Taking Ownership

We moved into a new home just six weeks ago. It’s ours. Not someone else’s, to whom we pay a fee to stay there each month. No, it’s ours. We bought it, lock, stock and barrel.

And now we take ownership of it. It’s a process. There are echoes of the people who owned it before us…the dreadful turquoise paint in one of the boys’ room (I’m sure it was his choice), the broken fence where the dog tried so hard to get out, the sunken horseshoe pit, almost covered by grasses, and the aura of warmth and care inside that said it was well-loved by its family.

Now it’s our turn. There is something so satisfying about making a space your own. In my childhood home, I shared a small bedroom with my older sister. There wasn’t much room for “ownership”, but my bunk could be mine, just by how I made my bed, or the blanket I chose. In my college dorm, I started to be more creative. Daisies and blue and white and yellow. My mom made me a soft comforter for my bed and I made curtains for the windows. It said “Connie” when I opened the door.

I wandered about for years after that, but each place I landed, I made it my own in the simplest but most satisfying ways.

After I married, we jumped up to designing and building our own home. I got to decide the size and layout of my kitchen, the wallpaper, the cabinet stain color. It was there I discovered I loved geometrics. Gone were the daisies, but I hung on to the blue and white and yellow.

Jump to this month. It’s different this time because we’re moving into someone else’s beloved space. But because we chose this house over a myriad of others, there are many things we love. The blue and white is here, the hardwood floors, the many, very large windows.

Gary takes possession of the house by fixing things. Every lightbulb in the house has been changed out, he built me a pantry (the delights of a pantry are surprising), replaced the refrigerator produce bin, mended the broken slat in the blinds, and replaced the outside doorknobs with keyless entry so I won’t lock myself out again!

Me? I walk around day after day and absorb the house. My huge office window looks out to a bird-loving tree, where I look up from my computer and see the brilliant red cardinal, or the chickadee hanging upside down from a seed pod. I have found the perfect place to stand in the living room to see both bird feeders in the back yard at the same time – and it’s right over a floor register so I can get warmed or cooled at the same time!

I take possession of my kitchen by baking. Not just cooking, but baking. I’ve made cinnamon raisin bread, muffins, cinnamon rolls, pistachio cake, cornbread and pumpkin bread. Now it is my kitchen.

And we’ve welcomed guests to our house. This, too, is a rite of ownership. Our kids and grandkids were here at Christmas, when we had been here for only a week. We were able to find the Christmas tree, stockings, a wreath for the door and candles. We also were able to locate enough bedding for everyone. What more does one need?

Friends from New England stopped by (going an hour and half out of their way) on their way home from down south. A neighbor from my childhood who we hadn’t seen in 45 years, came for dinner. And my coffee rota friends came.

The joys of my house are soul-satisfying. The outside is as beautiful as the inside. It being winter, we have yet to discover all the outside holds. Trees I don’t know, plants dead now – what will they be this spring? It’s a nearly flat landscape – we’ve never had a flat landscape before! And the birds have all come to visit my feeders, told their friends, who told their friends, and are now part of my new bird clan.

Today I opened another box that had sat in storage and uncovered some of my bits and bobbles. Some I had forgotten I owned. They made me smile. Others I think I’ve outgrown, and a few I just don’t have the heart to put out again. So today was a day of finding treasures and finding new places to put them in this house. I will say goodbye to a few “other Connie” bobbles, but most will gain a new beauty in a new house.

Gary and I go about our days, each doing the things that connect us to our new house. Gary’s eyes are always straying to another thing he needs to fix, or figure out how it works. I watch the sunlight move around the house, try a mirror here or there, try to gauge if I have too many birds or beach decor for my inland Virginia home.

I like the Brits’ use of the word homely. Not ugly or plain as we Americans would mean it, but homey. It just sounds better – homely. Our house is becoming homely.

There is something very comforting, joyful and grounding about taking ownership of your space. Maybe it’s exaggerated because the world is so chaotic now, we need to find something that is within our control.

This is within our control. We can decide if we like matchy things or if we like five different styles in one room. We can put mid-Century modern chairs with ladder back country chairs at our painted and stained drop leaf dinette table, next to our old oak dresser that holds linens.

