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The Write Side of 50 59

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

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Laurie Lois 2

Divorced and smiling.

julie-bride

Married and smiling.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Julie and I have moved the name of the blog ahead a few years in order to catch up with us. We feel we are beyond The Write Side of 50 because we are now pushing 60. (I’ve already crossed the line.)

Indications are that we are aging out of the “middle” and are now on the precipice of “old.” So we’ve moved the start line up to 59, hence, “The Write Side of 59.” Fifty nine — an age that you may not give a hoot about nor have thought much about until it’s behind you.

Many view 60 as the beginning of “Chapter Three” in the trilogy of life. The last chapter. The end of this chapter is The End. I know I’m certainly humbled by what sociologist and psychotherapist, Lillian B. Rubin, who died last year at the age of 90, had written for Salon:

“Sure, aging is different than it was a generation or two ago and there are more possibilities now than ever before, if only because we live so much longer. It just seems to me that, whether at 60 or 80, the good news is only half the story. For it’s also true that old age — even now when old age often isn’t what it used to be — is a time of loss, decline and stigma.”

“… loss, decline and stigma.” Realities that I try to tuck away in the far reaches of my consciousness, but are certainly part of my life. Yes, bad personal news is becoming as fickle as weather — guaranteed, but only so predictable. Some bad things will not get better. A lot of good things are no longer going to happen. Illness and death are plucking people from my life.

I could go on and on with the usual platitudes that play with our heads and tell us that we can stay “young” forever — that cultural bombardment of how to defy age. You can fight your gray hairs, your wrinkles, and the desire to go to bed at 8:30. You stay physically active, and you seek out stimulation and passion.

But any routine and repose will no doubt be interrupted by bad news. Wounds — both emotional and physical — seem to cut deeper, take longer to heal and often whittle away at that blissful sense of control and immortality that the younger years allowed. There’s a new balance between: “I can handle anything,” and “Haven’t I had enough?”

But!

If “the good news is only half the story,” that means there is a good half. If anything, aging into the 60s, 70s, and 80s will be unpredictable. And studies show that there is an “upswing” in satisfaction and happiness throughout the 60s and 70s.

And I’m guessing there will be fodder for adventurous storytelling unlike any we’ve ever had. Julie and I are among the lucky ones who have our health, our independence, our jobs. We laugh a lot. And we’re both on brand new (and different) post-59 paths.

At 59, Julie married for the first time.

At 59, I divorced after a 30-year marriage.

Julie’s parents are both alive and healthy, as are all of her siblings. She has a big extended family.

My dad died years ago, my mom has been taken away by severe dementia, and I lost a brother. I have almost no family left.

As a newly married woman, Julie has lately been living the life of a newlywed with a sense of calm and a sense of safety that comes with being a newlywed. She has a husband, Steve. She’s happily navigating being part of a married couple and all that comes with it — commitment, laying roots, love …

As a somewhat newly divorced woman (one year), I have been living in a constant state of gusto — full of risks, perils, thrills, and curiosity. I have dates. I’m happily navigating being single and all that comes with it — variety, enchantment, lovers, (danger!) …

I’m thinking the right side of 59 can be a captivating time in a devil-may-care way. Be foolhardy. Be wise. Take those risks. Look where you’re going. Mourn those losses. Salute your survival. Jump in with eyes wide open. Cry your eyes out when you feel sorry for yourself.

And try your best to stay “alive” until the day you die.

I Slid Down Something

17 Tuesday Feb 2015

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tubing

I slid into (and down) something more comfortable.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

For years now, I have been known to wax poetic about how much I love and miss playing in the snow — specifically skiing in it. Last year I publicly pleaded for comrades to “slide down something!” with me.

So when a good friend invited Julie and me to spend the long Presidents’ Day weekend at his sister’s house on the mountain in Killington, Vermont, we were in. And for the first time in my life that I can recall, I was afraid to have fun. I was afraid to ski.

For Julie it was a “no-brainer.” She’s never skied, and in her words, “has no balance of power,” and “has been known to topple simply standing on skis.” She’d be happy to “head for in for a bloody.”

