great food and wine in this town) going through the list of why we are feeling a little blurry and disconnected.  The easy answer would be jet lag, since we were awake at 3 a.m. eastern daylight time in order to be on a 6:15 a.m. flight to arrive at LAX at 11 a.m. and being another day anew.  But I think it is more than that.

I grew up out here.  This is the land of Hollywood, the culture defining aura of “you are what you drive, how you look, where you dine.”  The women are beautiful, slender, manicured, muscular (but not too muscular, lest the definition of muscle overpower the softness of unblemished skin).  The men are buff, robust, solid.  Youth extends to infinity through the magic hands of plastic surgeons and personal trainers.  It is difficult to tell substance from image.  There are loads of Mercedes and BMWs on the streets connoting a sense of wealth and well-being, and I always wonder about the back-story.  Are they living in shared apartments on the western fringes of downtown (not quite West L.A.) in order to give the appearances that have come to define California culture and maintain a car payment that is more than the rent?  And why not, people spend a lot of time in their cars out here — probably more than they spend at home!

Over dinner, we talk about the State being bankrupt, issuing vouchers for future payments of goods and services.  Yet, the sky is blue and there is barely a layer of smog over the city today.  This is a “there will be a better day” atmosphere.  The cafes along Colorado Boulevard are filled with diners sipping good wine and nibbling at calamari appetizers before ordering the blackened grouper or rare steak.  The four hundred thousand dollar weddings are still being booked at the Huntington Gardens (though not the wedding I will attend which will be in the public park).

There is a thirty minute wait at 21 Flavors of Frozen Yogurt.  The queue along the sidewalk and around the corner is about thirty people long.  They are all young, ageless, eager, a melange of Asian and Latino and European and African mix of couples or representing the blending of a prior generation of intermarriage, all beautiful and ageless.  After our dinner of a delicious Japanese dinner on the sidewalk cafe at Kabuki, I glance longingly across the street for a frozen yogurt.  Stephen pats my rear and says honey, we don’t need it.  I know he is right, and I feel out of place, out of touch with the land of my beginnings.  I am no longer part of this.  I meander with a camera around my neck, silver hair prominent among those with copper highlights, flat and serviceable shoes juxtaposed against the click of stilettos on the sidewalk.  I am a tourist now and with this realization, some shame overcomes me.  I no longer belong in the land of my youth, the land of ageless beauty, and then realize that this may not be a bad thing.

Scrambled Eggs

There is a mystery to the aging process. Deterioration happens when you least expect it. It arrives suddenly like a boulder dislodged from the cliff, falling on the road and blocking traffic for miles. It takes hours and a large crew to handle the clean-up. Last night, while eating scrambled eggs, the most soft and delicate of all food substances, I suddenly feel something solid, rock-like in the midst of the warm mass in my mouth, and realize that a tooth had broken off. Why am I crying? There is a gaping hole in the front of my smile. I face a day or more in the dentist’s chair. But that is not it. I am continuing to deteriorate. The parts are wearing out and need replacement. They do not grow back but will be fashioned from artificial material. This is a reckoning. I am coming up to my 63rd birthday and I cry because I am mourning this loss — of my smile, my tooth, my beauty, my health, my life.

Did You Fire the Cleaning Lady? or How To Save A Few $$

We are working professionals who feel poor.  Mostly because our retirement fund has tanked, the financial picture is gloomy, and it looks like we’re going to have to work another 10 years just to catch up to what we lost a month ago.  I’ve been taking my lunch to work, saving $5-$7 per day.  He’s been shopping the food sales at the grocery store. We’re bundling car trips. Trimmed eating out.  Last week we managed to have a meal at the local diner for $20 (plus tip).  He’s at the stove now preparing to cook burgers, and the electronic ignition for the gas burner is flickering but not igniting.  This is what it always does after the cleaning lady comes.  The rings don’t always get replaced to the exact position.  He looks up.  “Did you fire the cleaning lady?” he asks.  No, I nod, saying, “There wasn’t anybody else here who was going to clean the toilets and wash the floor.”  “Oh,” he says.  “I thought we agreed to fire her.”  “Well,” I say, “we’re feeling poor, but in reality we’re still making the same income, we’re at no risk for our jobs, and we’re helping out a Latino family who could use the work.”  “Yeah,” he says, “I can see that.  Well, okay.”