When we finish a day, we can settle in front of the fireplace (another first), look at each other and say, “it’s been a good day.”

Our house is homely.

i can’t stop going down memory lane. why?

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

When I was younger, I often wondered why older people spent so much time talking about their memories.

Was it because (1) they didn’t have anything else to think about? Maybe they’d already done all the important things in life and now they were just bored and didn’t have anything else to do except remember the “good old days?” I wondered if, perchance, they just would get up and do something, they’d be making new memories, vs just conjuring up old ones.

Was it (2) because it is just plain enjoyable, or, God forbid, to annoy their children or grandchildren with endless repetition of their stories – “Dad, we know this story.”

Or (3) is there something in the aging process that triggers old memories and there is an enrichment of the memory or life that completes the process? Do memories weave a different picture now than when they were experiencing them? Is it work that must be done, or does it just happen as memories are triggered?

As a younger me, I would experiment and see if I could try to conjure up old events and stay focused long enough to see if it was enjoyable or enlightening or life-altering.

Nothing.

Well, fast forward to now and lo and behold, it’s happening to me. What? Really?

I’m not trying to make it happen. I’ve not set aside a time each day to conjure up old memories and study them. No, it happens when it happens, unbidden.

Some of these memories are just plain pleasurable. Remembering the freedom of the first day of school summer vacation, the exhilaration of reaching the top of any mountain, or sitting at Thanksgiving dinner and seeing that endless train of mouthwatering food in front me, anticipating the first bite, with no rules about eating your veggies to constrain me.

Sometimes the memory now paints a different picture – or can I say the picture is bigger?

Sometimes I find new understanding of the event, or the conversation or the situation…and it’s always bigger, more forgiving, full of some almost unconscious ah-ha moments. From 30 years later, if nothing else, it provides a softer understanding of myself or the people around me. I can see bigger now.

Some of those bigger pictures may contain something that makes me cringe, usually my own reaction and actions. Other times it’s a blunt reality of the truth that I might not have seen or been willing to acknowledge 30 years ago.

Then I have to ask that question I don’t want to ask – do I need to do damage control around my own actions or words? Do I need to talk to a wronged person and offer my sincere apology?

Or is it something that matures my understanding of my life or the world or people? Matures as in comes to a fuller, bigger, taller, deeper, wider understanding.

It’s like the first time you saw your town from an airplane instead of the ground. “Oh, that’s how that connects to that…oh, look at how that twists and turns, and then ends up over there…oh, that mountain I thought so big, it’s just a minor foothill…look at how beautiful it all is, and look at how tiny my house is…and how small I am.”

Or a picture in color after only having seen in black and white.

Unconsciously, and I mean that in reality, unconsciously, the pieces of our lives come through the memory process with a different understanding.

It’s like making a tapestry. When you look at the backside, there is a messy tangle of multi-colored threads. But when you turn it over, the tangle becomes a picture.

So when the memories come, unbidden, I let them wash over me. I let myself get lost, temporarily, in the past. When I find my way back to today’s reality, I see myself differently: as a flailing teenager, a starry-eyed newlywed, a cocky take-on-the-world new employee. I see myself as a parent differently, and see my children beyond the scope of first steps and teenage trials.

And then I go back to happily making new memories!

sometimes aging stinks

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Be forewarned. This is a rant. Remember the rule about we all get 15 minutes to whine? This is mine.

“Positive aging.” “Age is just a number.” Blah, blah, blah. All well and good. Yes, yes, positive thoughts are good. But really, some days, it’s just a big old crock.

Aging stinks. I don’t want to do this anymore. Today I believe wholeheartedly that aging isn’t for sissies, and that it’s all downhill from here. And today I want off that train.

Let’s take the body, for example. Retirement and old age is for pursuing your dreams, for relaxation, rest and peace, right? Not so, my friends. It’s for being in constant motion. “Sitting is the new smoking.” “You need to stretch your muscles.” But think of all the body parts that you have to move. Your neck, your shoulders, your wrists, your fingers…and to stretch them, you must hold each pose for at least 30 seconds. Well, come on people, how many 30 seconds do I have in my 16 hours of awake time. But remember, that’s only one thing you need to do. You’ve got to strengthen those muscles you just stretched. So back at it folks, and each exercise needs to have at least 10 repetitions. Get those weights out and let’s get strengthening. But there’s more, now it’s time for aerobics, to keep your heart pumping and your brain sharp. Oh yes, and 10,000 steps a day. And then don’t forget you need to de-stress, so let’s do some yoga.

