A Day Devoted to You. (When has that ever happened?) Pick your favorite spot in your dwellling – the couch, bedroom, porch area – where you’d love to spend the day. Surround yourself with supplies, what you love and need: Books, CD’s, DVD’s, Spa Necessities, Verboten Snacks, Artistic Materials, Magazines, Happy Things. Wear something deliciously comfy, please yourself. Announce to your friends, family and co-workers that you’ve scheduled an Island Day. The telephone goes unanswered. E-mail responses are not returned. Visitors are unwelcomed (unless it’s a pizza delivery). Work emergencies can wait. For one day, put your Outside World on hold to nurture your Inside World. You’ll looooooove it.
For three weeks I’ve been in Colorado, my beloved state-of-choice for 16 years. In 2004, we sold our Aspen home, shed most of our belongings, and moved to Nevada. I have only returned for a brief few days each year.
Nothing is unique about my packing up our belongings and heading further West. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one in ten U.S. residents, more than 31 million people, traded places in 2009. I’m thinking that’s probably enough Hertz rental trucks to circle the Equator!
While most of us move for housing, family and employment reasons, I needed, because of my husband’s health issues, to trade snow for sun, altitude for sea level. Our move, like many, was out-of-necessity, not choice.
Although Thomas Wolfe says you can’t go home again, I say you can. Luckily, I still have a small condo, for rental purposes, in Aspen. For the past three weeks, I’ve been the Renter. Returning home, and Aspen will always be that, has caused a myriad of emotions to wind their way to my surface. Honestly, it’s been more a gusher of feelings. Finally, after some sleepless nights, I gave in, declared a truce and said, bring it on.
Not surprisingly, the gorgeous, breathtaking Rocky Mountains are still a major presence here and, as always, I rejoice in their beauty every waking moment. Give me a mountain to climb and I’m a happy woman.
The old eating joints have stubbornly dug in their heels and remain competitive in this tough restaurant arena. My traditional first lunch was a juicy burger at Little Annie’s, an evening meal, the deliciously messy rib stack at The Hickory House. I met my friend, Jane, for a margarita during Friday Afternoon Club at the Cantina. Make that, two margaritas and nachos. I loved my premier meal at BB’s Kitchen, a contemporary place just opened by Bruce Berger, a friend from Manhattan,. He’s 70 years old, just handed his real estate interests off to his son, and loves to cook. So, why not open a restaurant in Aspen? Yeah……….
For shock value, and I thought I was prepared, I drove, for the first time since leaving in 2004, down Silver King Drive. Perhaps, just maybe, it was a mistake to re-visit my old neighborhood. Our house, thrown together in 1971 by ski bums, who worked only when they couldn’t ski or hunt, was a small German chalet, 3400 square feet of space, anchored permanently, so I thought, into Red Butte Mountain. After purchasing the property in 1988, and learning the house was framed rather haphazardly, we made some necessary structural changes. Wild and wooly Aspen in the ‘70s. Apparently, those laborers drank and smoked pot on-the-job as well as off. If walls could talk.
What I discovered, at our old site, left me speechless, not something that happens often. Almost never. The chalet is gone, replaced by two adjoining townhouses, extending to the property lines (above). Plowed under, cut down, and irradicated forever, are my potato plot, rhubarb clump, raspberry patch, wildflower garden and 50 Colorado blue spruces. C’est dommage! And, Readers, you won’t believe the asking price, $5.5 million……….EACH. The economic journalist who lives in my head, understands this concept. To be honest, I just laughed, thinking, there goes the neighborhood!
What forever will bind me to this tiny enclave tucked into the Rockies are the people who call it home. I’ve woven the social fabric of my life through 25-years of interaction with the community of folks gathered here. Most of us didn’t begin in Aspen, we chose it. Coming as strangers, we’ve determinedly folded into our communities of friendship. Glitz and glitter for some. Grits and granola for others.
Friendships need fuel. Nurturing. Updates. Generosity. And, Kindness. For the past 7 years, thanks to modern-day innovations, I’ve clung to these bonds quite effortlessly. To the question, “Can you hear me now?”, I’d answer a resounding, “Always.” Bash the “social media” all you wish, but through e-mails, Skype, Facebook, iPhones and Blackberries, to name a few, my Colorado ties have remained tightly bound together.
We lose only what we choose not to feed and fortify.