True, I’ve been penny-inching.  Three weeks ago I opened my first savings account in more than 20 years.  I’ve managed to squirrel away a few dollars, paying attention to depositing checks that come in from the sale of my art that I normally would have put into my checking account and spent.  It’s an interesting feeling being so aware of debt, credit, savings, and what constitutes poverty.  Bob Herbert wrote in the NY Times this morning that people are losing their homes and more will be destitute and homeless than ever before.  Our president to be will have one of the greatest leadership challenges in 75 years. The banks who have been given the bailout (oh, excuse me, rescue) on the backs of U.S. taxpayers are not releasing any of these funds to provide credit to homeowners who need to refinance mortgages.  I am sleepless worrying about who the next leader of my country will be.  I cry at the prospect of McCain beating Obama and worry about election fraud.  I feel helpless and at the same time both hopeless and hopeful.  I have not felt so much energy in an election since I was a youth and John Kennedy moved into the Oval Office.  Yet, I also feel despair at what we have wrought as a nation.  There is no trickle down for me.

So, as my hair grays and my bottom sags, and I yearn for retirement when I can play at doing the things I love best, I despair and lament my own financial recklessness as a baby-boomer with her head in the sand, and the frivolity of my expenditures.  Who is to blame?  Certainly not the cleaning lady.  Perhaps I will have a yard sale or sell another pair of shoes on e-Bay instead.

The Phone Call

I’ve been joking around, poking around the edges of waning sex, imagining the passion of my youth and the not so long ago time of yearning and desire, before vaginal fluids evaporated and the frustration of lost erections. This week, I wondered if I would need to start using the term “sex” with the same Bill Clinton definition. Oh, and by the way, I didn’t inhale, either. I was talking to myself, that inner dialog that goes on when the questions are too startling to ask aloud for fear of hearing the truth or expressing blame: Will he ever enter my body again? Was that time last month the last time in my life? Do we need to honor or mark the last time as a moment of profundity in our lives? I am mourning my aging and my self as a sexual being.

Every day husband and I have phone chat time, catch up time, how’s your day going time. It’s never predictable about when we’ll talk. Yesterday, he called just before noon and after the usual updates — me reporting how my phone interview went with the prospective job, he telling me about who said what at his office and the routine transactions of life, he announces rather quietly and nonchalantly that the doctor’s office just called with the elevated PSA test results. It’s showing cancer, he tells me, so I’m going to need to go in for a biopsy.

Since this news, the hours of the last day have been a blur. I am stunned. I have a physical explanation now for why we have had to work so hard to sustain an erection. I am feeling sad, disconnected, wanting to support him and feeling this sense of impending loss and fear. Not knowing for several more weeks whether this is an aggressive or slow growing version of prostate cancer, or maybe, it’s a misdiagnosis. Hah. And, I think, this is not about me. This is about supporting him and us, and being in life together living full out for whatever time we have here. Unpredictable as life is.

It is time for me to challenge the traditional definitions of sex, love, intimacy, and find new ways of expression through physical touch and tenderness that will keep us close. That’s all we have together — reinventing our future, mourning our past and letting go.

Today will be life as usual. We will meet at the end of the day for our usual Friday night date. It will be at the Art Museum, and we’ll see what happens next.