I figure there should just be a conveyor belt you hop on in the morning, and you stay on all day, moving all the parts that need it every day. Just don’t ever sit down, because that’s as bad as smoking.

What happened to sitting in front of the fire and reading to relax? No time for that. No time to sit and chat with your neighbor or your spouse or your kids.

And then eating? What in the world happened to my ability to eat after 6:30 PM? Enter the early bird dinners. Oh good grief.

Well, then there’s your brain. In addition to doing all that exercise, you need to be doing novel things. No longer can you sit down with your morning coffee to do the crossword puzzle. No, if you can do the crossword puzzle, it’s time to learn something else. No crossword puzzle for you, it’s time to learn Japanese. But make sure you don’t sit while you’re learning it….

And of course, coffee isn’t good for you anyway.

I shouldn’t be sitting at my computer writing this, by the way. It’s the new smoking. I should be out with my Fit Bit on, racking up those steps.

Well, guess what, my friends…after all that body work – you get old anyway!

I want to drink coffee, go out to dinner at 7:30 pm and have dinner and dessert and still sleep like a baby. I want to not creak when I sit down, and unstick when I get up. I want my body parts to work, not randomly sprout new diseases that I didn’t even know existed. I want to curl up on the couch and read the afternoon away…and not have my eyes go blurry, my legs go numb, and the guilt because I’m sitting (the new smoking) weigh down my conscience and spoil the story!! I want to eat popcorn while I read and still have dinner later.

No, my 15 minutes to rant is done. Tomorrow I will smile sweetly and say all the nice positive things – like “consider the alternative.” Not today. Today aging stinks.

All those of you who agree, raise your hands.

surprised by aging has been on a long hiatus

A year and a half hiatus. So what’s been happening since you last heard from me?

We are ALL older. Surprise, surprise, aging is still happening. It feels, at times, like we age in spurts. Changes happen in quick succession, and we feel like we need to catch our breath. Then it plateaus. Our bodies and minds and lives just carry on, doing their thing. It’s still so often a surprise when change happen. We logically know our bodies change, but when it happens, we are still a bit stunned. My sports injury from my 20s is back to haunt me? Those pretty rainbow circles surrounding lights at night are…cataracts?

Change. A big change. We up and moved again. We thought when we built our house in Maine that we were there to stay. It was age-friendly and in a dream location close to that wonder of nature called the ocean.

And then, after thirteen years, and entering retirement, it no longer felt right. The long, dark winters, and almost non-existent cold raw springs became overpowering.

But most of all, we had two little grandboys who lived too far away for us to see more than once or twice a year.

So we up and sold our house, packed our belongings (and downsized their number) and moved South. Me? A Southerner? I was born and raised in upstate New York, and lived my entire life in New England. Could we really adapt?

People say older adults have a hard time with change. Ha! If there is any group of people who have more change to deal with and do it with great aplomb, it is older adults. Long experience has taught us that although we don’t always enjoy change, nor do we choose it, it has shaped who we are, and continues to offer us the opportunity for great benefits. It adds color to our lives, and height and depth and width to our souls.

So here we are, in the South! We live in a city (a small one) instead of the country. The nearest grocery store is 2 minutes away vs. fifteen. We don’t have to change out to winter tires here. We take the train to visit our grandchildren. (How cool is that?) I buy Duke’s mayonnaise vs Hellmans, my heavy duty winter garb stayed packed away and we have gained a long, beautiful fall and a real spring that begins in March. We had to buy a book about southern trees, because they are all so different, and there are not just oaks, but 75 varieties of oaks. (Well, maybe that’s exaggerating.)

Even history is different here. Instead of the Boston Tea Party and the French and English settlers figuring out how to survive and thrive in harsh winters and poor soil along the coast, we are learning of Lewis and Clark, the commerce routes from the south to DC, and from east to west through the Blue Ridge mountains. So many presidents lived here. And yes, the Civil War was fought here, with all the repercussions, lasting through until present day.

