MEL WALSH--LIFE & HEALTH AFTER 60

What To Do About Holiday Dread

            If holidays are so much fun, then why do we dread them?

            Is it exhaustion from family—too many people all at once and in repeated doses?

            Well, truth to tell, though family occasions are satisfying---this is my clan, where I belong---they can be fraught with issues. (Now there’s a word: “fraught”.) It means burdened and loaded and is related to the word, “freight”. Freight is baggage and families, as we all know, come with a complete set of baggage, some of it matching, some not.

So what’s to be fraught about?

You already know:

1. Old history, enmities that aren’t water under the bridge, but emotions still dammed up, waiting to explode over a minor holiday incident---maybe the ”wrong” gift, maybe being late for the festivities---nothing that’s a big deal but, yikes, some unhappy person will make a big deal over it because he or she is carrying some heavy freight from past injuries, real or imagined.

2. Present behavior. Rich, rich rich is the depth of opportunity for getting upset with family over the holidays. It may be your sacred habit to open presents on Christmas Day, never before. That’s your gift code. But your son’s new wife opens them Christmas Eve. Is she not clueless beyond redemption? Or maybe your grandson Johnny smokes and though he’s outside, the smoke drifts in the house and you wonder what he smokes, anyhow. And why won’t he listen to you about his lungs?

Well, you can fill in your own situations. Think “fraught” and you’ll have many a holiday story to tell. My own worst moment: when my mother and step-father announced their divorce on Christmas Eve. I still feel sorry for myself 40 years later, which shows how long the half-life of family freight can be.

So What To Do?

            There are ways to keep family holidays upbeat. Not completely upbeat, of course, for the seasonally disgruntled will do their gruntling no matter what. (That’s why the story of Scrooge has such wide appeal. We all know someone like Scrooge. Heck, we all are Scrooge at times.) But there are ways to morph families into a fun mode so they won’t scrooge up their time together.

            Generate A Comedy Hour: It’s hard to be mean when you’re laughing. Snug in with the family during the holidays with some classic comedy DVD’s or some old Bill Cosby videos. Make it three-generational entertainment if that is your audience. And no, not George Carlin.

You can even tell your own one-liners. Really. Here’s one you can do Thanksgiving Day:  When people go around the table saying what each one is thankful for, you say: “I’m thankful I didn’t get caught”. And then refuse to say more.

As for other family comedy, even our dogs get into the act. I confess Tiger has been dressed up with a reindeer antler headdress. We think it’s funny, but then we are easily amused. He seems proud of it---like a crown.

Do A Holiday Movie Night: Movies are the universal, cross-generation language. Everybody has an opinion about a movie: Wasn’t he cute? Hated the casting. Great story. What’s the best holiday movie? A Christmas Story? It’s a Wonderful Life?

If you are stumped for ideas because the youngest in the family may not love Miracle on 34^th Street the way you did, then check out this book: The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide for Watching Together by Ty Burr.

Words to the Wise

            The fun and nostalgia of old movies is a positive thing for families, but it’s entertainment generated outside the family. Instead, maybe the most meaningful input over the holidays comes from family members themselves---when they tell you what they do, think and feel.

So ask about their lives. Do you know what your marketing director son really does in his job? What about your grandkids? Ask them to tell you about YouTube, MySpace, text messaging and the latest video games. And ask the little ones: What was the best holiday present you ever got? Then tell them about yours.

This is a humbling exercise. I discovered what I don’t know about my family is amazing. But then, what they don’t know about me is amazing, too.

            And yes, I am thankful I never got caught.

Golden Aging

             I’m a little seasick. The horizon seems to be shifting. I know what it is though----a sea change, a turn in the tide in how people think about aging. People used to think if they lived past 50, they were in heaven’s waiting room.

            Do you remember that old view of aging? Adults in retirement are not worth much. They are empties to be discarded, geezers to be made fun of, retards glued to their bingo cards, good only for the booty they might pass on when they die. If they babysat the grandkids for free, their stock went up, but not very far. Basically, older people were over.

            Actually, one hundred years ago, many of them were literally over. The average age of death then was late 40’s. Now we have better control of the epidemics that used to do us in along with a medical landscape that, for all its faults, keeps us going another 30 years.

