The following thoughts were shared by a friend of mine on the
question of what it is like to ‘be’ older and wiser. I think they
express something we can all learn from if we haven’t already.

“What’s
it like to ‘be’ my age? Besides the obvious physical changes, there is
a kind of release—a gentle meltdown—a relaxation that goes beyond where
any mere massage could take me.

• Gentleness, calm, quiet inside …
• Infinite space to allow people to Be…
• Grace to see what is moving and what isn’t all around me … To
  acknowledge what I’ve sensed and seen in people…And to let it be
  without trying to ‘make’ certain results happen…or certain
  actions/reactions occur…
• A sense that letting go is OK … That releasing what is in my life
  now will allow other things, other people, other opportunities to
  appear …
• Knowledge that being afraid of ‘having nothing’ appear is just old
  fear … And that since all I have to offer is love, if there are no
  takers, then it is time for me to leave and experience another life,
  another existence elsewhere.
• An inner knowing that what I offer (love) is needed
  everywhere…and that Christmas this year has nothing to do with what I
  could buy and everything to do with who I am being for others.

Much wisdom…

• That there is ‘nothing’ here to be attached to … That experience is all I can gather and ‘own’ in this journey.
• That to serve I must cherish the vehicle I’ve been blessed to live
  this life in…and try not to fill the energy gap with empty carbs or
  lazy days.
• That pleasure and pain are the edges of the same sword…and that I’m balancing both edges lightly in my heart.
• That thoughts are what pin us down … And that sometimes we need
  to ‘do’ something entirely different to change our thoughts. Our
  thoughts are the only way we have a chance to be free…
• That depths of feeling, time and space, the very air I breathe is as much of ‘nothing’ as I am.
• That sadness and joy mirror each other in every moment I am alive.
  Floating like a butterfly in ecstasy and serenely sad at how
  magnificent each of us is.

Most of all, I’m amazed with myself…that life can be so
enlivening–deliriously

Well, today is the first day of Hanukkah (sometimes transliterated
as Chanukkah), the Festival of Lights or Rededication. It is the
midpoint in the season between Thanksgiving and New Year—the long
Holiday Haul. Not only do we consume a lot, but it also consumes a lot
of us.

The
usual litany of seasonal woes includes the parties, booze, food and
usual foolishness around the office. Lots of work gets pushed into the
“New Year”. Many begin taking inventory on how they did

In 1981, I was a member of the California Commission on Aging.
Looking back, I find it ironic that, with a couple of exceptions,
everyone on the commission was in their 40s. We thought we knew a lot
about aging, which was, in retrospect, just plain naïve. The two people
in their 60s were seemingly token ‘oldsters’, lending their gray hair
to our committee.

One
of the things I thought I knew was that everyone, including the old, is
afraid to die. As I began to speak with hundreds

My mother is almost 87 and my father 89. They live in
Tucson and have a nice manufactured home in a nice park on Speedway.
Mother’s health is failing due to emphysema: Dad seems to be doing well
and going strong. They migrated to Arizona about 15 years ago in
deference to Mother’s desire for heat and dry air. Dad would prefer to
be in Texas or Oklahoma where the ‘hawks turn lazy circles in the sky’…
mostly for fishing and picking pecans. Perhaps one of these days he
will get his wish.

My

As long as I can remember, people have been teaching me to relax,
enjoy the moment, smell the roses and just take it easy—to live life
one day at a time. This wisdom is at the center of Alcoholic Anonymous’
prescription for living a sober and sane life. I wonder why it is so
difficult—even rare—to live in the moment and why I find it easier to
do so as I grow older?

I
suppose, when we are younger, we are more goal-oriented and don’t have
a lot of history under our belt. As