You know when you were a kid, and your parents and grandparents said such astounding things as “That was 20 years ago already!” And how your jaw dropped, and your eyes grew to the size of dessert plates, and a truly awestruck “w-o-w” breathed across your lips? Because you couldn’t fathom how very old human beings must have to be just in order to remember something that actually happened 20 years ago? Well, I’ve now joined that august band of the aging if this pre-Twitter list of technology-based nostalgia counts for anything. If you, too, have reached that mature stage [...] Read more »
On Becoming a Woman of a Certain Age
I have apparently become a “woman of a certain age,” which I have now come to define as anything above 30. I have noticed since entering the decade of my 30s that all of my body parts are anywhere from infinitesimally to significantly closer to the floor than what they were in my 20s. It has also been my observation that for most human beings, the entire aging process can be defined as thus: everything simply creeps closer and closer to the floor as the years go by. Just saying. Now for those of you not in the know, women [...] Read more »
Some good news about getting older…
I’ve been thinking about brain function and the aging process quite a bit this past year. Oh, not because I’m noticing major signs of middle age yet (I’m technically still too young to fall into that category, but at the rate time passes, in 2 1/2 minutes I’ll be there). No, rather it’s because I spent the better part of this last year taking classes at both graduate and undergraduate levels, with some unexpected and surprising results. One of the first things that came to my attention is that as a student there are any number of physical things I [...] Read more »
The Road Not Taken
I’ve always loved that famous poem by Robert Frost. You know, the one that speaks of how he took the road less traveled, and how “that has made all the difference.” Lately I’ve been thinking not about roads less traveled, but rather about roads never traveled at all. Several times over the last year, I’ve been suddenly confronted with situations both good and bad that might have been my life had just one thing gone differently. And there has been an oddness, a sense of looking and seeing something off-kilter, something not quite right. Recently, I identified part of what [...] Read more »
On Solitude and Social Connection
I grew up in a rural area, where some of the coldest and most extreme weather of the continental United States cycles back every winter for months at a time. Besides providing an unending source of income for such cold-weather retail giants as Eddie Bauer, growing up in the prairies of the Dakotas provided an interesting perspective on the dual necessity of connectedness to others while it also demanded the ability to exist equally comfortably in solitude. For example, as I grew older, I saw that part of the friendliness of northern rural culture was born of necessity: you needed [...] Read more »
Risk-Taking
I find that the older I’m getting, the more risk-averse I’m becoming. The kind of risks that I used to take without thinking twice are now becoming increasingly insurmountable obstacle courses I have to talk myself into limping through. It’s quite ridiculous, really. Today I had to talk myself into leaving the house. Why? Because it was raining and cold outside and I didn’t want to risk getting all wet and cold by leaving the warmth and security of my living-room couch…and I hate almost nothing in the world as much as I hate being cold. (Side note to old-style [...] Read more »
Do you deserve to live, or should you die?
Okay, folks….now for a few words about politics. I would say with Michael Moore, “Dude, where’s my country?” but for entirely different reasons than he might say it. I am still reeling over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case involving Oregon’s assisted euthanasia law. For some reason I thought that they would hear this case, since it so obviously involves federal jurisdiction (albeit on a technicality involving the Feds’ ability to regulate interstate drug traffic) and a state’s rather blatant attempt to disregard aforementioned federal law. I feel acutely disappointed that there is apparently not going [...] Read more »