ch ch ch ch changes

When I have my occasional a-ha!! moments, after they're over, they often seem so obvious that I'm a little embarrassed it took me so long to figure it out. Surely everyone else already knew this.

That's how I felt about my realization that at age 59, I am no longer in the same demographic that I was at age 49 (the original posts are here and here). Well, DUH, as we used to say when I was in junior high. How could I possibly have thought that I was? 

But I've continued to read and listen to people and podcasts, and you know what? I'm not alone. I'm not the only woman in her 50s who is having trouble making this mental switch. It's not so much that we mind our encroaching age. After all, by the time we've reached this age, we've lost friends and loved ones and we know how lucky we are to make it to 60. 

It's that we don't feel old, at least not the way our youth-obsessed culture defines old. We don't feel irrelevant, and that's how our society views "old" people. And my friends who have already turned 60 don't seem like senior citizens, at least not the way I thought seniors were when I was 40. I think that is more about my misunderstanding of what a senior is like than it is about 62-year-olds being different than they used to be. Our society really is remarkably stupid about aging.

I think the key is that we have to change how we think about age. We can't do much about changing how young people think-- I can remember being that younger woman who rolled her eyes when someone in her 50s would enthusiastically tell me that "50 is the new 30." That younger me was not convinced. 

But we can change what we believe about ourselves, and about age. We've internalized this idea that if you're not at the center of making things happen, your usefulness as a human being is gone. So we keep chasing after that feeling of being in the "maker" stage, the influencer stage, the making a difference stage. I want to feel like I matter.

But you know what? We do matter. We just do. We don't have to manufacture this, or change our culture, or convince anyone, we just have to believe it ourselves. Instead of trying (unsuccessfully) to continue to shoehorn ourselves into the mid-life category, we need to change how we think about people in their 60s. Yup, I'm old. Yup, I'm no longer on the center stage of what is happening in our world. But I am still a badass.

What if we just move forward? Instead of accepting what our culture tells us--that if you're not in that cultural sweet spot of mid-thirties to mid-forties, you don't matter-- how about if we dump our own anti-age prejudice and know down to our core that american culture is wrong about aging?

Because if we don't do this, if we continue to try to pretend that are in that center stage phase, that's exactly when we become ridiculous. To be clear: Do what you want, wear what you want. Ignore the YouTube tutorials about "seven things women over fifty should never wear" and "six makeup tips for looking 35 again." That's not what I mean. 

What I mean is: recognize that the generations have shifted. The women who are in their 30s to 40s have a different cultural context than we did. They have a different set of priorities and a different set of challenges. We can't talk down to them as if the things we did at their age were important, and theirs are just window dressing. We can't tell younger women that their a-ha moments are unnecessary because our generation already did that (not kidding, I came so close to actually saying that a couple of months ago).

Every generation has to figure out certain things for themselves. Their generation is being forced to manage their kids' online education while figuring out how to organize their homes during lockdown and track their Instagram feed and monitor their kids' use of TikTok and Snapchat. It's a whole different world out there. 

Our lives currently include aching knees, unrestful sleep, chin hairs, and not understanding why anyone would want four social media apps. Own it, my friends. We got this.

****** a blog note ******

Last week we spent the entire week smothered in a thick fog that was actually smoke, blown in from forest fires on the west coast. Like many people with allergies and smoke sensitivity, it was a miserable week for me. But-- of course -- not even close to as miserable for us as it is for the people who are actually experiencing the fires.

It finally rained a bit over the weekend, which at least temporarily cleared out the smoke and let my brain start working again. And when it did, I remembered the post I accidentally published last Monday. It wasn't supposed to go up until Tuesday, but it's easier than you would expect to screw that up. I quickly figured out my mistake and "unpublished" it, and for the first time ever, I managed to delete it before it went to the RSS feed so it never appeared in my reader. But then the smoke descended and I forgot about it until yesterday, so that is why a post that is dated last week was just published yesterday, and why those of you who are email subscribed received at least two copies of it (three?). Oops.

ugliness abounds

This article in the Atlantic is one of the more interesting perspectives I've read on covid-19. On our unfortunate fixation on coming up with a single fix that will be 100% effective, he says: "Many critics of masks argued that they provide only partial protection against the virus, that they often don’t fit well, or that people wear them incorrectly. But some protection is clearly better than no protection. ...'X won’t stop COVID on its own is not an argument against doing X.' Instead, it’s an argument for doing X along with other measures." Unfortunately, the article is long and somewhat repetitive. But even if you only read the first third of it, you'll get the idea. 

NPR's discussion of the history and future of plastic recycling. Turns out, the plastics industry has always known that recycling plastic isn't viable. It's far more profitable to create new plastic products than to recycle used plastic. The plastics industry spent millions on ad campaigns to convince us that recycling was going to work, even though they knew it wouldn't. This is one of the more disturbing articles I've read recently. We really, seriously need to use less plastic. Carry those reusable bags, people. Worth reading. Thanks to my friend Marina for the link.

