Ahead of the Pack

A wolf pack in the wild, with a shout out to the talented Eva Blue.

A friend from my hometown reminded me recently that I am among the first in our graduating class to achieve the newest digit in my age.  A pure kindness, that one.

This is also a truth among my college friends who more regularly ask how it feels to be the age they are nearing later in the year. The short answer is that it is definitely preferable to the alternative.

Once upon a time, being first in the class to get a driver’s permit or being old enough to legally purchase 3.2 beer was a big deal. My younger classmates were well aware that I could get the car for evenings up to a year before they could. And having a driver’s license with the right age on it was a ticket to the best parties, since I could bring beverages.

My, how that perspective changes over the years.

Being old enough to vote before my friends? A big deal.

Being old enough to rent a car before my friends? A big deal.

Being the first to get an invite to join AARP? Not such a big deal.

Being the first to get a Medicare card? Somewhat horrifying.

And qualifying for full benefits from Social Security? Well, I haven’t tapped that yet.

I find myself at an age where I pay attention to ads for those potions and serums that reduce the appearance of the laugh lines I’ve earned.

I actually remember to apply daily sunscreen after one little experience with a spot that had to be sliced out of my forehead. It turns out that sitting on Dayna’s tarpaper roof with foil wrapped album covers to reflect the sun on our faces wasn’t the best idea.

There are regular reminders that moving more is important and sitting too much is deadly. The phrase “move it or lose it” takes on real meaning at this age.  There were those in previous generations who took to their beds for one illness or another – and then were unable to leave their beds again. Cautionary even at our less advanced age.

But advanced age is actually a gift in many ways. Not all of my childhood friends had the opportunity to advance to this age. Not all were able to witness as many turns around the sun as I have at this point – or as many as I hope to have in the future.

So, I’ll take that note from my old friend as a celebration. Yep – still leading the pack with the next larger digit and here to enjoy the experience of it all

Folds of Time

Generations over the years…

In the midst of this reflective, somewhat wistful long weekend of multiple gratitudes, I was relieved to read that scientist philosophers are pretty darn certain that time isn’t linear after all. Of course, I don’t know what the proof points are for this theory, but I was relieved to see I’m not the only human out here who finds that time seems to fold in on itself. 

I’m regularly surprised when Facebook serves up a memory from a decade ago that I could have sworn was just last year. My brain still thinks I’m in my mid-20s, even though my bathroom mirror presents a version of my face that exhibits the effects of gravity in new and astonishing ways,. And while I’m certain it was just a few years ago that we were young parents, the full-grown adult children of ours prove that’s not possible.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m deeply grateful to still be upright and taking liquids, as they say. Not everyone gets the gift of aging. Certainly not everyone has the relative comfort to sit back and reflect on a life filled with adventures, even if I can’t remember when they all took place.

This morning I woke up ready to jump out of bed to run across campus to classes at Wake Forest University. The first sign I wasn’t still living in New Dorm with Carol was the crick-crackle of my hip as it swung out of bed before shooting the now-familiar pain down my leg. Yep – not in college, still in my 60s in Minneapolis after all. But the sense of time folding to touch my 20-something year old self is still with me.

It doesn’t help that I’m actually and finally going through the boxes of things I pulled out when it felt like the COVID lockdown was going to last forever. Remember that year just two and a half ago? When it was clear we had plenty of time to finally go through and sort the photos from at least four generations, but instead got sucked into the vortex of Tiger King and Ted Lasso streaming video.

Those photos present my parents as their young and vital selves actively engaged in travel and productive lives that involved a world of music education and driving us to lessons and performances. My palms still sweat when I think of the large drawing room at Kingwood Center where years of recitals and musical competitions were held. And that was more than 50 years ago.

The emotions remain fresh. The experiences real and present. So how can time have passed so quickly?