Yes, I miss Plant’s Seafood in Maine, where I could pop in and buy fresh salmon, or today’s cod catch for making fish chowder, and I miss lobsters from the little stand just down the road. I crave fresh seafood.

I miss seeing the stars at night. I miss dead quiet, with no traffic noise.

However, I hike the hills and mountains around me, nearly every day. We had juicy, fresh local peaches for weeks on end from the farmers market.

And when I walk in the door at my daughter’s house and two little boys’ faces light up with grins and they come hurtling toward me, “Grandma”, for a hug, I am rewarded for choosing change again!  

are we expendable?

The pandemic has stirred a sentiment in our country that in good times stays just slightly hidden under the rug. Ageism. (Simple definition is “prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age.”)

I have ignored this resurgence of ageism, I believe, because I didn’t want to really believe it, nor did I want to examine my own feelings.

At the beginning of the pandemic the world believed it was only older people who would die, and the sentiment about those deaths ranged from “oh how sad” to “Many people who are dying were on their last legs anyway.” (Bill O’Reilly). After all, we all have to die sometime…it’s sad that these old people have to die, but “they” was not “us”.

It seemed that mask wearing and social distancing became a real concern only when younger people started dying. Then the world perked up their ears.

And then came the rallying cry of the Lt Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, to open up, remove mask and social distancing restrictions to save the economy – “As a senior citizen are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? Don’t sacrifice the country, don’t do that, don’t ruin this great America.”

In a nutshell: The economy is more important than older people.

In response, many said that the pandemic has only called out the ageism that has been pervasive and carefully veiled. Peter Glick and Amy Cuddy, in the Boston Globe:

“Despite the patina of affection for the elderly and people with disabilities, the pandemic has revealed how we inherently devalue them. Studies reveal that many…view elderly people…as ‘warm but incompetent.’ As a result, we like, but do not value or respect our elders. They are, in this view, expendable.”

The article went on to warn that America was beginning to sound a bit like Nazi Germany, when elders and people with disabilities were murdered…to save the economy. Glick and Cuddy warned “Prematurely ending social distancing to restore prosperity is not the same as actively gassing old and disabled people, but it will ultimately have the same effect, dooming many to die, just in a more random pattern.”

Ironically, think about the potential results of Dan Patrick’s call to sacrifice ourselves to save the country:

The US Senate would lose 70 of its members. The Supreme Court would be down six. Both the former and current presidents would be gone, the majority leaders of both parties, and Patrick himself.

The economy would lose 20% of the workforce. And over 50% of its spending power. And $745 Billion in unpaid (volunteer) services each year. (AARP)

Hmmm. Save the economy?

I asked a group of my cohorts about their thoughts on this subject.

Several reminded me that “our US constitution secures for us the right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ It does not establish an order in which any group has first dibs on those opportunities.”

We would lose the grandparents. “I know I am valuable to my grandchildren. I am convinced that grandparents have a vital role in providing emotional security by speaking value to grandchildren. In my work with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), I have seen so many instances where grandparents are bearing the burden of raising children, that I fear for the day when we run out of grandparents.”

“I say we need a balance of ages. The elder population provides the base for sound growth of the younger generations. It would be a sad world without the wisdom of age. And 70 year is not a full life! Still 30 years left!”

“We may choose to die for a lot of reasons, but the economy is not one of them.”

Then I asked how it made them feel.

“Devalued.” “Diminished.” “It makes me feel terrible.”

But here’s our dilemma. Did that rally call give you pause? It did me. A little voice said: “Maybe he’s right. Are we standing in the way of our children’s and grandchildren’s futures? At this point, are we more trouble than we’re worth?”

This was echoed by another friend, “On a broader brush, I struggle with being older, what is my contribution and does it warrant the space, resources I take up?” 

81.1% of the deaths from covid have been in those 65 years old and older. Although younger people “caught it”, they didn’t die from it in great numbers. So society has been masking and social distancing to “protect the vulnerable” – us. That little voice suggested that maybe we are expendable.

Dr. Louise Aronson, author and professor of geriatrics, worried “about older Americans who’ve developed ageist views about themselves. Sometimes people think: ‘I just have to take it because I’m old’ or ‘Old Age does have to be bad’ or ‘Maybe we should be sacrificed.’”