For me, I’ve been a skier for most of my life (often with a bloody before, during and after).

But I haven’t skied in eight years. And the last time I slid (and ran through, and jumped into, and rolled around in mud) , my madcap self was shut down by a back injury that incapacitated me for almost three months. And my eyes were opened by a recovery period that humbled me for the rest of my life.

This weekend was the first test of my mettle. Therefore, I wanted to forget all that I learned and wrote about — the wisdom that sprouts during the recovery from a devastating injury. That “intellectual renewal” that can emerge from “physical pain.” I was contemplating ignoring “the gift of aging,” including the pronouncement that “fear can serve to gather perspective – quickly.” It can offer “…levelheadedness … a re-routing … a savvier path.”

Instead, I wanted to pretend that careening down a wind-swept, icy incline while buckled into two laminated slats would not be foolish for a 60 year old with an iffy back who hasn’t slid down anything snowy in eight years. I wanted the older me to be the old me — sometimes cautious, sometimes reckless, but always game.

The deadline-driven decision as to whether or not I should hit the slopes locked me into a tortuous head game for days. (As my friend noted — women forced to make a major life decision such as whether or not to have a child, probably spend less time deciding than I did on whether or not I should ski.)

If I skied and fell, re-injury was a possibility. If I skied and didn’t fall, redemption was a possibility. If I didn’t ski, and ultimately didn’t fall, a snowball effect was certain: “the gift of aging … intellectual renewal … perspective … levelheadedness … a re-routing.”

So, I opted out. And, along with my good friends, slid down a “savvier path.”

We went tubing. In record-cold wind chills and wind. Two 50-somethings, and one 60 year old careening and twirling down the hill amidst teenagers and youngsters (some with parents younger than us who simply pushed their kids down).

So — trading an icy ski slope for an icy tube hill? Smarter. Levelheaded. Older and wiser. So much fun! And brave.

When My Words Collided With Björk’s

06 Friday Feb 2015

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I cry to my left; I dance to my right

“I Cry to My Left; I Dance to My Right.” Watercolor by Julie Seyler.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Björk and me. As polar-opposite as Iceland and New Jersey. She’s a brilliant musician. I’m a brilliant … hmm. (I can’t recall being called “brilliant.”) She’s an international “queen.”

I’m a “Jersey Girl.”

She can write music like nobody else.

I listen to music — like everybody else.

She can sing.

I carry a tune by plugging myself into my phone and toting the music in me along with me, through dancing, from room to room.

But we do have a parallel. We both recently wrote about betrayal and a breakup. And in keeping with the disparity in our places in the universe — I wrote an essay. She wrote a best-selling, breakthrough album, out of which a MoMA exhibit will spring.

We are dead-on, though, with our innate use of a creative outlet to mine through life events that are coated with agony. Agony that words can’t recount. Until you find the words. We both found the words. We both wrote the words. And, in her big way, and in my little way, our written words hit a collective nerve.

A few days after Julie told me I had to read The New York Times’ article by Jon Pareles, “Sometimes Heartbreak Takes a Hostage,” a review of Björk’s “complete heartbreak” album “Vulnicura,” another friend sent me a link to the Web site Journal.ie, which ranked my BuzzFeed essay as last week’s number-three best read on the Web.

Number one was an interview with Björk about “Vulnicura.”

Cool. So I threw myself into everything Björk. I read what I could find. I bought and repeatedly listened to “Vulnicura.”

I feel her words — both in her music and in her interviews about her album and the process of creating it. The words were mine, but hers. For both of us, moving through betrayal and “the death of the family,” was for me, as was for her “the toughest thing I’ve ever done.”

For both of us it took years to write about it and muster the nerve to put it out in the world. We both wrapped our articulation around the arc of a timeline. We both had a run-in with the magic of karma. And we both came through liberated.

I relate to her metaphors: “You feel like you’re having open-heart surgery, with knives sticking in, so everything is out, and you have this urgency and immediacy. It has to happen right now, that you have to express yourself.”