Q. What is the throwaway-remark you would most like to throw away?
A.“I am having a Senior Moment
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We are a nation of 50, 60, 70-year-olds, obsessed with a fear of memory lapse, absent-mindedness and forgetfulness. Readers, please………..relax.
“Greater public awareness of Alzheimer’s, far from reducing the ignorance and stigma around the disease, has increased it,” says author Margaret Gullette, a scholar at Brandeis University.
My husband and I just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We also marked his 13th year of Alzheimer’s. He remembered neither. So I can speak with some authority about how the ravages of this disease affect not only the victim but also family caretakers. Personal tsunami would not be too strong a term.
I just read “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything” by Joshua Foer. In a publicity interview, Foer remarked, “Once upon a time people invested in their memories, they cultivated them. They studiously furnished their minds. Today, we’ve got books, computers and smart phones to hold our memories. We’ve outsourced our memories to external devices.”
“The result”, he continued, ”is that we no longer trust our memories. We see every small forgotten thing as evidence that they’re failing us altogether. We’ve forgotten how to remember.”
Q. How can we remember how to remember?
A. That’s simple. it’s all about Lunch.
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As we get older, life seems to fly by faster and faster,” Foer continues. “Our experiences become less unique, our memories can blend together. If yesterday’s lunch is indistinguishable from the one you ate the day before, it’ll end up being forgotten. In the same way, if you’re not doing things that are unique and different and memorable, this year can come to resemble the last, and end up being just as forgettable as yesterday’s lunch. That’s why it’s so important to pack your life with interesting experiences that make your life memorable, and provide a texture to the passage of time.”
As Guelette reminds us, “Most forgetfulness is not Alzheimer’s, or dementia, or even necessarily a sign of cognitive impairment.”
When is the last time you actually memorized something? Our brains need to be constantly challenged, tested, confronted, abused and aroused. The brain is an organ, and, to work properly, like any organ, it needs to be constantly tuned and played.
Experts recommend learning a foreign language. A great memory booster, they insist. That suggestion is equivalent to proposing a toddler learn to walk by summiting Pikes Peak. A noble venture, of course, but too grand and difficult for most. The Expert at my house (Me) advocates to always be memorizing something: simple; silly; strange. This is what I’ve memorized (some, re-learning) since January.
1. The Capitals of our Fifty States. (A school project for granddaughter, Clara, a second-grader. Not so easy. Do YOU remember the state capital of Pennsylvania?)
2. Two Ogden Nash Poems. “Crossing the Border” and “Celery”.
3. Using Geography Mnemonics. First, the Central American countries from North to South: Big Gorillas Eat Hotdogs Not Cold Pizza (figure it out). Secondly, the countries across North Africa, from West to East: Many African Tourists Like Elephants.
4. The Kings and Queens of England:
Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three,
Edward One, Two, Three, Dick Two,
Henry Four, Five, Six, then who?
Edward Four, Five, Dick the Bad,
Harrys twain and Ned, the lad.
Mary, Lizzie, James the Vain
Charlie, Charlie, James again
William and Mary, Anne o’Gloria,
Four Georges, William and Victoria.
Edward Seven, Georgie Five,
Edward, George and Liz (alive).
If you are asking yourself why I would want to know these things, you are missing the point!
Today begins a mid-week Memo, SNAP OUT OF IT. Each SNAP will be a nifty clue to lift the blues, should you require that. These notions will be short, cheap and easily mastered. From fantastic to interesting and down the chute to absurdly ridiculous. Every SNAP works, guaranteed. I’ve utilized them all! Enjoy. Participate. If you have an idea, send and share.
Starting with absurdly ridiculous:
SNAP #1: In the dumper? Feeling low? Run to your local U.S. Post Office and buy stamps. No kidding. The best social life I have is the 20-to-30 minutes I wait in the U.S.P.S. queue. Strangers though we be, people chat, meet and greet. Kids run wild. Babies howl. And, those cell phones – the conversations I’ve heard! You’ll leave with stamps, a grin, and thinking, “My life really isn’t that bad.” — all compliments of Uncle Sam.
In late April, writer Alex Witchel wrote a compelling piece, “The Return of Ellen Barkin” for The New York Times Magazine. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24barkin-t.html ) Presently, Barkin, an actress, is best remembered as the former fourth wife of multi-billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, chairman of Revlon. The six-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 2006, was stormy. The divorce, more turbulent.
