I've just read a very cynical, but somehow comforting article in the April 7th New Yorker about babyboomers and aging. At least someone is tackling this huge elephant in the Health Club.

The starting point for Michael Kinsley's essay is age 60, which I am, newly. He makes the point that our generation will no doubt work on competitively aging (The title is something like: Mine is Longer Than Yours: The last boomer game.) This irks him no end, especially since he has Parkinson's disease, a condition which will not foreshorten his life, but does put him in a category of someone unlucky enough to have already been written off.

Kinsley speaks of in invisible dividing line between those babyboomers who are still on the ascendency, and those who know they have already peaked and are THOUGHT to be on the decline, either physically, occupationally, or financially. A depressing thought this , especially for someone like me who is hoping to have a really brand new career or two before I kick the bucket.

What Kinsley doesn't mention is that we babyboomers are, in part, following in the large footsteps of our parents, some of whom do not consider themselves old, even in their eighties, despite bad disease.

My mother mentions this morning that she and my father saw a 'very depressing' show on PBS last night called, 'Caring For Your Parents.' This was brave on their part, since my father nearly succumbed from cancer treatment, and I spent many weeks in Florida caring for them while he was in the ICU.

(Note: I was more cowardly, preferring to tape it than watch something I knew would be depressing from the reviews in the paper. The main protagonists in this little documentary were mainly devoted daughters, of various means, and the parents were frail elderly.)

"It was depressing because I don't want to get that way." What the solution, I asked her. "These old people should move to places like where your Dad and I live, in The Villages. That's the only solution." I might mention right here that my father will be 88 in a few weeks, and my mother is 85.

So, I gently ask her, what should happen when these Villages people get really old and need care. This is a better question than, 'What the hell is going to happen when you or Dad are really feeble?'

My parents have their own game. Each is convinced he/she will outlive the other. "Just put me on a float," my mother said from their home in land-locked Central Florida.

Then she chuckled, and I laughed, and we both giggled at the thought of daily funeral pyres on the water hazards of each of their many golf courses. "Right," I said. " You get two penalty shots if you go into the water. One for the water, the other for disturbing the body."

My local postmaster has a tan

I had it all rehearsed. Walk to meet the mail guy in his truck, and offer my condolences for what he does day after day in this awful weather. Then feel like I've helped my fellow human being with a dollop of decent empathy.

But noooo..he has a tan, I mean, a really nice tan like the kind you get in Aruba or Barbados, all uniformly medium brown, the kind of tan you want to save, like it's liquid warmth.

Dashed, and disappointed, I had an attack of upper middle class self-righteous behavior: if my MAILMAN has a tan, why don't I?

Because, my fellow pale lovelies, I spent big kays on a wonderful winter weekend in New York City, celebrating my 60th birthday. Wouldn't trade that for 5 days in the sun, no way.

But, and here comes the attack, I should be able to have BOTH. Whenever I want or need a vacation, I SHOULD be able to go, at least, to Florida. Trick is, Florida and anywhere south this year is over $700 in air fare. Okay, this is turning into a complaint.

Instead, I will check the Web ONE MORE TIME for something, anything. Forecast for this evening is 1-3 inches of snow.

Dwarfism. I mean no respect to the many individuals who are genetic dwarfs, when I say that I can so easily feel dwarfed. What's It Gonna Take to stand tall, against odds?

Take yesterday. Read a great deal about Rwanda's efforts toward unity and reconciliation, which are huge, driving, and successful. How can my little project really help all that much? What if it undermines the good work of that Commission? It might be laughed off, when I finally get an audience with the major players in the government. It may be totally off the wall, and stupid.

You see the language I use? SO WHAT if the project is finally rejected? At least I gave it a shot.

Then, glutton for pushinment, I read about the scions of academics who have written and published about these weighty matters. I don't even have an academic appointment. SO WHAT??? Why should I feel small when I'm proposing a project that isn't even going to compensate me very well, except for my travel and expenses.

You see how I let myself feel small and insignificant.....So, how to stand tall and feel big?

Think of this Rwanda project as play, not work. Then I can apply these standards: do I enjoy it? Is it hurting anyone? Do others like playing with me? Does it bring me joy? So what, if it comes to nothing, the way play comes to nothing, except an exercise in joy and creativity?

I'm back jogging. Where did these little hills and dips come from on our main street. I never noticed them before. Or is it that my 60 year-old body must make more adjustments this season? To run up the tiny hill, it takes just a TAD more effort to lift my legs out of the hip sockets hips and push off. To coast down the itsy hill, I have to strain SLIGHTLY more to suck in the ole gut. I also notice that I run more deliberately, forcing my left foot to stop pronating, lifting my knees when the pavement gets uneven. This is a nod to my age, and my fear of falling again like I did in the Fall, on wet rocks in the woods. I'm adjusting to some new reality.

The word 'adjustments' offends me somehow. Adjustments bring to mind things like naps, walkers, canes. To counter these adjustments, I run farther than I should, since I'm just returning to my season. I barrel down long concrete sidewalks, stepping around waiting bus riders and hopping over glassy patches of ice. At the crosswalks, I run in place impatiently. It's a deliciously cold, sunny, windless morning. I carve out a new route, and relish measuring the miles later, in the car. I have the air, my legs have the muscle, and my spirits rise knowing I can run another season, do another race, inch into another age category.