Seeing the Shift

            Now have you had one of those moments---a flash that indicates you’re living in the middle of the age revolution? Have you had one of those moments when social change is made visible and I mean good visible—as though someone handed you an ice cream cone?

            I had such a flash last week. I wrote a book encouraging people to think about getting older as a second wind, not the end of the good times. As part of a book tour, a TV interviewer asked me how old I was. In front of six million people, I said 71. I said 71 twice, which did not make me 142, but did make me the recipient of emails from all over the country.

Thanks, they said, for letting people know that older adults are not the living dead. Thanks for telling the truth about your age. It’s about time people are proud of their years and experience. Thanks for not lying, as though your years in the world are something to be ashamed of.

So that was one good moment for me, one shift in the social horizon---to tell the truth about age and not have a flock of morticians run towards me with their shovels.

Other good moments come when I see that a large number of volunteers in local non-profit organizations were born in the 1930’s. Which means older people are not only useful, but critically so. These organizations might shrivel up and die if the older people in the community didn’t contribute time, money and smarts. The parks would be docentless, the grand jury room empty, the theaters would lose much of their live audience. The local classical music scene would shrink, leaving for world safe for hip hop, but perilous for Ludwig Von Beethoven.

Other Signs of the Shift

Bob Barker, the TV personality, is still in the national spotlight in his 80’s and when he recently announced his retirement, he said no one told him to retire. He just wanted to do it while he was still on top of his game.

Top of your game in your 80’s. It’s the age revolution.

And it’s happening to ordinary, non-celebrities, too. I’m not the only person who began a new career after 60. I meet store owners living out their retail dreams. I get email from older people who have started new businesses rather than retire from the world. I recently interviewed a woman in her 80’s who had her first book published this spring and by one of the major publishers in New York.

So life ain’t over ‘til it’s over. Only dead is too late and you and I aren’t there yet.

            Words For the Wise

            If you want to check out this columnist’s truth-telling moment on CBS, do an internet search using four words: Early Show Mel Walsh. Then scroll through the other books until you get to Hot Granny. Click on watch.

And maybe consider joining me, not only by telling how old you are, but by declaring you are proud of every single candle on your cake.

When Mom Is AWOL

I admit it. There is a downside to longevity. Live long enough and you’ll become an orphan. And some of us never get used to this. You’d think we’d adjust to life without parents---it happens to all older people---but no, not me.

Every time I want to call my mom to tell her what the kids did this time, I’m vaguely surprised that I can’t. She’s gone. And those old home phone numbers we knew so well---the ones began with names like Plaza or Sycamore---those numbers, if they still work, would be the wrong number because Mom and Dad don’t live there anymore. No one knows where they do live now, but many of us have a fantasy that they are sitting on pink clouds looking down on us.

My mom, I can tell you for sure, wouldn’t be that much of an overhead busybody. But she might phone me very long distance to tell me my horoscope for the week. That used to be her job after I left home. I figure the horoscope thing meant she was still trying to prepare me for life. When I was in my 60’s, she was still preparing me for life and we would laugh about it---one woman on Social Security trying to bring up her daughter, another woman on Social Security. Age doesn’t wither the mother instinct.

Missing Mom

            Frankly, I miss buying a Mother’s Day present. That’s what I tell myself, anyhow, but what I really miss is mom. Who else remembers the exact time of your birth and your birth weight? And what’s more, on Mother’s Day, I not only miss her, I miss my mother-in-law and every older woman I knew who inspired, comforted or urged me on. Big global missing going here on for Mother’s Day. But luckily, there are ways to honor our missing moms and feel a bit better about them being AWOL on Mother’s Day.

A Little Comfort

Our country traditionally honors mothers with a yearly offering of Eggs Benedict. That’s the ceremony for the moms still with us. But where we lag is where other cultures excel---finding ways to honor the ancestral moms, the ones who have gone on to make meatloaf in Heaven.

Now maybe your departed mom knows if you honor her and maybe she doesn’t, but it might make you feel better to do a little something for the person who has done a lot for you. Try…

            Altars: A photo of the departed is the centerpiece. Stick a pot of flowers and a little candle next to mom’s photo and call it an altar. Yes, she’d giggle at the idea. Altar, schmalter. But I like to look at my mini-shrine. I put it in the kitchen so she’d feel at home.

