Q. What is the throwaway-remark you would most like to throw away?
A.“I am having a Senior Moment
————————————————-
We are a nation of 50, 60, 70-year-olds, obsessed with a fear of memory lapse, absent-mindedness and forgetfulness. Readers, please………..relax.
“Greater public awareness of Alzheimer’s, far from reducing the ignorance and stigma around the disease, has increased it,” says author Margaret Gullette, a scholar at Brandeis University.
My husband and I just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We also marked his 13th year of Alzheimer’s. He remembered neither. So I can speak with some authority about how the ravages of this disease affect not only the victim but also family caretakers. Personal tsunami would not be too strong a term.
I just read “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything” by Joshua Foer. In a publicity interview, Foer remarked, “Once upon a time people invested in their memories, they cultivated them. They studiously furnished their minds. Today, we’ve got books, computers and smart phones to hold our memories. We’ve outsourced our memories to external devices.”
“The result”, he continued, ”is that we no longer trust our memories. We see every small forgotten thing as evidence that they’re failing us altogether. We’ve forgotten how to remember.”
Q. How can we remember how to remember?
A. That’s simple. it’s all about Lunch.
—————————————————-
As we get older, life seems to fly by faster and faster,” Foer continues. “Our experiences become less unique, our memories can blend together. If yesterday’s lunch is indistinguishable from the one you ate the day before, it’ll end up being forgotten. In the same way, if you’re not doing things that are unique and different and memorable, this year can come to resemble the last, and end up being just as forgettable as yesterday’s lunch. That’s why it’s so important to pack your life with interesting experiences that make your life memorable, and provide a texture to the passage of time.”
As Guelette reminds us, “Most forgetfulness is not Alzheimer’s, or dementia, or even necessarily a sign of cognitive impairment.”
When is the last time you actually memorized something? Our brains need to be constantly challenged, tested, confronted, abused and aroused. The brain is an organ, and, to work properly, like any organ, it needs to be constantly tuned and played.
Experts recommend learning a foreign language. A great memory booster, they insist. That suggestion is equivalent to proposing a toddler learn to walk by summiting Pikes Peak. A noble venture, of course, but too grand and difficult for most. The Expert at my house (Me) advocates to always be memorizing something: simple; silly; strange. This is what I’ve memorized (some, re-learning) since January.
1. The Capitals of our Fifty States. (A school project for granddaughter, Clara, a second-grader. Not so easy. Do YOU remember the state capital of Pennsylvania?)
2. Two Ogden Nash Poems. “Crossing the Border” and “Celery”.
3. Using Geography Mnemonics. First, the Central American countries from North to South: Big Gorillas Eat Hotdogs Not Cold Pizza (figure it out). Secondly, the countries across North Africa, from West to East: Many African Tourists Like Elephants.
4. The Kings and Queens of England:
Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three,
Edward One, Two, Three, Dick Two,
Henry Four, Five, Six, then who?
Edward Four, Five, Dick the Bad,
Harrys twain and Ned, the lad.
Mary, Lizzie, James the Vain
Charlie, Charlie, James again
William and Mary, Anne o’Gloria,
Four Georges, William and Victoria.
Edward Seven, Georgie Five,
Edward, George and Liz (alive).
If you are asking yourself why I would want to know these things, you are missing the point!
Today begins a mid-week Memo, SNAP OUT OF IT. Each SNAP will be a nifty clue to lift the blues, should you require that. These notions will be short, cheap and easily mastered. From fantastic to interesting and down the chute to absurdly ridiculous. Every SNAP works, guaranteed. I’ve utilized them all! Enjoy. Participate. If you have an idea, send and share.
Starting with absurdly ridiculous:
SNAP #1: In the dumper? Feeling low? Run to your local U.S. Post Office and buy stamps. No kidding. The best social life I have is the 20-to-30 minutes I wait in the U.S.P.S. queue. Strangers though we be, people chat, meet and greet. Kids run wild. Babies howl. And, those cell phones – the conversations I’ve heard! You’ll leave with stamps, a grin, and thinking, “My life really isn’t that bad.” — all compliments of Uncle Sam.
In late April, writer Alex Witchel wrote a compelling piece, “The Return of Ellen Barkin” for The New York Times Magazine. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24barkin-t.html ) Presently, Barkin, an actress, is best remembered as the former fourth wife of multi-billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, chairman of Revlon. The six-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 2006, was stormy. The divorce, more turbulent.
Before we suffer tears or hand-wringing over Barkin’s plight, let me add that she’s landed on her feet. The shoes on those feet were probably Jimmy Choo or Manolo Blahniks’. Besides the $20 million-or-more settlement, Barkin’s not blabbing, she decided to bid her baubles ‘adieu” at a Christie’s auction.
Now, here’s the Wow factor? In just six years, Perleman had gifted her with more than 100 trinkets, which she cashed in for another $20 million. By my calculations, she received about 16 precious pieces of glitz and glitter every year. That’s something-very-special, every three weeks. Who has time to do that much shopping? Let me be frank, Ellen and I run in different social circles.