Marketplace: An Unconsciously Conscious Experience

My mother would be appalled. Today at age 92, she still shops at the top of the food chain on her dwindling retirement income. It’s only Whole Foods and Good Earth for her. So be it. Look at all the money she’s saving on gas by not driving a car (my sister took it away from her at age 88 when she did a slow roll into the rear bumper of the car in front of her at a red light). Me, it’s the double whammy — high gas prices and over $4 for a 1/2 gallon of milk (okay, so it’s organic). Poverty row for the middle class is how I see it. I’m earning not much under $100K per year and I feel poor. My car is 13 years old, still kickin’ A, 192K miles on the ODO, getting 27.8 mpg and I intend to drive it until it disintegrates. But, recently, I’m usually eyeing my gas gauge and odometer, making decisions about driving 55 mph instead of flooring it to 65 or 70, to save a few vapors. I am not making random trips to out of the way places, and I’m trying to combine trips to be more conscious. But, today at the food store I had a really unconsciously conscious experience. After paying $12 to get my hair cut at Great Clips, I walked into the market and grabbed one of those mini-carts, the kind you see that have a small shallow upper shelf and another one below it. They kind of look like go-carts for supermarkets. I unconsciously thought, I later surmised, that if I had the smaller cart I wouldn’t be so inclined to fill it up. I also decided not to stroll the aisles window shopping for what I might need (oops, want), and made a bee-line to the the 6-8 things on my mental list. I didn’t buy the honeydew melon; it wasn’t on sale, but I picked up two cantaloupes for the price of one. Then, as is my custom of late, I beat a path to the section where the butcher puts the soon-to-be-outdated meat, reduced 50% from the original sticker price. I can’t ever remember my mother doing that! She never “skimped” in the kitchen. If food was on sale, she thought, there was something wrong with it. So, there I am, picking through the packages, picking up chicken breasts, a roast, turkey scallopini, and putting them into that little cart. Next, I made a pass by the rack at the back of the store where they shelve the discontinued, dented, outdated and poor sellers. When I do this, I feel a combined sense of shame, horror and pride. People do not flock to the bargain bins in the supermarket, they stroll up nonchalantly, secretively, make their choices quickly and move on. There is a reckoning of sorts I believe that comes with knowing that many of us are living on the edge of barely making it, even though by appearances it might seem otherwise. I am far from being a bag lady, but I can certainly understand the feeling that comes with making ends meet. A few weeks ago, before $4 a gallon gas and $4 a 1/2 gallon milk, I was not in this frame of mind. And my pride is not so important as to be able to save a few dollars at the check-out line. Final bill: $51.85. Better than last week. I’m also wondering if this desire to be thrifty in these difficult economic times is also a function of my 60-something age. I’ve never been that careful, carefree is more like it. The stock market rallies and drops unpredictably. NPR Marketplace reports that the big box discount stores are making 20% profits because people want one-stop bargain shopping to save on gas and food. I know that unlimited supply, low fuel prices, abundance and prosperity are dreamland. As I’ve watched my retirement fund tank, then sputter, then topple, then climb some and the net result is loss, I am feeling a sense of loss. And, perhaps this new habit of food shopping for bargains is one way I can exert control over my life that has been impacted by the economic follies of this nation’s inept leadership and my own failure to recognize that some day I would be old.

My latest worry at 60-something.

It’s not that I haven’t thought of this before, but it’s been seven years since I have actively looked for a job, and in that intervening time it occurred to me that lack of youthful vigor (translate that to mean hair colored straw blonde, age spots on my hands, a few extra pounds around the middle and flat dress shoes) would surely be a deterrent should I ever want to make a career move.  Career, you say?  Gee, she should be thinking about retirement.  So, now, as I edge toward the time when I should be cashing in on Social Security, I’m competing for a position across town.  The first phase phone interview is next week.  My voice sounds like 32.  I can easily cross this hurdle.  Why on earth would I want to change jobs when I like what I’m doing, I’m pretty comfortable, have adequate vacation time, and do meaningful work?  I ask myself, Is there a correlation between the 7 year blahs of being married and the 7 year blahs of working in the same place?   I am looking for excitement and adventure and a new challenge?  YES.  So how many years do I have left in me.  Everything I read says that the workforce is aging, that talent is scarce, that people with seasoned experience (that’s what they call it now … Not Old) can garner those coveted jobs.  So, that’s what I’m shooting for … a longer commute, a bigger title, a salary commensurate with my experience, and one more great job before I really decide to call it quits.  So, I’m a little scared because I wonder if my roots (hair, not family) will show when I show up for the face-to-face.  They said they are looking for someone to stay for the long-term.  For me, that would mean five to seven years, and that will take me to closer to 70.  I think, my goodness, do I have it in me to create another entrepreneurial venture, muster another sustainable surge of energy, and woo the interview committee?  Am I still an attractive hire?  Or am I too old, and that’s the scary thing, because I don’t feel old, haven’t lost my creativity, but it’s hard to tell what others will perceive.  I think of the face off between John McCain Aging Statesman and Barack Obama Man of Vigor and know that there are doubts about McCain’s health, energy, and goodness knows what else associated with his age.  Youth is much more attractive, no?   Of course, Ronald Reagan snowed us all (not me, I knew he was senile) with his well-hidden Alzheimer’s.  Will my memory remain in tact?  So, as I write this, I think Go For It because that is what will keep me young.  After all, I think I could pass for 54 and I took the college graduation dates off my resume   Then, again, men do this all the time.  Why not me?  Funny thing is, I wouldn’t really want to BE any younger unless I knew everything I know now.

A stroll among the starstruck.