            Photos as gifts: Give your grandchildren a picture of your mom and/or your grandmom and even a picture of you. Also send along a bit of family history, maybe a just a sentence…”This is your great, great grandmother Lucy, who, whenever a woman was sick, would say “She has the teezy-weezies in her egg bag”. (That was my grandmother, the folk gynecologist.)

            Memoir: OK, you don’t have to do a full memoir, but how about a memoir-ette, writing even a page about your mom to pass on to your family? Start with something easy. Which of her dresses dazzled you? What perfume? What lipstick?

            Framing a Letter: Kept any letters from mom? Frame one. Hang it. Enjoy.

Words For the Wise

Look around the world to find other ways to honor departed moms. Here’s one more:

            

Invite Mom to Dinner: Other cultures both ancient and modern set a place at the table for the ancestors. You could do this and I won’t tell. I have done it myself, just because it feels welcoming and right. I served shrimp scampi---mom’s favorite---and all of us at the table raised a glass in remembrance.

So Happy Mother’s Day. Now eat your Eggs Benedict and clean your plate.

What Wouldn't You Do?

            Some questions wake us up---a pail of ice water dumped on the head. Here’s one: If you had only one year to live, what would you do?

Here’s another: Why aren’t you doing that now?

Me, I have trouble with those wake-up questions. My priorities are not so tidy that I can answer fast and then believe myself. So I’m backing into a reply by asking a third question:

What am I doing now that I wouldn’t be doing if I had only a year to live?

That question makes it easier. Subtract everything that is a major pain in a body part and look at what’s left. That’s the basic pay dirt of your life, the things you enjoy or find worthwhile. Next add in the things you always meant to do. Now you have a handle on what you’d do with that one last theoretical year.

Older People and Time

            People who toddle on past 50, 60 and 70 know that they are getting up there, there being the place where time Matters with a capital M because by then one knows how fast time passes. Birthdays for the older adult pass by like subways stations seen from a speeding train.

So yes, we silver heads have time on our minds. We know having a long future is no longer a given the way it is to a five-year-old who has a lifetime supply. Time---the living and breathing left to us---turns out to be the most precious commodity on earth.

The Good Obsession

            So me, I’m getting obsessed about my most precious possession. If you think shoe obsessions are bad, I confess I’m someone who keeps opening my mental closet to admire and count the days I might have left. 

So, yes, I’m a time junkie. Can’t get enough. Always looking for more. Try and take it from me and I’ll smack you one.

OK, I won’t do that, but I will say no to the person who asks me to knit booties for orphan squirrels. I pick my volunteer work and am beginning to get the sense to know when my calendar and heart are full. Still very involved professionally, I put my goals into A, B and C categories and then pay no attention to the C’s.  Older people shouldn’t be playing in the minor leagues when it comes to priorities.

Family: The Confession

Increasingly, I am more selective about the energy expended on relatives. If a literate, phone-toting grandchild can’t thank me for a gift, no more time spent picking out special gifts. My beloved ingrate gets a singing email greeting instead. And this may lose me my granny license, but I say no to the very kind invitations to kids’ birthday parties. If I wanted to ruin my hearing, I’d go to a rock concert instead. I figure graduations from 8^th grade, high school and college for 12 grandchildren will keep me busy enough in the calendar department.

Friends

As we all know, there are friends and then there are friends. The less desirable ones never call unless they want something. Well, I want something too---good friends--- which means a fairly even exchange of concern, favors and time. Users and takers should be pruned away for the life and the health of older people, we who just don’t have the energy to be taken advantage of anymore. Gerontologists call this pruning process “social selectivity’’ which means we older people get fussy about the company we keep. No more bad bosses invited over for dinner..

Words to the Wise

            I talk these issues over with friends and they say they feel guilty saying no to time-wasters. But if we don’t honor our time, who will? Nobody else watches our hourglass. Minding time is a job that can’t be delegated. So maybe we should go ahead and get living as though we had just one more year.

Then do that for the next thirty.

What's On Your Life List?

Now that I’m getting older, I’m beginning to think long term, way beyond the next episode of The Sopranos.

About time. It used to be I couldn’t think beyond the next infant feeding. But now, the clock is ticking, or is that Big Ben on my wrist?