Before we suffer tears or hand-wringing over Barkin’s plight, let me add that she’s landed on her feet. The shoes on those feet were probably Jimmy Choo or Manolo Blahniks’. Besides the $20 million-or-more settlement, Barkin’s not blabbing, she decided to bid her baubles ‘adieu” at a Christie’s auction.
Now, here’s the Wow factor? In just six years, Perleman had gifted her with more than 100 trinkets, which she cashed in for another $20 million. By my calculations, she received about 16 precious pieces of glitz and glitter every year. That’s something-very-special, every three weeks. Who has time to do that much shopping? Let me be frank, Ellen and I run in different social circles.
On her own terms, Barkin, who is 57, is certainly no slouch. By Witchel’s count, pre-Perleman, she’d already made 44 feature films and 7 television movies. Since the divorce, she’s added another 2 films, a television pilot and, in April, opened on Broadway in “Normal Heart” for which she’s been nominated for a Tony Award.
While all this is interesting, and, who doesn’t like a little gossip, what facinated me was her answer to Witchel’s inquiry , ‘So these days, when she [Barkin] wakes up at 3 a.m. worrying about something, what is it?’
“I don’t worry about my children, which is a good thing,” she said. I guess I worry about wierd existential things, like how do we spend our final act? I think, You’re 56 [now, 57] years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do that is as meaningful as that?”
She continued, “I don’t know the answer yet. I guess I’m up thinking, Am I too old to start to absorb new things?”
Here’s when I start to realize that Barkin and I may have something in common. No one has ever asked me, but I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a worry or two also. For my final act, what I call the fourth quarter, I know I want to be cast in the starring role. Although I’ll never win a Tony, it’s my life and I want to be in control of it. For a woman flying solo, that requires courage, good health, financial stability, and luck.
In the last two lines of “The Summer Day”, a wonderful poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, she asks,
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Does our one wild and precious life have to be any less meaningful or productive or fruitful or imaginative now than when we were younger and engaged in the rigors of family and social lives, careers, and other timely pursuits? While lifestyle adjustments may seem overwhelming and health issues, challenging, can’t we still wring the most out of each day?
Someone who has done that very well is my former Aspen neighbor and long-time friend, Austine. Her life, as I observed it for 18 years, was meaningful, productive and fruitful. Austine, always active in the community, was happily on-the-run. Unfortunately, her husband, also a doctor, suffered from Alzheimer’s, and died four years ago. She was his caregiver the last nine years of his life. Recently I asked her about her new life as a single woman, a widow.
“So how do I cope with being alone?”, she wrote, in an e-mail. “The truth is I love being alone in my own home. I cook only if there is a quorum (2 or more). I realized just how much time it takes to cook, what with planning, shopping, preparation, eating, cleaning up, and I decided it wasn’t worth the time and effort.
I play lots of bridge, take walks, and read. I don’t seek out new friends but am open to them. I have traveled a good bit with a long-time friend from New York. I am in that sweet spot right now after not being able to go because I couldn’t leave my husband alone and before the physical decline sets in [for me]. I am making progress on my Bucket List. I don’t enjoy traveling or going to restaurants alone, so I don’t. I have not yet had to ask “Why do I bother?”. If I have a block of time, I have only to refer to My List, never mind those back-burner projects. I am able to spend time with my daughters and grandchildren now.
I do miss being part of a couple. I get twingey when I see a couple in a restaurant at a table for two, sharing a meal, looking as though they belong together. I miss my husband’s mind, human contact.
Am I happy? I am not unhappy. I am content. I am not sure what the next chapter is, but I am up for it.”
This is, it seems to me, what flying solo is all about, a time to imagine our possibilities, welcome our choices, and celebrate our differences. Like Austine, I’m a home-hugger, my safe place to hunker down, especially when times are rotten. Unlike her, I add cooking to the many hobbies and pastimes we both enjoy. Traveling alone? I like it. Another real treat, for me, is a nice restaurant for lunch. If need be, I’ll dine alone. And, while, like Austine, I’ve never met “bored”, I do admit to sometimes wondering, “Why do I bother?” I also rejoice in my family but miss the couple-dom, especially the male/female repartee. As a former business journalist at a time when the majority of my subjects, sources and sidekicks, were men, I like mixing it up with smart men. Because I’m in a different place emotionally, remaining a caretaker, I’m still peddling towards contentment, still trying to find my path.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.”