I was going to do seven links to interesting articles as one of my "seven things" posts, but I got so depressed while I was looking up other articles, I gave up. It just makes me want to go offline and put my head under a rug. No matter what happens in the election in November, this stuff isn't going away. Maybe we can at least get an administration that doesn't lie to us, but the problems we're facing aren't going to evaporate either way.

One thing I kept running into was our current obsession with assigning the worst possible motivation to the "other side," whichever side you're on. One example out of dozens: if someone is opposed to health-care-for-all, it can't be because they're concerned about our staggering national debt, it's because they're racist and don't care about the health of marginalized people. You get yourself into an echo chamber where you only talk to people who agree with you, so you lose touch with the idea that people on "the other side" might actually have some legitimate concerns about the issues. These issues are complicated. If they were simple, they'd be solved already.

And the solid gold elephant in the room that is not recognized nearly enough: we're being coached into paranoia and distrust by media and corporate and political entities who are consolidating their power and/or making billions in profit from our distrust. People don't click on headlines that are calming and sane. There's no money (or votes) in de-escalation. 

Here was the one thing that made me smile today: The "Couch Choir" singing the old Turtles' song "Happy Together."

Tepid water, please

I've been such a grump this week that I thought I might scratch my own eyes out. In the midst of that, I wrote the post below. Last night, almost on a whim, I decided to drive to Missoula today just to get the heck out of town before I lost my ever-lovin sh!t. I was only there a few hours but other than a weekend trip to visit PellMel back in June, it's the first time I've been out of town since February. My mental status is much improved, so now I'm feeling a little guilty about this post, which is practically a rant. But at least I'm warning you if you're not in the mood to read my whine. 

Here is a typical situation that has happened more times than I can count over the past twenty-ish years. I'm sitting in a PTA/church/community/friend meeting and we need to make a decision. I actually enjoy listening to people's ideas and opinions, but once everyone has expressed their opinion and we're getting to the point where we're re-expressing our opinions, or re-hashing something we've been over eight times, or we're spinning our wheels because nobody wants to make a decision, I get impatient. Really impatient. So I say, "I think we should do xyz." Then suddenly, that is what we are doing. 

It's never my intention to bulldoze the group into doing what I want. In fact, I rarely care what we do. I'm just trying to get us past the endless discussion phase, and into the "let's make a decision and end this meeting" phase. I want to stop meandering around and get something done.  

Then later I find out that someone's feelings were hurt or someone thought I was ignoring them, or I was supposed to defer to someone (not necessarily the group leader) who is the queen bee. 

When I figured out that was happening (which took years, I told you I was clueless about social interactions), I started trying to be more clear. Instead of saying, "I think we should do xyz," I would very carefully make it clear that it was just my opinion, "Well, my vote is xyz, what does everyone else think?" That sometimes backfires because it can lead to reopening the endless discussion, but the intent is to prod us into moving on. 

Apparently, that still is not a good solution. I tried this a few months ago at a meeting which ended not long after. A couple of weeks later, one of the other women said to a mutual friend, "Bless her heart, Barb told us what we should do." I don't think she was especially angry with me, because I was standing right there when she said it, but still it surprised me. Is that how it came across? I thought I had said it so carefully.

I kinda feel bad that she felt that way, but I could not regret getting out of that meeting, which had already gone on for an hour. Somehow I give the impression that I am stubborn and uncompromising.* I don't usually care what happens--sometimes I don't care at all-- I just hate the infinity loop of pointless discussion. And somehow, even when I am trying extra hard not to sound opinionated, it seems that way to other people.

Here's a sideways version of the same thing. We have a group of friends that we've known for years. When we get together, the women drink wine, and the guys drink beer (lots of good breweries around here). I don't drink wine very often because it gives me a headache, but I'd take a glass to be sociable and sip at it. Finally, a couple of years ago I decided it was silly to pretend I like wine when I don't, so I said something about how I really don't care for wine and I'd rather have a beer. 

The next time we got together with those friends, there was no wine. Everyone had a beer. Which was not my intent. I just want to do what I want, and have other people do what they want, and not get into this group-think thing where everybody has to do the same thing. 

I could go on and on. It makes me crazy. Don't change your opinion because of me. If you like wine, drink the damn wine. If you won't be who you are, I can't be who I am. I don't want a friendship where I can only be who I am at your expense.

Sorry. I'm starting to rant. Figure out what you think, and then own it. If you like wine, it's OK for you to drink wine even if it gives me a headache. And, going back to the previous situation, for the love of pete, it's OK for me to express an opinion without making an obeisance to the queen bee. 

That wasn't where I thought this post was going when I started. If you have any advice about how exactly one phrases an opinion without offending people, let me know. If it involves prefacing your words with, "Wellll, you know, maybe we could, I don't know, if it's OK with you, maybe we could think about possibly ...." I'll warn you in advance I'll be rolling my eyes.

Ignore me and have a great weekend.

* OK, ok, now that I'm back from my road trip, I can hear you laughing. I am opinionated and stubborn, it is true. But usually I only inflict it on Dean.