On her own terms, Barkin, who is 57, is certainly no slouch. By Witchel’s count, pre-Perleman, she’d already made 44 feature films and 7 television movies. Since the divorce, she’s added another 2 films, a television pilot and, in April, opened on Broadway in “Normal Heart” for which she’s been nominated for a Tony Award.
While all this is interesting, and, who doesn’t like a little gossip, what facinated me was her answer to Witchel’s inquiry , ‘So these days, when she [Barkin] wakes up at 3 a.m. worrying about something, what is it?’
“I don’t worry about my children, which is a good thing,” she said. I guess I worry about wierd existential things, like how do we spend our final act? I think, You’re 56 [now, 57] years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do that is as meaningful as that?”
She continued, “I don’t know the answer yet. I guess I’m up thinking, Am I too old to start to absorb new things?”
Here’s when I start to realize that Barkin and I may have something in common. No one has ever asked me, but I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a worry or two also. For my final act, what I call the fourth quarter, I know I want to be cast in the starring role. Although I’ll never win a Tony, it’s my life and I want to be in control of it. For a woman flying solo, that requires courage, good health, financial stability, and luck.
In the last two lines of “The Summer Day”, a wonderful poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, she asks,
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Does our one wild and precious life have to be any less meaningful or productive or fruitful or imaginative now than when we were younger and engaged in the rigors of family and social lives, careers, and other timely pursuits? While lifestyle adjustments may seem overwhelming and health issues, challenging, can’t we still wring the most out of each day?
Someone who has done that very well is my former Aspen neighbor and long-time friend, Austine. Her life, as I observed it for 18 years, was meaningful, productive and fruitful. Austine, always active in the community, was happily on-the-run. Unfortunately, her husband, also a doctor, suffered from Alzheimer’s, and died four years ago. She was his caregiver the last nine years of his life. Recently I asked her about her new life as a single woman, a widow.
“So how do I cope with being alone?”, she wrote, in an e-mail. “The truth is I love being alone in my own home. I cook only if there is a quorum (2 or more). I realized just how much time it takes to cook, what with planning, shopping, preparation, eating, cleaning up, and I decided it wasn’t worth the time and effort.
I play lots of bridge, take walks, and read. I don’t seek out new friends but am open to them. I have traveled a good bit with a long-time friend from New York. I am in that sweet spot right now after not being able to go because I couldn’t leave my husband alone and before the physical decline sets in [for me]. I am making progress on my Bucket List. I don’t enjoy traveling or going to restaurants alone, so I don’t. I have not yet had to ask “Why do I bother?”. If I have a block of time, I have only to refer to My List, never mind those back-burner projects. I am able to spend time with my daughters and grandchildren now.
I do miss being part of a couple. I get twingey when I see a couple in a restaurant at a table for two, sharing a meal, looking as though they belong together. I miss my husband’s mind, human contact.
Am I happy? I am not unhappy. I am content. I am not sure what the next chapter is, but I am up for it.”
This is, it seems to me, what flying solo is all about, a time to imagine our possibilities, welcome our choices, and celebrate our differences. Like Austine, I’m a home-hugger, my safe place to hunker down, especially when times are rotten. Unlike her, I add cooking to the many hobbies and pastimes we both enjoy. Traveling alone? I like it. Another real treat, for me, is a nice restaurant for lunch. If need be, I’ll dine alone. And, while, like Austine, I’ve never met “bored”, I do admit to sometimes wondering, “Why do I bother?” I also rejoice in my family but miss the couple-dom, especially the male/female repartee. As a former business journalist at a time when the majority of my subjects, sources and sidekicks, were men, I like mixing it up with smart men. Because I’m in a different place emotionally, remaining a caretaker, I’m still peddling towards contentment, still trying to find my path.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.”
Rough week, huh? Escalating wars in the Middle East. Devastating earthquakes in Japan with horrific tsunami and radioactive ramifications. A worsening global financial crisis. It’s as if the World is just wrapping its arms around itself, rocking out-of-control while dropping buckets of tsunami tears and screaming, “What on Earth….. ?????
After loading those tragedies on our backs every morning, we then shift to face the reality of our own lives, with their challenges and problems. We often forget to toss happiness, contentment and joie de vivre into that hefty baggage we’re hauling around each day. You bet, it’s far easier to be sad, miserable and depressed. “Woe is me” trumps “Ain’t life wonderful”, every time. And, unfortunately, being female, growing older, living alone, either by choice or happenstance, digging down within to find the lightness, is often tough, really difficult.
Call me crazy but I believe we can choose to be, no matter how our world turns, joyful and happy, or, not. Our glass can be half-full or half-empty. We can utilize our lemons to make lemonade or let them rot. I promise you, one can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. That’s what this week’s essay is about, doing just that.
More than six years ago, as my husband’s illness progressed to “noticeably serious”, we were forced to make some dramatic lifestyle changes, selling our Colorado home, leaving friends of 20-years, escaping the Rocky Mountains’ idyllic high-altitude living.