Ageism pervades society enough that we (us old people) are not only fighting ageism from the young, but we have internalized those sentiments. I am concerned that I listened to that little voice even for a moment. I know better.

I silence the little voice and think again.

No, older adults are not expendable. I am not expendable. Years do not diminish worth. Every person is essential until the very end of life.

I choose to echo a friend – “I feel like a very viable part of society. I still have a lot to contribute. I feel like I’m growing all the time.”

Thank you to my wise friends for their voices included in this article.

co-vid freeze

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Co-19 Freeze Definition: an inability, during a pandemic, to initiate the activities that have been deemed to be most beneficial to quality of life. A paralysis of spirit. A weighted lethargy.

We have had 11 months of time. Uninterrupted, unscheduled time. Time to contemplate, relax, slow down AND to do all those things that we used to say we’d do “someday”. It was a long list, including everything from finally casting off a finished knitted scarf project, to cleaning each room from ceiling to floor, to painting all the doors in our house, to making healthy bread.

And to do the things we love, but just don’t have or take the time to do.

Like writing. I love to write. It challenges me and brings me joy. I am excited when I get something down on paper that has been swirling in my head.

So here’s what’s happened in 11 months. The knitted scarf is still on the needles, we cleaned four rooms from ceiling to floor, I painted all the doors on the first floor, but not the second, and twice I tried making healthier bread, the results of which ended up in the trash, not fit to be consumed by humans.

And I’ve not written a blog since October.

Really? What is that about? The thing that most brings me joy, expands my thinking, that makes me happy…and I’ve not written a word!

I have decided it is due to Co-Vid Freeze. See my definition above.

Symptoms? Foggy brain. Loss of sense of place and time. (Last week I missed a meeting I looked forward to, that was on my calendar, but my Co-Vid Freeze brain skipped over entirely.) A weighted lethargy that overtakes your hands and they won’t move to pick up a paint brush or a wood working project. Or for me, my fingers refuse to go to the computer and write.

Causes?  1. The underlying, low level stress. The world is slightly off kilter. We’re waiting for life to become normal again. It’s not spoken, it’s not even a coherent thought. We’re waiting, waiting. For normal. And although we can do lots of things that appear usual and routine, we’re just in a holding pattern, waiting for normal to return.

2. This wavy watery sense of time – oh, I won’t do it today, because I have plenty of time…days, weeks, months. There’s no end to the time frame, so whatever we were going to do just goes floating into the morass of endless murky time.

3. Lack of outside stimulation. Particularly for those of us who are “people” people, who thrive on interaction with others, there’s been a huge decline in our daily dose of stimulation. When my calendar is empty for a whole week, and the only thing that is necessary today is to create a meal at the end of day, it’s bleak. Where are my people? I’m stuck in my own head, and that sometimes is a dangerous place to remain!

Someone suggested that we need to accept that this IS normal. We need to accept it, stop using it as an excuse and move on with our lives.

I beg to differ. Strongly. This is not normal. We can strive to make it as normal as possible by continuing to do “normal” things, but it is not normal to be in our own little cave for 11 months with our only outreach waving at someone from 12 feet apart, or by talking with them on a screen. The grocery story phenomenon is not normal: you see people (masked, hatted and scarfed) and you wonder – do I know this person? I might, they might be my next door neighbor or my co-worker.  But there’s no way to know unless you stop everyone in the store and ask them, “are you Jane Moffat? No? – sorry.”

No, this isn’t normal. This is Co-Vid Freeze.

It makes life gray. Yes, February is always kind of gray. It’s the time, most years, when we start planning or executing our escape. But this is a different gray. This is murky and swirly, and creates a sense of edginess because any avenue of escape is cut off and there is no date on the calendar to herald an end.

And that is my explanation of why I haven’t written. I have Co-Vid Freeze.

And now that I’ve identified it…it’s time to dig out of it! Hence this blog. I admonish myself, as any writing teacher would, just write. It doesn’t matter if it’s not the best, just write.

still?

Photo by CDC on Pexels.com

In March, contemplating our lives with Co-VID 19 and its restrictiveness, we were not thinking beyond May or June, really. We said, “aren’t we glad we’re going into the spring and summer months vs heading into winter?”