So many things to do and only another twenty-two years---that’s if I get lucky and live as long as my parents, the measuring stick of most older people. Let’s see---Mom lived until eighty-eight. Dad lived until ninety-two. Add them both up, divide by two and subtract all the cartons of Rocky Road ice cream that disappeared from your freezer and there you have it: your age at time of departure.

Well, we try to figure it out---this lifespan stuff---but none of us know our ETA in heaven. However, most of us know by now what we love to do and that’s what I want to talk to you about. I say take the knowledge of what we love and want, put it down on paper, and use those lists to guide the rest of our lives. It’s putting long-term thinking into action so our time won’t run out before our dreams.

Making Life Lists

 Just take a notebook, something big you can’t lose easily, and write down everything you ever wanted to experience. No matter how silly, expensive or outrageous, put it down.

 A life list could read like this: See Tuscany. Bring Mom to see the old hometown. Take up watercolors. Videotape Dad’s memories of his youth. Get a good music system. Finally see the Getty Museum. Make love in some weird place of your choice. Grab your best friend and take off on a cheapie cruise for a long weekend.

 So let ‘er rip. Don’t stop until nothing else comes to mind. Something else will pop up later, so put that down too. Keep adding to the list over days, weeks, months, or years. New goals will rear their beautiful heads. Achieved goals will get crossed off. A life list is a living thing, always growing and changing.

 Though I am an Internet freak, I haven’t put this list on my computer. Somehow, I want to use ink and paper, feel the list, watch the paper age and look at my cross-outs as I do things or decide Number 57 on the list isn’t what I want anymore.

Goals change. I used to want one good expensive jacket. Just one, just once. Armani dreams of yore. Now I’d rather spend the money on a weekend with my mate. Amour rather than Armani.

Also expect goal shrinkage---downsizing goals into doable form. I downsized some of the things I listed, going from wanting a grand piano to buying a small portable keyboard. And I crossed off other goals, such as skiing down Red Dog at Squaw Valley without falling. That ain’t gonna happen now. Young heart but older body. Still, I’ve asked my kids to put my ashes on Red Dog. Going to get down that trail one way or another.

My life list now has 109 things on it. I started it about ten years ago and reviewed it, forgot what was on it, reviewed it again, forgot what was on it and so forth. Moral of the story: keep the list where you can see it, a constant reminder of what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.

Last, if you are in a relationship, your life lists may not be in sync. My mate wants a romantic interlude in one of those red phone booths that the Brits have---the ones with little see-through windowpanes. But I’ll be the Queen of England before I’d hanky my panky in a public phone booth.

Still, I’m going to negotiate with him about one of my own ideas. That would be number seventeen, dear.

Giving The Turkey The Bird

     Ask any older person. Holidays are more complicated now. Take Christmas stockings. They used to be old socks half-filled with ribbon candy, a tangerine and a piece of coal to keep you humble. Then maybe you got one present or, during the Depression, no present at all.

And there was no huge debate about where to go for the holidays. You either stayed home or went to a nearby relative’s for your turkey. You did not fly to Denver, Boston or Miami to eat pie with your family. Your closest relatives were actually close---up the block, down the street and sometimes even in the same house.

But now, the choices provoke a seasonal nervous breakdown. Should we drive to my parents or fly to yours? What about seeing your sister? Or should we have everybody here? But isn’t our table too small for 18 people and John doesn’t talk to Alex. Donny got divorced and everybody hates Donny’s new wife and Sam told us he won’t drive on a holiday.

And so it runs until our good intentions evaporate under the pressure.

Well, I have a solution, at least for grandparents.

Hand Off The Turkey Platter

Give it up. There is no law that says you have to do the turkey, be the host or make everybody’s holiday dreams come true. You can give the turkey the bird. Your descendants don’t have to come to your house for a command performance involving large stupid poultry. Instead think: over the river and through the woods to daughter’s house we go.

So consider donating the turkey platter to the next generation. Yes, long ago you and I were the ones who manufactured holiday joy by sewing up turkey bottoms and making bad gravy but we don’t have to do it anymore. We oldsters do not own the holidays.