Once settled in Nevada, my husband, in his mid- 70’s, his mate, that would be me, in her late 50’s, faced a reality neither of us had even envisioned. ( Alone, I may be, but Alone, we are not. Alzheimer’s is difficult to diagnose, more difficult to predict, unpreventable, incurable and, presently, five million other Americans have it.)
Our years ahead revolved around his illness, my sharpening skills at the University after realizing the financial consequences of this disease, and, to my mind, just surviving. That was when I began writing a book, the working title, “Neither Nurse, Saint, or Martyr Be, My Role as a CareGiver”. Trust me, the title was the best part! Ninety-two pages of grief, anger, “Why Us?, discontent, gloom and doom later, I realized this was not going to be the block-buster to solve my financial concerns and it also was never going to see the light of day.
Being a midwestern girl, you might call this my “Get a Grip”, “Buck-Up”, “Shake It Off”, Moment. The time when, my husband being safe, secure, loved and cared for, always primary, I needed to find a path forward that included happiness. Whether alone by choice, death, divorce, or, like me, through illness, we all deserve to be happy.
Readers, never, never forget that.
This voyage has been arduous, not always successful. I still suffer times of inconsolable sadness. But, for the past two years, having ridded myself of Survivor’s Guilt, among other things, I have enjoyed more upticks than downs, my smiles are broader and my step is livelier. I find it easier to be Me. And, I’ve come to believe that not only do we deserve to be happy, despite the responsibilities and grievous roadblocks thrown in our path, every one of us can BE happy if that’s our recipe of choice. Yes, I’ve had to tinker with the ingredients, adjust the time and temperature, and purchase new utensils, but I’ve baked a whole bunch of happiness back into my life. So, here are some of my “tricks of the truc”, some serious, others, silly. They all work.
Step #1 – It is important to surround yourself with family and friends who love you unconditionally. Whatever your circumstances, everyone, yes, everyone, will have an opinion as to how your life should be handled. And, of course, some of those opinions will be critical, hurtful and harmful. For now, at least, get those critics out of your life or put them on the back burner.
Step #2 – Stop being a Victim. A huge challenge to this particular illness, and, probably, others, is that CareGivers lose themselves into the disease. It becomes, because it is, all-encompassing. It wasn’t until a year ago that a very dear (and, wise) eighty-two-year old-friend said, most kindly, “Oh, Mary, I’m so glad to see you’re no longer playing the Victim.”
Step #3 – Choose advisors carefully. When life gets shaky, you’ll need sound advice, buckets of it. Some will come free, others, I’m sorry, you’ll need cash. For financial advice, I called upon the smartest friends I knew. Just started asking economically-laced questions. Which, amicably, they answered, and still do. I call them my “unpaid Board of Directors”. I love ‘em. In dealing with uncharted territory, I relied on our doctors, books, organizations, support groups, and, most importantly, I hired a trained, educated senior guidance consultant who does know the territory and helped us immeasurably. Among my friends I found good, trusting “sounding boards”, often testing their goodwill, patience, and love. My last stop was always my California daughter, my best cheerleader but always thoughtfully and honestly direct. I’ve exhausted her.
Step #4 – Is your head spinning? Have second-guessing, panic, fright, and “shoulda, woulda, coulda”, become your sidekicks? For years I took every anxiety-reducing herb known to man until my frustrated daughter finally wailed, “Mom, you can mainline every herb in your cabinet, it’s not going to work. Get help.” And, I did. And, it did. A well-educated, experienced psychologist has enabled me and allowed me to find my path.
Step #5 – Sleep. Never underestimate the value of a good night’s sleep. Priceless. Park your worries. I cannot stress the importance of 8-hours of rest each night.
Step #6 – The Silly Stuff. Always at-the-ready to play on a dumpy afternoon, iTunes playlists filled with Golden Oldies, locked and loaded with my memories. I also delight in my playlist of newbies, Taylor Swift, the Green Peas (or, something), I even like the gal who botched “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XLV.( I forgive her.) Go to a movie. What’s so bad about staring at Matthew McConaughey (“The Lincoln Lawyer”) for two hours? Bake something rich and decadent/deliver pasta dinner to those 9-5 hard-charging neighbors who are your constant good samaritans. Keep all your hobby projects visible, scattered about, ready to go. Be messy. It’s okay. You live alone. Always, always, have a book to read. Never miss Jeopardy. Keep a Gratefulness Journal. Every night I write down two or three things for which I am thankful, ranging from the Chicago Cubs to 7-year-old granddaughter Clara losing a front tooth at our local PF Chang’s. Okay, I admit to some, yeah, well, many blank pages. And, granted, some of my “Grateful” I’m not proud about. I’ve written down, Krispie Kremes, probably more than I should admit. But, the journal is an ingredient for the road to recovery.
No recipe is fail-proof and, it’s true, happiness is elusive. Sometimes it even takes being brave. For every giant step forward, there’s always a baby step or three back. However, I believe with ever fiber of my being, that all of us can have it (happiness) and be it (happy), if we wish. Even in today’s world. Wasn’t it about 235 years ago that those someones wiser than us saw this pursuit of happiness-business as an unalienable Right?
