Oldness and the Approach of Coothood

Oldness and the Approach of Coothood.

I have been getting some comment from friends about using the term “old” to describe myself. Actually seventy plus is not so old if you are living in the time of Methuselah, but seventy plus is pretty dang old if you are living in the 1960s or 70s, and it makes me older in years than most of the people I know. But old and older are not words that get me bothered in any subtle ways. I know people who have less age than me who are “older” and I mentioned in an earlier blog when I was whining about age that I know a guy a year older in age than me who is running half marathons twice a year. It is not just the number of years that makes one old, nor is age a mental or psychological state. Old is when your body tells you that you are old. This doesn’t necessarily mean that appearance is the key. I have people react with surprise all the time when they discover my age. Only this afternoon, the technologist at my cardiologist’s office who was giving me a cardiogram note that I didn’t “seem” as old as my chart said I am.

Infirmity in itself doesn’t equate with old. I first was examined in the tests that finally diagnosed a peripheral neuropathy in 1991. I felt terrible, and I was depressed, and, based on my physical condition and what the doctors were telling me, I thought that I would die pretty soon. I had ischemia (white spots) in my brain. I had plantar fasciitis (I can’t spell it) in my feet that made every step an agony. They tested my heart, my brain, (and for awhile treated me for bi-polar syndrome), my lungs, my eyes, (ended up with two laser surgery sessions on my left eye and one on my right), and with all this crap, I felt miserable but I didn’t feel old

I managed (with a cane, and sometimes a four wheeled walker that looks like, if you put pedals on it, it would be some kind of bike) to walk-jog two or more miles in twenty minutes every day, did multiple crunches each day and did an intense stretch routine (which, as an actor I had done every day for forty years), and fought this with all my energy. Only four years ago, I had a quadrupal bypass, and except for the two or so months of therapy, even then, though I had already retired, I didn’t feel old.

I no longer suffer from much of this. My peripheral neuropathy is an irritation that required constant medication and I have lousy balance and my cardiologist and I are on a first name basis, but my body is telling me that I am old. There is no way that I could walk-jog for twenty minutes. (I do manage a session of intense water aerobics three times a week, and when I quit that, I will probably be dead). I am now exhausted by walking from one end of the house to the other. I cook some of our meals, but I can’t stand at the kitchen counter to do it, I have to sit on a stool. I am a sculptor (one of a kind dolls, mostly Santa’s ) and I haven’t sculpted much for a long while, in part because my studio is in the back yard and it is too much of an effort to go out there, as well as the fact that my concentration level is so low that I can hardly read a book anymore, let alone create figures.

One of the bloggers whose work I follow has been building (on the blog) a case for identifying our current government as fascist. I read the posts, and quickly identified the fact that this blogger has recognized one of the first elements that I used to teach my debate teams- the person who defines the terms usually wins the debate. The definitions, however, used in this argument come from really biased sources, I would almost say spurious sources, (the term “rights” is defined from the dictionary of Marxism) – I was agitated enough to consult the Oxford English Dictionary, the Random House Dictionary of the English Language and others with the thought that I would jump in and refute the whole thing. I then became aware that I had not the energy to spend a couple of hours refuting the material. I have also reached the age that I pick my fights carefully, saving them for a time when they might do some good. This blogger (whose work, generally I enjoy and read all the time, though I disagree most of the time) is so set in the feelings of antagonism toward Bush, toward the government and toward that “fascist” sense, that the argument would be useless. I could spend a day chopping down every argument in a true debater fashion and nothing would change except the length of the comment pages on that blog. I will save my energy for something more useful, something where I could make a difference. Five years ago, I would have dedicated hours and hours to this, just for the fun of it. My inability to convince my self to do it is evidence that I am not just “older”, but I am old.

I love Davo’s blog, and Mahndisa’s (I can’t get these internal links to work, so, if you want to check them out, click on them at right) but occasionally Davo comes up with stuff that really makes you concentrate and think about it, the same with Mahndisa (though lately she’s been ticked off enough that I just read her stuff and enjoy the peppery sense of it.) When I get into deep stuff any more, it’s all I can do to read it carefully, let alone generate a coherent comment on it. That’s the kind of stuff that always generated interest, anger, enthusiasm and energy in me before. Davo quotes Josephus and scholars comments on Josephus, and my first thought was to go into my books about Josephus (for those who don’t know, he is one of the few historians that were contemporary or close to contemporary with Jesus, and the scholarship about him is intense and interesting) then I realized that I had donated all of that stuff to either the University Library or the Library of the local Charter School. Books have always been a major part of my life, and parting with a good one was like parting with and arm or leg. Getting rid of them is a sign that I am reaching coothood.

I have done some workshops in puppetry and drama in the past year that made me younger. This was also true of my adventure into Dickens and Scrooge in December.
Maybe if I get back into that kind of activity more of the time, I can work my way back to being “older” instead of just “old”. I am dickering about directing a play next spring, maybe I can get back to being, as Gayle would say, “older”. We’ll see.