Anyhow, it is probably easier for them to have you to their house. Then your kids don’t have to displace their kids, pack up the diaper bags or leave their daily orbits. When I was a young woman with four kids under six, it was hard to appease the grandparents when they lived in three households in another state and all had issued soft orders to appear on the same holiday. I try to remember those times when I find myself expecting my kids to come for a holiday audience with Queen Mother Me.

But What If The Kids Live Far Away?

Well, you can go to the airport, kick off the metal detector with your replaced hip and set the security forces in motion to pat you down for weapons of mass destruction or you can stay home. Alone. Well, almost alone. Though the holiday pictures in our heads involve crowds around a dinner table, imagine instead two on the floor in front of a fireplace with champagne and lobster at the ready.

Declare me a heretic, but I publicly avow that fireplace adventures for two geezers can be great fun as can spending a holiday in bed with someone who does not resemble an elf or a reindeer. Early to bed and staying in bed---that’s my motto. Breakfast in bed, lunch in bed, dinner in bed and the first one out has to call the kids to wish them Merry Whatever.

Deciding Your Own Holidays

Again, there is no law that you have to see the family on the actual holiday. Instead of Thanksgiving trips, it’s easier to visit another time when the weather is better and people are not in their stressed holiday mode, trying to replicate Martha Stewart’s table under watching eyes. And, instead of the December trips, try spring or summer, when the living is easy and the kids aren’t so fascinated with their new iPods that they forget to talk to you.

Revolting Grannies

Ok, let me put it another way. Not revolting grannies, but it may be time for grannies to revolt. Holidays have gotten too big for their britches and one little granny can’t handle it anymore. Call in the reserves---your adult kids---and let them step up to the oven.

Copyright © Maryellen Walsh 2006

Pet Books

        You have a pet book, I know you do. A children’s book that turns you all sweet and weepy when you think about it.

So what’s your brand of book nostalgia? Is it for The Tale of Peter Rabbit or the series about the Bobbsey Twins? Is it something you read to your own children years ago---maybe Pat The Bunny or any of the Dr. Seuss books whose titles are engraved in our brains? Can we ever forget Green Eggs and Ham? I won’t---not in my lifetime. I will also remember Hop on Pop, but probably not in the way I’m supposed to.

Or is your pet book a bit of recent nostalgia—a book your grandkids own that you wish you had when you were young? (That’s how I think about Goodnight Moon.) Or is it a book your parents read to you, you all safe and cozy on the couch? Maybe Tom Sawyer or Treasure Island?

Why Do We Love Them?

What’s the appeal of these old books? What’s the source of the pleasure we get when remembering or seeing them? I don’t think anyone knows.

But here’s my guess: there is something reassuring about meeting your own past. That’s why old photos appeal to us. We were there. Here’s the evidence. We are part of history. We happened. We had a pre-mortgage, pre-worry, pre-adult self. The old books allow us to reconnect with that innocent being who used to be us when we worried about Farmer McGregor rather than Osama Bin Laden.

Every older adult I’ve talked to about this subject admits to nostalgia about an old pet book. Some of them want to pass that book on to their family in modern reprints or, if they can find it in the attic, in an older edition. And some are sad that the books they once loved seem gone forever. Who now knows about Maida’s Little House or Maida’s Little Shop? The Maida series, about a poor little rich girl, Maida Westabrook, was a huge hit in the 1940’s, but has evaporated from the books-in-print world.

So it’s easy to conclude that old children’s books go to book heaven, never to return. Because kids can be rough on books. They color them, tear them, spill chocolate milk on the cover and even eat them. Yum---Squirrel Nutkin was delicious. But good news! You can find those old books again and here are four ways to track them down.

Finding Your Old Treasure Books

Addall: This is a website for re-discovering old and out-of-print books. Go to www.addall.com. At the very bottom of the first page, click “used books”. On the screen that comes up, enter the title and/or the author and click “Find the Book”. What should come up is a list of various booksellers who offer the book you want. Prices may vary tremendously depending on whether it is a first edition in good condition or a reprint with yellowed pages. I go for the cheaper reprints as the content is what is valuable to me, not the book as a rare object.

Google: A search by title, author or character at www.google.com may lead you to a website dedicated to the author or character you love. His or her books may be for sale on the site.

