NOTE FROM THE 8TH DECADE #2

APPROACHING SEVENTY  

 December 2008

Castelnuovo della Daunia   watercolor

I left Italy thinking the Italians knew how to live. Not just because they enjoy their food and wine and their outgoing attitude to friends and family, but because they seem to be less uptight about life and less concerned with pretentious displays of wealth or position. However they are concerned with fashion and style, and they dress with fastidious care.

I returned home from my first trip to Italy 2 months ago, and have been addicted to a fantasy of returning to Italy to spend a year writing and painting in the tiny village of my grandfather, Castelnuovo della Daunia, located in the northern part of Puglia. I find myself clinging to this fantasy because it gives me hope that my life is not at a dead end, a disturbing thought that has been creeping into my consciousness lately.

The truth is, I don’t know what to think anymore. I will soon be 70 years old, an age that looms large and carries with it a lot of heavy emotional stuff. Mostly stuff like I am too old to be thinking about my “somedays”, or scheming about how I can spend a month let alone a year in Italy. And I’m too old to think I can become any more than I am in the world of art.

On the other hand I remind myself that it is not the numbers that count, it is how you feel.  It is what is in your heart and your head that determines how old you are. If I think that I am too old for all of the above, then I might as well just roll over and die, and I am not ready to do that.

I don’t know if I really want to spend a year in Italy. Maybe what I really want is something to look forward to, something to add excitement to a life that I fear is growing increasingly dull and mundane. This may be a good time to remind myself of important lessons from the past: if you don’t think something can happen, then it probably won’t. But if you nurture your ideas and give them time and space, those that were meant to be will grow with a chance to bloom, those that weren’t, will die.

Perhaps the years ahead won’t be so dull after all. Who knows, I may even make it back to Italy some day.

NOTES FROM THE 8TH DECADE #1

The first installment of essays on the mixed blessing of ageing.

Introduction

Change has always been relatively easy for me, which is very fortunate, since I have made more than my share of major changes over the years. In fact change may have been the most consistent element in my life. With one exception, all of them have been of my own volition, and have given me little reason for regrets. But I am now facing a change that may prove to be the most challenging of them all…ageing.

I first began paying attention to this inevitable process as I was approaching my 70^th birthday. Somehow being 70 was so very different from being sixty-anything. As an avid journal writer I began the dutiful task of recording the results of my ruminations, which I have gathered together in this folio I’m calling Notes from the Eighth Decade. Each is presented as an independent narrative in the chronological order in which they were written, so there is occasional repetition.  As might be expected, the deeper I got into the 8^th decade, the more I felt the need to write about it.

SEVEN -O

August, 200ß

It took awhile, but I finally figured it out. This mental funk of the past few months can be trace back to my 69th birthday in May.

There have been several significant birthdays in my life; my 17th which allowed me to apply for a drivers license, a milestone for any teenage boy, and of course my 21st, making it legal for me to drink and make a fool of myself. It would be 44 years until the next milestone arrived, my 65th birthday, accompanied by a Medicare card! My parents had Medicare cards for heaven's sake, and now I was looking at one with MY name on it. This might have caused problems for a lesser man than me, but possessed of a strong heart and mind - well, at least a strong heart - I dealt with it and got on with my life, knowing it would be 5 years before I would be facing another significant milestone. Sixty plus is one thing, but SEVENTY, that’s clearly something else.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when 4 years later, after my 69th birthday, I find myself struggling to deal with the idea that I am less than a year away from being 70 years old. It doesn’t matter that I’m only 69. Sixty-nine doesn’t really exist. It is only there to tell me that in a very short time I WILL BE SEVENTY! At this point I should explain that I am what the psychologist Carl Jung would call an intuitive, meaning I tend to always focus on the future, living ahead of myself; sometimes I feel like I’ve already lived 2 lifetimes. I realize it may be premature to deal with all of this now, but maybe by doing so my 70th birthday will be a breeze. 

I know, getting old is relative and it is mental, not physical. When I look in the mirror, do I see someone who is SEVENTY years old? Of course not. Just because I can’t get up from kneeling without holding on to something doesn’t mean anything. And so I make a little noise when I get up from a chair, it’s just a little ooomph, and that doesn’t count. There are of course a few other problems, which are too delicate to discuss here, but they too are basically all mental, aren’t they?

So, what is my problem with 70? I guess it is the realization that all of the “some days that I have always counted on may no longer be there, and for a Jungian intuitive that can be rather threatening. But that is another story.