However, here we are in early October, looking ahead to fall and winter, in the murky middle, with no real end in sight. It’s been wonderful to be able to be outdoors every day, and to meet with friends and family outside, to reacquaint ourselves with person-to-person contact.

We will milk it all for as long as we can. So what if we have to wrap up in a blanket while we visit? We can meet around a fire pit.

But what then? When it’s 23 degrees outside and snowing? What then?

It’s frankly a bit scary. There are only so many jigsaw puzzles we can do. Only so many loaves of bread we can make…and eat with out gaining 10#, and only so many closets in our houses that need to be cleaned and organized.

When the dark seems to outweigh the daylight, what do we do?

I’ve been working on a list for myself, and maybe this list will have a couple ideas for you.

Learn something new.  Join an on-line book group. Do you have a senior college (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Osher Foundation) in your area? Your local area agency on aging most likely has virtual classes.  Ours is currently offering T’ai Chi and yoga in their Living Well series and a class on how to join or host a Zoom meeting. They’re on-line and free.

I’m ready to sign up for a Great Courses class on birding. Right now, you can try a class for no cost. Most colleges and universities allow older adults to “audit” classes at a greatly reduced fee or for no charge.

Teach a class. A friend who has been facilitating a Meet Up group, is changing it up to a craft Meet Up group on Zoom. They will try a new simple craft each time, with a different member being the teacher each time.

Join a virtual group. Play mah-jong with an on-line group. I heard about a ukelele group – they had lessons each week and played together virtually. Join a group, or start a group.

With your partner, switch skills. Ask your partner to teach you how to do something he/she does well. Switch. I might ask my husband to teach me how to make something (simple) in wood. I might teach him how to make cinnamon rolls!

Help someone. One of the most important drivers of our adult lives is the desire and basic need to help someone else. While some ways to help are too risky now, there are other things we can do.

Become a phone friend to a random person in an assisted living community. You can call the facility to ask if they have a program or your local area agency on aging may have a program. We know older adults are at severe risk for isolation right now. Can you be a phone pal to someone you don’t know?

Meals on Wheels programs across the country have dramatically increased their meal deliveries, and always need drivers and deliverers.

A friend (former teacher) teaches her grandson math virtually. They both love it! Do you knit or crochet or sew? Is there a group that needs what you can make? – newborn baby hats, care shawls for hospital patients, mittens for homeless shelters, bird feeders for nursing home windows?

Exercise. How are we going to get our exercise? First off, we have to get outside as much as possible. Even if it’s 20 degrees, or -5 degrees, our bodies and psyches change when we step outside our doors. This is a requirement for our sanity.

Snowshoeing can replace walking, snow shoveling (please be careful) can replace lifting weights! Is this the year to get a dog…who requires walks every day? Put up bird feeders and then you’re required to go out and refill them. After you fill them, sit in the nearest snowbank and watch the birds up close, or just breathe in lots of that cold, clear, sanity-building air. Even if we are only outside for five minutes – it is life-changing.

Exercise is always a challenge. Even more so when you can’t go to the gym or join one of those nifty “outside in the parking lot” spin classes! But we can get creative. Go on-line. There are free classes everywhere. Free yoga, strength training, and dance classes.

Set up a circuit-training course in your house – who needs a stepper machine when you have a set of stairs? Go on-line for suggestions. For motivation, buy a fitness watch and set a goal for steps around the house each day.

Exercise is key to surviving the winter of isolation.

Here’s the thing. If you’re like me, these are all really good ideas, but getting myself to start and stay with them is nearly impossible. I love new ideas, but to actually do them on my own is the issue.

How do I compensate? By artificially, if necessary, making a commitment. I find someone else to do it with me, I join a class, I set a deadline and loudly proclaim it to the world. Last winter, my son and I made an exercise commitment and checked in every week. I set up commitments in advance (regular Zoom calls with friends), make lists, and join a group if possible.

I’ve learned that my best life is lived with schedules and deadlines and commitments – these are not onerous – these are what move me from endlessly contemplating to the joy of actual accomplishment.

So this winter, I need to create a whole bunch of motivators.

How about you? What is your Winter Co-VID 19 plan?