I suppose the real lesson from non-linear time is that age is just a relative construct. That means we’re never too old to make memories that will fuel our yesterdays and feed our tomorrows. Maybe we’re achy-er in the joints, needing ibuprofen after long walks and bifocals for focus. And those new bumpy spots on my face are surprising to me, but apparently not unexpected for a woman of my age – says the doctor.

Goodbye to a Woman of Style

My mother in the middle with beautiful Aunt Elva to the right, and their friend Juanita - styling the latest early ‘50s style.

My Aunt Elva died this week.

She wasn’t really my aunt, but when we were growing up, it wasn’t ok to address adults by a first name, and our families were too close for me to call her Mrs. Newdome.

 Aunt Elva was a force in Mansfield – a musical force in the education of hundreds of string students, first in the Mansfield Public Schools, and then after marrying Uncle Bill and having her children, an important impact in the lives of her private lesson students.  

But Aunt Elva’s relationship to my family is much deeper than that. In fact, if not for Aunt Elva, my mother and father may never have met.

My mother was hired by the Mansfield Public Schools to build a music program in the early 1950s and one of her first hires was a beautiful young woman named Elva Welday. Mom knew she wanted our schools to have a string program and Miss Welday knew how to make that happen.

As was common in that day, Miss Welday lived in a boarding house with a few others, including my father, Art Alleshouse. Apparently, my dad had lived in the house longer than other boarders, so he had the best or largest room in the house.

Well, Aunt Elva really wanted that room and also thought my father needed to meet a nice woman. So, one day, she invited my mom to visit in her boarding house when she knew my dad would be practicing his clarinet in the living room – which she said he did on a regular basis. She walked my mother into the room, interrupted dad and said, “Art? I want you to meet my friend Dee Blue. Dee plays piano and I’m sure she’d love to accompany you any time, right Dee? In fact, why not now?”

At which point, she turned and walked out of the room leaving my future parents speechless.

Being a somewhat dutiful sort, my mom sat at the piano and did indeed play along with my father for a while - and that brief introduction led to a first date and then a 30+ year marriage.

Aunt Elva was quite proud of that introduction and repeated the story often. She was particularly pleased that Dad soon left the boarding house and she quickly claimed his room as her own.

Aunt Elva and my mom exchanged kids for lessons – meaning I learned violin and Bill learned piano. They were key players in the musical bubble that framed my formative years in Mansfield along with what we would today call the key influencers like Mr. Chiudioni, Mr. Hall, Don Bernhardt, Dick Wink, and organizations like the Little Mozarts and the Ohio Music Teachers’ Association.

This will be a week for memories of Aunt Elva and her impact on our lives – mixed with a large dose of personal gratitude that she was clever enough to get my father’s larger room in the boarding house by introducing him to my mother.

Seasons of Transition

Fall brilliance of our favorite tree…

I’m watching the leaves fly by on their way to the neighbor’s yard in that annual ritual involving the glorious colors of leaf death.

This year it signals a somewhat erratic path to the season of long nights and short frigid albeit brilliant days up here on the North Coast of the U.S. In an era of changing climates, Mother Nature can’t decide if October should feature 70s and 80s or 20s and 30s. So, she’s doing it all for 2022.

Which is somehow appropriate for a year that began with celebratory plans with friends being dashed by my rip-roaring head cold – still no positive COVID test, though.  It’s been a year filled with unexpected, plan dashing experiences – another reminder of the truth in the old Yiddish proverb that “Man plans and God laughs”.

For example, no one expected my niece, Megan, to die in July. That was nowhere on a “things that could happen this year” list anywhere in our family. And then no one expected that would break everything in her family, resulting in my brother coming to live with us for five weeks.

I haven’t spent that much time with my brother in years – since I was in early high school before he left for boarding school. We have deep shared memories of growing up together in Mansfield – childhoods filled with music performances, road trips, and general 1960s/early 1970s life.

But then life happened – I left for college, he stayed with Dad after our mother died. I got married and dove into a busy life on the East Coast and then Minneapolis. He got married in Texas, had a son and then got married again and had two daughters, living in Mansfield. During those decades, we saw them regularly on trips to visit Dad. My kids have very fond memories of visits to Mansfield.