And her letting-go: “She hopped out of the D.J. booth to dance on the pool table, rolling across it like something in a vintage MTV video. Around midnight, she led her flock to Prikid, a packed hip-hop club, where she danced nonstop, sang along and downed shots of birch schnapps until nearly 4 a.m,” wrote Pareles. (I would have been there, on the pool table, had I been there.)

When I write, I listen to music. I have a stable of songs that I draw from. They range from opera to ’60s pop melodies. I pick the song that moves me along with my writing. I click “repeat” and it plays over and over and over for hours. I blast it. It takes over my head and let’s nothing in but me. Rarely, do the words come to mind without music in my ears.

Sometimes I need violins. Sometimes I need a rousing choir. Sometimes I need Roy Orbison. Sometimes a voice hits me out of nowhere. (B.J. Thomas!?)

But for this piece, I needed Björk and “Vulnicura.” Specifically “Black Lake.”

So while I was formerly more in awe of pieces of Björk (yes, her swan dress, her avant-garde-ness), I am now a forever-fan of all of her. I hear her now.

Me and Björk. We were on the same page. The Icelandic queen and the Jersey girl — scribes of the separation; chroniclers of catharsis. All-consuming, heart-breaking, gut-purging, pool-table-dancing, shot-drinking reclaimers of us.

My Back Room: Memories Amidst the Dust Bunnies

22 Thursday Jan 2015

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studio pre cleanseBY JULIE SEYLER

I have been cleaning up and cleaning out the back room. It is the master bedroom of my apartment, but has always functioned as a studio — a place where I had my easel and oils and drawing books and pastels and thread and canvas and stretcher bars and papier-maché and beads.

But I am starting to move stuff out. The house in New Jersey has an attic and the attic is to become a working space of mine. I am organizing and gathering and chucking, and between the dust bunnies and crap, I found a cache of memories.

There are notebooks filled with slides of paintings, and drawing books filled with collages. I have photograph books that hold the two-dimensional representation of my three-dimensional papier-mache sculptures that took over my living room in my old apartment. It was so sad because they were too big to come with me when I moved to this apartment. Rediscovering my stash of work reminded me of the years when I would wake up and paint and come home from work and paint and in-between draw, sew, take classes, make collages, and paint.

I pored through my photograph albums and found forgotten gems like this one:

IMG_1005

I just cracked up. What a poem! What a poet!

I found a two-page photo spread of a 1996 ski trip to Vermont which included pics of Lo and her toddler sons, a dirty sink, a pot of fondue and a kitchen floor carpeted in bubbles. For some reason I have no recollection of that trip, probably because I don’t ski. I tumble and fumble. Best to forget those embarrassing experiences. But Lola had instant recall. She remembered who made the fondue, how the sink got completely clogged and that someone put liquid soap into the dishwasher, thereby leading to a bubble explosion.

So amidst the dreaded chore of cleaning, vacuuming and dusting, I got to “review” some ephemera of my life at this ripe old age of young middle age. (We are only young middle age, still, right?) I am sure when I again look back, the glow of the past will have an even more burnished lustre, but no doubt that, just like this time, I will be enthralled remembering how much fun I’ve had and how many fabulous people I have known and loved for these many years.

This Ex-Hippie is Old: My Hip is Osteoarthritic

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Is this my future anatomy?

Does my future include a prosthetic device?

BY BOB SMITH

I’ve had a persistent low-grade ache in my right thigh for over a year now. I wrote it off to too much running and not enough stretching, but lately the pain has gotten worse.  So I started getting regular massages, switched from the treadmill to the elliptical trainer, and did flexibility exercises hoping to erase the problem, but nothing changed.

Then, like Ebenezer Scrooge, I had a Christmas Eve miracle and revelation.

Every year we host an elaborate Christmas Eve feast featuring all sorts of seafood as well as fresh, crisp-crust bread and exquisite pastries from the local bakery.  But to get any of those goodies without waiting on line for an hour, you have to get to the bakery as soon as they open on Christmas Eve morning.  My over-50 body forces me to toddle out of bed every night in the wee hours to use the bathroom, so I’m the natural for that crack of dawn bakery run.