P.S. Is it time to start your Christmas card list? If there was ever a year we all need some joy in our mailboxes, this is it!

connie vaillancourt

This was written in 2001, while I was working in NH at Prime Time, an educational center for older adults. If asked to name the most influential people in your life, or those you respect and honor the most, this woman would make my list. I think of her often.

There are times in life when you are given an unexpected gift that has incredible meaning to you.  This happened to me and the gift was knowing Connie Vaillancourt.

Connie came into my office one day several years ago to introduce herself, and to join the knitting group that meets on Tuesdays.  She joined and very quickly Connie became an integral part of life at Prime Time. 

She died on April 21, 2001.

It wasn’t an easy life for her.  It isn’t easy to spend the first 19 years of your life in the state’s institution system.  It’s even harder to leave that system and strike out on your own.  Especially if you don’t know how to read or write. Or how to speak well, or how to cook or rent an apartment, or get a job, or count your change when you buy something.

We only knew her for the last three years of her life and didn’t witness the struggle life was for her.  But one very clear thing we were aware of – nothing stopped Connie, and despite the struggle, Connie’s spirit was triumphant.  People would comment – “what a sad life she lived”, and I would immediately say – “yes, but what a triumphant life.” 

We have a choice in life – to become embittered by life’s circumstances, and to become a victim of life, or to make something of life as it is dealt to you. To take life and run with it, to squeeze everything good out of it you can, letting go of the bad and running with the good, pushing it to its limits.  That was Connie. 

She could have given up, done what people expected her to do, let herself be limited by circumstances.  Never.  To learn to read, she got herself down to the Manchester library and showed up at the Literacy Program to be taught.  Her goal?  To be able to read the grocery ads, to be able to read “Ladies” and “Men” on the bathrooms, to know the meaning of the exit sign, and then to learn to read the knitting instructions. 

At Prime Time, she started knitting and joined in on the walking trips.  Then she started volunteering.  She was very proud that she could help someone else.  When she received her free turkey from Catholic Medical Center at Thanksgiving for being a volunteer, she took it back to her apartment complex and gave it to the residents there with no families and they made Thanksgiving dinner together.

One of her driving goals was to be independent. Near the end of her life I asked her what she was proud of. She said, “that I could live on my own.” She was fiercely proud that she could have her own apartment, pay her bills, get herself through the maze of life. And not only that she could take care of herself, but “that I could keep my own cat for nine years.”

She loved life, despite all the curve balls it threw her. She loved to spell, to walk, to learn new things, was happy when “people share stuff with me.” She would come dashing into Prime Time, all out of breath with excitement, starting her sentence with “Guess what?” and she’d tell me of another adventure she had. Going to Boston for the first time, learning to knit something new, showing off her new reading skills, showing me pictures of her dream-come-true limousine ride for her birthday – there was Connie with her head sticking out of the roof window with her arm raised, soaking up life!

At the end, she got brain cancer. She braved radiation and therapy to regain the use of her right side. She had a couple months of regained life, proud of her progress, and showing off her new wig when she lost her hair.

Then when she knew she didn’t have long to live, that, too, was okay. She had done the things she really wanted to do in life.

When she was in the hospital and later in a nursing home, she amazed everyone with her spirit, her dignity, and with the number of friends she had. She touched so many peoples’ lives – a lot were people who started out helping her and then quickly turned to friends, being helped themselves by knowing Connie.

The little chapel was full at her funeral. For someone who only learned to read in her 50’s, who had no money or worldly goods, she had accomplished many great things. To take a miserable life and make it beautiful, that is the ultimate triumph.

i believe continued

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I also believe in dessert first.

The color yellow. Not the color turquoise.

Life is 50% joy and 50% pain. We can’t be surprised and feel put out when the 50% pain shows up. There are no shortcuts or get out of jail free cards. We have to face and grow from the 50% pain, and we get to acknowledge and revel in the 50% joy. Hopefully we’re smart enough to notice the 50% joy!

I believe in naps. When I was very little, my mother said I complained about taking a nap, and when she said I could just lie down and rest, I said “but I’ll just fall asleep.” Point proved, little me! When I was in high school, our bus ride home was nearly an hour. The perfect amount of time to scrunch way down in my seat and take a nap. Now, what better feeling than giving in to a “nap attack?”