Sunday Night at the Movies

Highly recommend the HBO series, "John Adams." It began tonight.



Is it because I'm 60 that I attached myself to these images of our nation's founding. I'm all like chills and wows over the scenes of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Washington. Flashes of remembering the Declaration of Independence we had to memorize for US History Class. Tickled at the idea of Benjamin Franklin re-writing it on the spot, in a spare room, with a quill pen.

Must be the whole Obama magic, plus the thrill of watching Rwanda turn into a Republic. Or--how about this--the parallel development going on with myself, as I declare myself independent of sibling obligations, at least within my family of origin.

"Let these truths be self-evident: That older sisters are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and are not duty-bound to take care of younger adult brothers who have somehow lost their way.

Also recommend Gabriela Montera a pianist who does incredible improvisations upon classical music, like Pacabel, and Bach Variations. You...will....die....

But not before you swoon over this music.

Wait wait don't tell me

An out-of-town friend sends me something in a big, square, orange envelope. Thinking 60th birthday party, I tear into the card, and start to weigh how to get to Atlanta. Terry has a big, beautiful, Martha Stewart house, and gobs of sumptuous, Southern hospitality. Ac-tu-ally, as I whisk on my reading glasses, I'm hoping the party is at her summer house in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which is closer and more William Sonoma.

But. No. The round card which slides deftly out of the envelope is a birth announcement, one given to extreme detailing: little plaid ribbons, a baby picture, oodles of artful shapes and papers layered in complimentary colors.

I do the math: Terry is over 60, hardly a new mother. So--Oh. It seems that Terry's daughter, Laura--not Terry--has had a child, her first. And so this must be-- a grandchild announcement?

I look disbelievingly back at the envelope. Sure enough, it's from Terry, nor Laura. And it arrived, no kidding, with a vanity stamp of the baby, who, judging from the its little red, swollen face, is just hours from the womb. Terry writes, "....and this is what lies ahead of us all."



Me, I tend to shirk from perky platitudes. Grandmotherhood may or may not lay ahead , but I swear on a stack of Ms. magazines, I'll pass on this second-round, send-around ritual.

My cynicism-slash-envy continues: And did Terry have one of the newest cultural perversions, the grandmother shower?



I recall the day a white-haired friend's friend announced that her quilting group was giving her a shower, in anticipation of her first grandchild. I actually had to cup my mouth with my hand to hold back a stream of mocking, jesting astonishment. "It's so helpful," she went on, oblivious to my gaff, "because of all the equipment you'd have to buy, all over again."

What's it gonna take for me to get through these years, with babyboomer after babyboomer going over the top? What I know so far is that being shown pictures of new grandchildren requires forced enthusiasm. It demands a certain degree of robust ooh-ing and ah-ing...



...and then excuses about your own kids and what they haven't yet produced. As if some YIELD were required of them.



I hang on to the card for weeks, either to torture myself, or as a totem to ward against babyboomer excesses--you choose. But of course I don't show it around. I can't risk the reactions of girlfriends. They may want to call Terry and get the name of the card company, or go 'You know, I haven't told anyone yet, but-----

It takes time

Look what turned up in a google search of 'mess management specialist,' the navy term for steward until 2004 (now it's Culinary Specialist). I was not randomly surfing the Web. Every now and then I tend to throw up terms that might yield some new information about Filipino Navymen, a favorite topic.

In an ironic and temporary role reversal, the picture shows us an officer waiting on a Filipino mess attendant (19th century to 1942) cum steward (1942 to 1973) cum mess management specialist (1973 to 2003) cum culinary specialist. As 98 year-old Ulpiano Santo reminded me when I interviewed him for a chapter I was writing, 'The title has changed, but the job is the same.'

I also serve. It was a triply pre-ordained job. My grandfather, as mess attendant, was a servant until 1935, a little under one-third of his life. That he became a waiter after his Naval career made things worse; at least in the service he wore a distinguished uniform.

I have inherited the tendency to wait on people. Being a female of course heightened my susceptibility to that disease, and the model from my mother's fifties-style wife-ing did not nothing to counteract my grandfather's legacy. As a Southern woman, she always waited on my father, who also demanded it of her.

Running up to my sixties I know this: If I don't stop serving, I'll do it automatically for the rest of my life. This will take an effort tantamount to re-programming my brain, or learning a new language. For example, just now I took a call from my hairdresser about a client of his, a friend of a friend of mine. 'Is T. still alive? he asked. 'Would you check? I have her down from Friday at 3:00, and I don't really want to call her cell phone to ask her, if she's like, dying.' 'Sure,' I answer.

Will I surely get to heaven faster for this kind of generosity?

No. Will it mean 30 minutes of my time, and stirred up emotions listening to T.'s story from her friend? Yes. What would I rather be doing with that 30 minutes: checking out the winter ballet lesson schedule, and the diving lessons offered this weekend.

My project for 2008 will be to less for people who are at the periphery of my life, and maintain my connections to those I love, and the countries I love (US, PI, Rwanda).


And if anyone in that close circle needs more of me for a bit, I will borrow that time from someone else, not simply stretch myself thin.