When I got there at 5:50 the lights in the main serving area weren’t on yet, but I saw activity inside. My right leg tends to stiffen up if I’m sitting still for a while, so rather than leaping out of the car and running across the street as I would have years ago, I carefully eased out of the driver’s seat and stood for a second to gauge the pain and let the stiffness dissipate. Not too bad – after a couple of seconds it felt fine, and I walked into the bakery with only a slight hitch in my step.

Incredibly, there were already three people on line, waiting in semi-darkness for the women bustling behind the counter to recognize the start of business. By the time I had my three dozen rolls and box of pastries ten minutes later, there were eight people behind me on a line, growing by the minute, that was snaking out the door. I’d dodged the bullet.

When I got home, because of my achy leg and partly out of just plain laziness, I decided I’d carry everything (including my convenience store coffee and newspapers) in one trip.

That took some planning: first I put the coffee on the hood of the car, leaving the house keys hanging from my left pinky. Then I put my left arm around the bulging bag of warm rolls, and with my right hand folded the newspapers under my left arm.  I slid my right index finger under the red and white twine on the pastries so the box dangled below my hand, then carefully kicked the door shut using my pain-free left leg.

My left hand was still free (except for the keys on my pinky), so I used that to awkwardly reach down and grab the coffee cup from the hood while still hugging the bag of rolls and squeezing my armpit on the newspapers. I figured once I got up the steps, I could put the pastry box on the side table by the door, take the keys from my left pinky with my right hand, and unlock the door. Mission accomplished!

But my hip had other plans.

I began to climb the steps, but because of the pain I failed to raise my right foot above the riser, and tripped. Because I was walking so slowly, I fell in slow motion. The box of pastries rocked, my finger released the string, and the heavy box slid away across the step, unharmed, as my right hand came down to break my fall.

As my left side came down, I somehow placed the tall Styrofoam cup of coffee onto the porch without spilling a drop. Simultaneously, my arm splayed out and the bag of rolls plopped onto the step ahead of me – remaining upright and jostling, but not dislodging, any of the rolls sticking out of the top. Even the newspapers had fallen from under my arm onto the step in a neatly folded stack.

I stood there, feeling foolish, with the house keys waggling on my pinky.

The Christmas Eve miracle: I’d spilled nothing and was unhurt. The revelation: I’d fallen climbing my own front steps, and could have been badly injured. So I made an appointment with my doctor, got an x-ray, and a week ago was diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the right hip. So now I’m officially old, with an old person’s chronic ailment, an old person limp, and maybe a need for an old person remedy: a new hip.  We’ll see.

But it’s all good. Like Scrooge, I’m thrilled to be alive — even if it means hobbling around like Tiny Tim.

To All My Facebook Friends

12 Monday Jan 2015

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Thank you

…for taking the time to wish me Happy Birthday! on Facebook. Especially because I rarely do.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I hate it. Except on my birthday, when I love it. My Facebook footprint treads lightly. I seldom “friend” anyone. I only “like” or “comment” if I really know you and you’ve moved me deeply. (Or I’m sipping wine.) If I really want to say something to you, I will call you, text you, or send you a private message.

But this year, on the day after my birthday, I had an urge to publicly thank each of you with an individual reply. But I’m told that’s not cool.

I even wanted to take the time to write a little vignette to each of you — a skip down Memory Lane — about something we did together, but there are some of you that I don’t know.

If I wasn’t such a hypocrite, I would take my birthday down to stay in line with my Facebook disdain — the part that I see as inspiring obligatory comments and unabashed self-promotion among the best of us. But what’s not to love about the dependable randomness of the Facebook birthday?

After all, if I ran into a stranger on the street, and discovered that it was his or her birthday, I would offer an enthusiastic and heartfelt “Happy Birthday!” And I’d give a hug.

And where else, in a 48-hour span, would I be able to stock up dozens and dozens of birthday wishes from people I really miss, people I love and don’t see anymore, people I love and see all the time but can’t get enough of, men that I’ve dated, cousins, old boyfriends, the children of adult friends, adults I knew as children, professional colleagues, old friends, new friends, and even “friends” that I don’t know.