I believe in enjoying the diversity. Of people that is. I tried to instill this concept in my children. When we saw or heard something that was incomprehensible to us, one of them would turn and look at us, grinning, and together we’d say – “Enjoy the diversity.” If instead of being irritated to death by someone so very different from me – (what could have possessed that person to buy that turquoise car?), we can laugh at such oddities, life is so much less stressful!

I believe we can do more than we think we can. How many times in my life have I said, “I can’t do that”, only to eat my words a bit later when I realized I could. We are stronger, smarter, more bold than we give ourselves credit for.

When I was young, I tried many times to water ski. Many, many times. I had the most patient, encouraging boat driver possible at the camp in Maine and still I couldn’t get up and stay up.

Fast forward 20 years or so. We went back to the same camp on the same lake for a visit with the same boat owner. I loudly proclaimed to my husband, in advance, that there was no way I was going to try skiing and please don’t say a word about it. I couldn’t ski then, I certainly couldn’t ski now.

Somehow, I don’t quite remember how, I ended up on the dock, getting into skis, still loudly proclaiming I couldn’t do this – and off I went, straight from the dock, circling the lake multiple times and back.

So much for “I can’t.”

Little things are big things. We all know this one. Through our lives we were tempted to believe that career, influence, money were the big things. They were the things that certainly got all the attention. When really, it is helping someone carry their groceries, a smile, watching your grandchild discover his hands, listening, really “seeing” a person, a snowflake, picking up trash on the side of the road, stopping and listening to the sounds of silence.

There is a purpose in life, but sometimes we only see it looking backwards. Or it’s like looking at a tapestry on the back side. The back side is a messy jumble of yarn or string, with no obvious purpose. Turn it over and it becomes a picture or design, and we hang it on our walls to bring beauty and joy.

So with our lives. When we’re traveling through, daily life doesn’t seem to make much sense. So much of our life is pedestrian. But give it a few decades, and we can sometimes start to see that yes, there was a pattern, a purpose to those endless little decisions or actions. It might even be called a thing of beauty.

These beliefs are mine, strong and clear, honed over my years so far. We all have them. What do you believe in?

 

 

 

 

i believe

“Is it not by his high superfluousness we know
Our God. For to equal a need
Is natural, animal, mineral: but to fling
Rainbows over the rain…
And beauty above the moon, and secret rainbows
On the domes of deep sea-shells,
Not even the weeds to multiply without blossom
Nor the birds without music…
…Look how beautiful are all the things that He does.
His signature
Is the beauty of things.”

Robinson Jeffers

By the end of our lives, we should be able to look back and around and through our lives and say with clarity what we believe, what we’re passionate about. We should be able to write our manifesto. This is who we are. We might not know everything, but this we do know.

I believe in God. I’m passionate about God!

The funny thing is that as I’ve gotten older and lived more, the less and less I’m sure of what I know about God. I used to be sure of many things, big and small. Those have been whittled down to a few things, on which I become clearer and clearer.

The biggest is the poem above. This is the God I know. God who flings rainbows over the rain, and even the weeds to multiply with flowers! Who does that?

When a June day comes that has pure blue sky, and the fresh full green of new growth of leaves, I think – He could have made it all one color – what if our world had been all brown?

When after a busy, stressful day I arrive at the beach, I run to the water with my arms up high – ahh, God, there You are. Big and beautiful, wide and wonderful. And then I see the returning birds in the spring – every single one of them with a distinctive feature and song – and the colors. Then to hear the bobolink sing. Ahh, God, there You are. Minute and detailed, small gems to be found.

I believe that there is a piece of God in each of us. A twinkle, a spark, born into us, ready to grow. Sometimes I’ll admit it’s hard to find the spark in some people – but it’s there. I believe we have a choice to let that spark grow or not.

God and I have been through some rough waters through my life. There was a time when I jumped off what felt like a cliff with Him, not sure where I was going to land.

But I’ll tell you this – things are better with God.

Truth, justice, strength, love, patience, joy, grace. Love. Grace. Did I mention love and grace? Lots of grace.

I believe God’s in charge. Of the world. Of me. Of those I love and worry about. Not the loud voices, not the blustery people.

I don’t say much about this belief in God, I don’t think I need to carry a placard. But I’m passionate about God.

I believe in God. He believes in me, too!