Friday deep thoughts

Mountain ash tree in our backyard

Maybe the only thing that is really true right now is that we are all alive. If I'm sitting here typing this, and you're reading it, we each have a pulse, and I can press a finger to my wrist and feel it. We're breathing. In. Out. In. Out. I can feel the keys under my fingers, I can see the cat sleeping next to me on the sofa, I can hear traffic in the distance through the open window, faintly taste the granola I had for breakfast. Maybe that's where we start. 

If you've been around for awhile, you've seen the quote below, because I think this is at least the fourth time I've posted it. It's my favorite quote from Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzburg, and one of my touchstones since I first read it a dozen years ago: 

"Faith does not require a belief system, and is not necessarily connected to a deity or God, though it doesn't deny one. ...faith is not a commodity that we have or don't have-- it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.... No matter what we encounter in life, it is faith that enables us to try again, to trust again, to love again. Even in times of immense suffering, it is faith that enables us to relate to the present moment in such a way that we can go on, we can move forward, instead of becoming lost in resignation or despair. Faith links our present-day experience, whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life itself."  -- Sharon Salzburg, in Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience

"The underlying pulse of life itself." 

Have a great weekend. 

The things I carry and the summer reading report

I've told you before that I have headaches that start in my neck and shoulders. So it should be obvious that I need to think about the stuff that I carry around all the time-- like my bag. But honestly, it hadn't even occurred to me until this week when I heard a podcast host mention in passing that she hated carrying a big bag because it made her shoulders hurt. 

So the next day, I got out my kitchen scale and started weighing all the stuff in my bag (enneagram 5, yup), and deciding what I could get rid of. I have always been an over-packer. I carry all kinds of stuff that I might need-- bandaids, eye-drops, migraine meds, advil, cough drops, post-it notes, a mini pad of paper, pens (several), two kinds of lip balm, flossers, 3-4 reusable shopping bags-- you get the idea. LOTS of stuff.

But it's all stuff I like having with me. I don't really want to get rid of any of it. My heaviest items were the things that are non-negotiable: wallet (11 ounces), phone (7 ounces), and checkbook (5 ounces). So I started by nixing the multiples--maybe I could get by with one shopping bag, one pen, a couple of index cards instead of a pad of paper, two bandaids instead of a dozen, etc. At first it didn't seem like it was going to make any difference, but it ended up being a couple of pounds lighter, and it's noticeable. Why didn't I think of this years ago?

It's occurring to me that under the circumstances (ie., headaches that start in my neck and shoulders), maybe I should re-think my philosophy of Personal Junk Transportation. Maybe I should keep the extra stuff in my car and just carry my phone, ID, and a couple of credit cards in one of those phone cases. Will be thinking more about this. If you have any good advice, let me know.

Hmmm. Also. Maybe I should join the 21st century and realize I don't need to carry a checkbook all the time. I only go one place that requires a check, and I always drive there so it could be one of the things I keep in my car. Hmmmm.

 Summer Reading Report:

"Fascinating" and "thought-provoking" don't always go with "couldn't put it down," but that's how I felt about The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman. It's older-- I think it was written back in the 90s-- but it feels like it was written last year (other than the occasional reference to a cassette deck and the lack of cell phones). Very relevant to some things that are going on now, and highly, highly recommended. Everyone should read this book.

The rest of these are grouped by mood, but other than that they're not in any particular order.

Other books from the "fascinating" category: Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (interesting but got a little long for me), The Library Book by Susan Orlean (definitely not in the "couldn't put it down" category, but still interesting).

Really fun to read: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (high schooler deals with his first real crush and coming out), The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (fastidious, rule-following inspector for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth is sent on a new assignment where none of his previous experience seems to apply), With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo (teen mom who is a gifted chef works hard to make her dreams come true), Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert ("open door" interracial romance), Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner (plus-size influencer is asked by her high school nemesis to be in her wedding). 

Mystery/Dramatic/Great Reading But Not Exactly "Fun": Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves (my first Vera Stanhope mystery and I loved it), The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (dystopian sci-fi), Celine by Peter Heller (a female P.I. of a certain age tries to find a missing dad), The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (didn't especially like this at first but by the end she had won me over), Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5, really should read the series in order, and the first one is short so it's easy to figure out if you will like it)(I do, a lot). 

Not for me: Mexican Gothic which I had heard was more eerie than horror. The podcast host who recommended it compared it to Jane Eyre or Rebecca, both of which I loved, but NO. I can't say more than that without spoilers but... well, ok, I'll put a spoiler at the end and you can see what you think, see below. It's beautifully written and once I was into it I had to finish it to see what happened but good grief, I could not read it before bed, which is my main reading time.

*****SPOILER ALERT****** for Mexican Gothic

Seriously. An ancient evil being who inhabits an elderly man vomits black fungus yuckiness into the mouth of our heroine-- how is that possibly not horror?? That was the worst scene but it wasn't the only one in that vein. Sheesh. Really wish I could un-read that scene.

*********END SPOILER***************