So thank you all again. Given that the Facebook-curmudgeon in me will be back soon, you may not get a “Happy Birthday!!” from me on your birthday. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish you one.

~Lois

I’m a Sexagenarian

09 Friday Jan 2015

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60 candles with cake:side

BY LOIS DESOCIO

I’ve turned 60 today. And while I know it’s the de rigueur to move yourself down a few years with each birthday (Happy 35th! Again; 50 is the new 40), I’m gazing into the future — toward 70. Because it’s dwindling. Things are getting serious. Sixty was not imaginable. So it’s time to get over it, and have at it — more than ever.

And I can call myself a sexagenarian. Imagine the possibilities.

So I’m exulting without pause. I’m proud that I’ve made it this far in one piece. And I’m going to pretend 60 is the new 70. So when I’m 70, I’ll really be 60 and I’ll still feel 30, because, in my eyes, I’m always exactly the same. And if that doesn’t make any sense to anyone but me, I don’t care.

An Internet search of “Turning 60,” is rife with old-fogey platitudes. It’s described in more than a few places as the time when “things start to fall apart,” and listing seems to be the genre of choice: 60 Perfect Reasons You Should be Psyched About Turning 60, 10 Things Everyone Should Do Before turning 60, How to Turn Sixty Gracefully: 14 Steps, 60 Thoughts About Turning 60, Six Things to Start Doing When You Turn 60)

So below is my list and some accompanying scholarship on turning 60. I’ve noticed since I had turned 50 (ten years ago), that with each passing decade, clichés are less cliché and more motto:

You’re as Young as You Feel (I’m more 59 than 60.)
It Could be Worse (I could be 61.)
It’s Not Life or Death (Yes. It is.)
Nothing Stays the Same (Goodbye menopause!)
Older and Wiser (Cocktails at 4.)
Keep Your Chin Up (Get fillers.)
Age is Just a Number (I can see 80!)
Keep a Stiff Upper Lip (Never, ever! Botox.)
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder (I see 30.)
There’s More Good than Bad (I will not give up my thong.)
Aging Gracefully (I will not give up my push-up bra.)
This Too, Shall Pass (Even I’m going to die someday.)
Always Look on the Bright Side (Except when there are dimmers.)
Life is Too Short (Amen)

A New Year. A New (Slimmer) Me

05 Monday Jan 2015

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My Weight-Loss Chart

My Weight-Loss Chart

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

And so another new year is upon us. To those of us in the 50+ club, all years that start with a 2 are inherently foreign. When I hear that we are now beginning 2015, it sounds to me like someone saying it’s the 45th of September. It just sounds wrong.

My 91-year-old stepfather has a similar reaction. When I tell him we’re starting 2015 he jokingly puts his hand up and says, “Check, please.”

I’m not quite ready to check out yet, but 15 years into the 21st century, I do sometimes feel like it’s getting close to closing time. Longtime readers of this blog may remember that in July 2013 I wrote that I was resigned to the Hitchcock look of a massive gut for the rest of my life. So when my cardiologist told me to lose weight or have bariatric surgery like Chris Christie, I was initially skeptical that any sustained weight loss was possible for me.

But in order to comply with my doctor’s orders, I started with Weight Watchers in late June 2014. At my first weigh-in I tipped the scales at a hefty 224 pounds. Just about every week thereafter I have lost some weight. Sometimes it was just two-tenths of a pound. But by the end of December I was down to 184, a loss of 40 pounds. I have lost four inches around my waist. But I’m still about 10 pounds from what I initially set as my goal weight, and 25 pounds from the weight that the experts say is appropriate for my height and age. So it’s a process. I saw my cardiologist in December and he was extremely pleased at my reduced size and healthy blood pressure. I have had similar compliments from friends and family.