Today I landed in Beverly Hills via Super Shuttle from LAX to meet up with the son who moved some years ago to the mythic land of my youth. He makes his living in the back office of a high rise on a corner of Wilshire Boulevard, smack in the Upper Kingdom of Opulence. He then goes home at night to the real world neighborhood of Koreatown, an ethnic mix of Latinos, Asians, and young professionals trying to put it together in a high cost city world. Waiting for his work day to end, I took to the streets retracing the steps I used to walk when I worked in BH at my first job out of college. The iconographic geography of power, glitz, tan, casual chic and svelte was even more pronounced than what I remembered. I followed a razor thin young woman in tights, knee high boots and short pleated skirt toting shopping bags emblazoned with Gucci, Prada and Versace, long streaked-blonde hair artfully arranged so as to blow perfectly in the afternoon breeze. Along Rodeo Drive, natty Japanese tourists were seriously shopping in Harry Winston and Van Cleef and Arpels examining the oversize diamonds, emeralds and rubies, while a family of oversize midwesterners took turns taking photos of each other in front of Tiffany’s. An impeccably attired power woman, clicking along in 3 inch heels in the opposite direction, cell phone to her ear, red lips pursed in purposefulness, exclaimed into the receiver, “they’re just perfect to do the deal.” At the sidewalk cafes, the Italian-suited men armoured for success, huddled in conferences so serious as if they were in final Middle East peace negotiations. Young women (or were they molded by a recent face lift?) driving the latest model Range Rover, BMW convertible, or Mercedes coupe — cars that don’t exist where I live. I was struck by the starstruck visitors, the ogglers, lookie-loo’s, and lollygaggers craning necks to see if they recgnized anyone famous. The immense display of wealth, the taunting of wealth, the ultimate adoration of materialism was so over the top that I found it humorous that anyone could take themselves so seriously in all this splendor. And, the walk reminded me of why I was so uneasy living in Los Angeles so many years ago, the lifestyle of the entertainment creators permeating the very skin of the city, promoting the values of all that is superficial and transitory (for entertainment magnates come and go). This magnet city for the seekers of fame and fortune gauges identity by what is worn, where it is purchased, the steering wheel emblem, who is the object of love and affection, where one is seen and by whom. At the western edge of BH, just beyond where Wilshire crosses Little Santa Monica, is the medical triangle. The little streets are filled with the offices of restorative dentists, cosmetic surgeons, aestheticians, laser treatment specialists, stylish salons. Through the window at the latte cafe, I see two blonde women tete a tete, deep in conversation. As they rise to leave, they lean on each other, stepping slow and carefully, and I see that despite good grooming, they are well into their eighties. I wonder what it is like to grow old in this youthfully idealized environment. On the windowsill is a magazine touting the simple life.

When the alabaster bowl resonates.

We entered a large candlelit room, a dusky twilight of shadow, faces barely distinguishable. Those already gathered were reverential, creating sacred space as they encircled a large alabaster bowl positioned on the floor in the center. The bowl was a powerful presence standing about two feet tall and with equal circumference. It reflected the candlelight, both absorbing and giving off a translucent aura that complemented its resonance. A young man sat before it, son of Russian immigrants, one a Jew, the other Russian Orthodox. He struck the bowl with a hide covered stick and drew the stick around the circumference of the bowl repeatedly to tease the vibrations from its source. As the sound waves intensified and the vibrations penetrated body, soul, and every porous molecule of that room, he began to chant a low, gutteral sound in the style of a Native American shaman. Others picked up musical instruments or added their own vocal sounds to his.  Soon, there were soft drum beats, hand claps, a tambourine and maracas adding to the rhythm.

I listened, closed my eyes, leaned back, felt at peace. I wondered where was the boundary and the overlap between spirituality and organized religion? Is there some immutable universal force that was beyond what defined me in the traditions of my parents, their parents, my ancestry? Were the voices of the others next to me authentic or contrived, attempting to fit into being what this culture was promising that they could not find satisfaction in from the culture into which they were born?  This group is a mixture, raised in the traditions of western religion:  Catholic, Quaker, Southern Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Jewish.

At the close, participants were invited to light candles and offer a prayer. Their wishes are universal: harmony, peace, sustainability, prosperity, joy, stewardship of the earth. Some asked for strength to find their own voice, to speak up, to take a stand, to communicate clearly and respectfully, to make a difference in the world, to walk softly and honor the earth. Some expressed wishes in silence.

The ceremony closed with a circle, each of us holding hands in harmony and hopefulness for creating something better in the world. None of the spoken prayers were offered to an almighty or to any religious deity, named or not. I felt this experience to be compatible with my own history, beliefs and traditions, a complement to my existence and identity.

The truth be told.