Amazon: Look up any book by title or author at www.amazon.com. If the book is out-of-print, Amazon will likely show what used book dealers have your book. The book can then be ordered conveniently through Amazon. Amazon gets a cut, the used book dealer gets some business and you get your book. Win, win, win.

Bookstores: The least efficient way to look for an old book, browsing in a store of used books, is probably the most fun. If you don’t find the exact book you want, you may run across others that ring those nostalgia bells.

Ding, dong---and deju vu. It’s the Flopsie Bunnies all over again.

Last, if you love Beatrix Potter, creative mother of Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and other fictional creatures, then look for a new movie called Miss Potter with Renee Zellwegger as Beatrix.

Bridget Jones meets Peter Rabbit. How can we resist? Out in wide release Janurary 12, 2007. Perfect movie fare for those who love the old books of yore.

 

Copyright © Maryellen Walsh 200

Guests With Four Feet

         Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go, driving right smack into a giant yam and marshmallow casserole. Yes, it’s coming up on holiday season again and we older family members can expect all kinds of guests—some of them with four legs.

These guests are called dogs. Some of them may belong to your adult children. Then they are called grand dogs. I have five grand dogs. They visit, bark at the goats next door and pee on my wall-to-wall. That’s okay.

Because as holiday social companions, dogs are stellar guests. At Thanksgiving dinner, they don’t notice if you use the wrong fork and they don’t say tactless things to the host after one too many. They may flirt briefly with other guests, but they’ll never try to get a phone number. They clean the floor of spills, eat the leftovers without wrinkling their noses and are grateful for the hospitality. (Have you ever met an ungrateful dog? I tell you---my kind of mammal.)

Yes, dogs can decorate for the holidays in unusual ways. They may throw up on the carpet and slobber ever so slightly on the upholstery. And yes, they may bark a bit, transport a flea or two and, with their tails, clear a coffee table of wine glasses faster than you can yell “No!”.

Dogs perceive “No” as a command to wag the tail. So, of course, they break more wine glasses, which is yet another reason never to buy expensive glassware. Burn money instead. It’s more direct.

Doggie Hospitality

A few things to consider if King is coming to visit:

Dog Dishes—It’s nice to offer water and food in some out-of-the-way spot where you won’t stumble over the water dish because you forgot it was there. You don’t want to break a hip this year. It will crumble on its own soon enough.

Dog Food---Keep it in a lidded can, unless you want to feed the mice too.

Dog Treats---You can serve cow bones or vegetarian treats. Your kids will tell you if their dog is a vegetarian. Today, dog owners decide this, not evolution.

Leashes---In the excitement of packing for a trip to grandma’s house, these may be forgotten.

Dog Gates---If the yard isn’t fenced, think of using baby gates to keep an animal safe on the porch.

Dangerous Things---Unless you want the poodle to ignite its pompom, don’t keep candles on a low coffee table.

Accidents---It may not work to yell “Bad Dog!” because dogs seem to interpret that command as permission to do it all over again in the same spot next time they pass by.

Culture Changes

Dog Crates---Don’t ask me why but today’s young parents refuse to use a playpen---(that means babyproofing your whole house, grandma)---and yet they use a crate---a portable folding doghouse--for the dog indoors. I don’t get it, but I go along with a lot I don’t get---like free-range babies. So make space for the moveable doghouse.

Language---Dogs in the 1950’s knew the commands “sit,” “lie down” and “shake”. They ignored them. Dogs today are more literate and know even more commands to ignore. You may hear their owners say “off”, “drop”, “take it”, “kennel up”, “quiet” and the intriguing command, “potty”. Which means go on command.

Pardon my cynicism, but ha-ha.

Okay, back to the rules of dog hospitality:

If you are allergic to dogs or just don’t like them, don’t issue the invitation, but your dog-loving friends will make you pay. Maybe not now, but someday. So when they invite just you and ask you to leave your family at home, you’ll know where they got the idea.

Last, please remember that dogs can make older people fall. If you are visiting a very frail elder or one recovering from surgery, please leave the dog at home unless asked to bring it. Because a little dog can trip people if they forget he is around. A large dog can knock them over. And a fall is not what anyone wants for the holidays. Or ever. The old song is not….Over the river and through the woods to the ER we go.

Copyright © Maryellen Walsh 2006