Weight loss is not a mystery. It involves simply eating less and exercising more. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. I have lost weight by cutting down on sweets and hitting the treadmill on a daily basis. Notice that I didn’t say that I have eliminated sweets. Weight Watchers is not into complete deprivation of anything. In fact, we are encouraged to have weekly treats. The trick is to be conscious of everything we’re putting into our mouth. More candy and cake means more treadmill and weightlifting. So far it’s been reasonably easy to live with.

The new year is the time for resolutions and I am sure that we will be seeing new people at the Weight Watchers meetings in January. Weight loss is a noble goal because you do it not only for yourself, but for your loved ones. But like all things that are worthwhile, it takes some effort. Sustaining that effort over time is the challenge of weight loss. I fully expect that I will gain some weight back some day. But I also know that I can lose it again. I know that because I’ve done it.

My doctor has been preaching weight loss to me for over a decade and until six months ago I was not sufficiently motivated to do anything about it. What changed in 2014? The truth is that it wasn’t just the doctor and his threat of bariatric surgery. In 2014 I became a grandfather, and I realized that if I didn’t start listening to medical advice I was not going to live long enough to see Bryce grow up. And I needed to be in shape to keep up with him. Funny how a baby can change your life in completely unexpected ways.

So I don’t have any New Year’s resolutions other than to try to finally reach my goal weight and stay there (or at least in the neighborhood). Next year at this time I’ll report back. Until then, have a healthy and happy 2015!

Tree Disposal, and Other Post-Holiday Musings

02 Friday Jan 2015

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tree

BY BOB SMITH

If Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, as the song claims, the time following Christmas and New Year’s must be the most dreary.

The days are short and cold (in New Jersey, anyway), and any anticipation of upcoming holiday gifts and celebrations is gone.

Then there’s the Christmas tree, still gaudy and lit for a party that ended last week; a houseguest past its prime.

How long do you leave it up? The traditional date in many Catholic households is January 6, the feast of the Epiphany. But the unofficial date in our house is when the tree starts to die. Once it stops taking up water, or we stop giving it water (it’s a chicken and egg thing), it really starts drying out. So when we see a circular green halo of fallen needles on the floor, it’s time to kick the tree to the curb.

As if blindfolding a hostage, a lot of people put a jumbo white plastic bag over their tree before they drag it out for the garbageman. But what does that accomplish? The tree doesn’t need protection from the elements, and the trash collectors know it’s rubbish whether you bag it or not – it’s just a dead evergreen.

Is the big white bag just a way to avoid extra cleanup, by preventing the tree from dropping dried needles everywhere? I say put one less plastic bag into the world and sweep up after yourself. But hey, I also like the way the vacuum cleaner smells, even a month later, stuffed with those fragrant needles.

Whenever you take it down, and however you dispose of it, the tree disappears, and the ornaments and lights go back in their boxes. We squirrel them away in a corner of the basement, along with the Santa statuettes, metal greeting card holders shaped like reindeer, angels, holly sprigs, candles, and other festive paraphernalia that’s been strewn about our house for the past month.

Thankfully, the Christmas carols and pop songs that have been playing ad nauseum on every radio station, elevator speaker, and department store Muzak track since Black Friday stop dead after Christmas Day, not to be heard again until next November. But in the lull between Christmas and New Year’s, the popular radio stations trot out and overplay a 1980 Dan Fogelberg song called “Same Old Lang Syne,” in which he describes a chance Christmas Eve encounter with an old sweetheart.

The song depresses the hell out of me, mainly because it’s snowing in the beginning of the song. But by the end, when the former lovers have reminisced until there’s nothing more to say and he’s walking home alone, the snow turns into rain. And following that lyric, the song trails off into a lonely saxopohone solo of “Auld Lang Syne.”

New Year’s Eve comes and you have a date or you don’t. You stay up until midnight or not, drink or abstain, and, with varying degrees of conviction, make resolutions that for the most part evaporate like hoarfrost on New Year’s morning.

By the time January 2 rolls around, I’m quietly glad it’s all over, even though this signals the start of months of bleak weather with no major holidays in sight.

But in the end, it’s all good. Whether you’re looking back at the old year with regret or fondness, or forward to the new with anything from trepidation to boundless joy, be grateful – you’re still looking.