A writer said to me, once something happens it becomes a fiction, for the mind is incapable of remembering the exact details and nuances of a particular event or set of circumstances. Even as something unfolds, I extrapolated, the mind is interpreting it based upon genetic coding and the way each of us experiences our environment. Is life, then, a fictional recounting of past history based upon some perception of reality? I think so, if the truth be told.

Some years back I was a reluctant grand juror in the Alexandria, Virginia, federal district court. The case was an infamous scandal and received lots of press coverage. Each month (grand jurors serve for 12 months), 24 of us were sequestered in the bowels of the courthouse, serving our three days of duty, listening dutifully to the testimony of witnesses and targets who were subpoenaed to appear. I was struck by how FBI agents found witnesses to testify under oath about something that had happened five years earlier. After the day-long parades of witnesses who held inconsistent recollections of the past, I realized how impossible it was to distinguish facts from impressions, perceptions and beliefs. The truth was only in the mind of the beholder. I often thought, after witnessing the witnesses, that truth became an unintentional fabrication, told based upon the pressure of the moment, what others wanted to hear, what shred of notoriety the witness might gain, or promise of an interview paid for by a tabloid magazine. Of course, this is only my recollection now of something that happened many years ago. I was the only juror to vote against an indictment. The case eventually went to public trial where it was defeated for not having sufficient evidence. The courts found that the evidence was based primarily on hearsay.

The same could be said for memoir writing. My personal history is just that, the intimate perceptions of my past, my experience, my interpretations. This is not truth. Another in my family could interpret the same situation differently — and has. If I am telling the story and the other is telling the story, but it is different, then who is to be believed?

Always add a turnip, it sweetens the pot.

I came to this farm late in life, but perhaps it was always deep in my roots. My grandfather was Russian, an early-in-the-last-century immigrant, comforted in his loss of homeland by beets, turnips, onions and potatoes. A hit of schnapps now and then to warm the insides. Now, I dig in the loamy, organic earth in search of similar sustenance. It was not always so. The Los Angeles freeways were my pathway to freedom. In the fast lane, fast cars, preferably convertibles, sights set on a Malibu sunset, Friday nights cruising Hollywood Boulevard, a Bob’s Big Boy drive-in rendezvous. “Who did you go out with last night?” “A red Impala convertible.” But now, in this small southern town, years blur this memory and I settle into an unexpected pleasure of watching blue herons glide across the pond as hooded mergansers dive for breakfast.

Root vegetables are strong, grow deep, survive harsh winters, last. They add flavor to soup and stews, extend the meat so as to provide for many. Parsnips, rutabagas, carrots are the roots of my existence, my birthright and legacy. Always add a turnip, said my mother, it sweetens the pot.

My second husband brought me here five years ago, and I agreed to come. To me, it is a place of constant bewilderment. How can 12 households live together on this land in harmony, in cooperation, in community, in consensus decision making and get anything done? For this large farm was incorporated 15 years ago as a “co-housing intentional community,” where each household unit owns a share in the corporation. (No, we don’t live together or share partners.) It was created out of the ideals and values that somehow, through understanding, listening, peaceful resolution of conflict, and interpersonal communications skills, this group of people could actually do life better than the rest of the world. Needless to say, this is a work in progress! The grand experiment is continually evolving, and we’re not in utopia yet.

I don’t know what this blog is going to be about. It will likely be akin to living at the farm. Take it one day at a time. Love it. Hate it. Some days it will be wonderful, and others it will be absolutely frustrating. Breakthroughs and impasses. Quiet retreat and energetic engagement. The reality is we struggle to reconcile our differences, just like you.

This weekend, a group is getting together to make miso from fermented beans that can sit for 10 years. I thought I might opt for the version that would be ready to eat in a month. Somehow, the idea of beans fermenting in my house for 10 years does not appeal to me. In this State of the Union, the primary elections won’t happen until May, and it’s still winter. We need something to keep ourselves warm and busy of a February weekend day, and making something out of beans seems appropriate. (People eat a lot of beans here.) There will be chatter about whether Hillary has enough money to carry her through the season, if Obama superstar can overcome the powers that be, what we’re planting in the organic garden this spring, and I’ll bring up why my son’s girlfriend didn’t register to vote in California. I’ll probably like her when I meet her. Cynicism is a strong family trait.

My roots are rebellion, my father was a socialist, I own a fur coat to stay warm (vestige from a former life). I buy at thrift shops, online, and occasionally at Nordstrom. Go figure. Please don’t throw paint on me.