That changed after Dad died in 2006. Sure, I return for reunions or big events with close friends. But after my brother left Ohio in 2010, we only saw each other once – until this year.

Beyond the trauma of it all, the time with Tom was truly a gift to me. When we were little, I always wanted to protect my younger brother. He was a sensitive boy who grew into a caring man who I didn’t see for more than a decade.

While he was here, though, I re-met the heartfelt man who truly enjoyed getting to know his niece and nephew again. We had time to talk about a whole range of topics in person, and in five weeks, only scratched the surface.

I have no idea how this year will end, although I’m hoping for family gatherings, a few more friend dinners, and yes, jumping on last year’s rain check for New Year’s Eve.  

We’re actually making plans for a few big trips next year. And I won’t be surprised at all if any of them become something else at the last minute. Life is like that.

The Year of Loss

Stacy Kimmel in her princess crown. When she was too ill to take her place in the 2020 Rose Parade, her community in Pasadena held a special parade 9 days later just for her. (Outlook Pasadena photo)

I’ve heard it said that our sense of loss is directly related to how much we value those who are gone. Two weeks ago, I knew for certain that this year will be one I’ll remember for its feelings of loss.

The night began with a text from my friend Fran. It bleeped just as Jacques and I were settling in for our regular “what-was-the-name-of-that-show-and-which-streaming-service-was-it-on-anyway” effort.

The text contained sad news. Our former work colleague and friend Stacy, the talented and effervescent graphic artist and designer, had passed away earlier in the day.

Despite multiple years of recurring cancers, our friends were convinced Stacy would outlive us all. She survived round after round of treatments for the wily scourge that kept finding new places to show up in her remarkable self. After every treatment or surgery, she would emerge with the same warm smile and her great sense of fun and energetic personality.

Stacy joined us for a few Jewish holidays in Pasadena, when her daughter was a mere 8 or 9 years old. Guinevere was a precociously talented child who easily engaged with the adults around her. As Stacy said at the time, her goal was to stay around until Guinevere turned 18 – and that talented young woman is now 19 and nearly done with college.

As Fran said, when Stacy had a goal, she crushed it. Definitely a loss, yet her life was a valiant miracle.

A few hours later, my brother called. When my brother calls after 8:00 pm, it’s rarely good news, but it’s usually something that can wait for a response. It was then 11 pm, and we were ready to call it a night.

I thought, “I’ll just listen to the message and return the call tomorrow,” and logged on to the voicemail.

“Hey Mary, it’s your brother. Your niece Megan is deceased...” And that’s when the world tilted.

I immediately called back and learned that my brother and sister-in-law had each returned from work and, thinking it strange that Megan hadn’t come out of her room to greet them as usual, they knocked on her door. When there was no response, they broke in to find her dead body in her room.

Although the circumstances remain mysterious, what’s not mysterious is that 29-year-old vivacious nieces aren’t supposed to die. Certainly not before their relatives who are too old to die young.

Megan was a smart, gregarious young woman, a spunky striver who always had a new idea or plan to further her progress on a path to success. She was talented and loving with her family and friends, and was in the midst of a late 20s pivot as she was deciding where she wanted to live next, after an interlude with her parents in Texas.

She is the youngest of our siblings’ children and now will always be 29 in our memory. And no, I still can’t process the impact of Megan’s death.

This was already a year of loss as two of our dwindling number of Aunts passed in the first few months. Neither of those were wholly unexpected.

My Aunt Marge passed at the age of 103. She had what we call a long and vibrant health-span – a life lived well and fully engaged until she simply didn’t wake up one morning.

I got to know Aunt Marge better while we lived in Southern California and learned how much she loved Sees Chocolates. She was fiercely independent, and lived alone in her own apartment for nearly a decade after my Uncle Paul passed. When she was 100 years old, she chose to move to an assisted living unit. It was too hard to get out of the bathtub, she said.

Aunt Marge on the lawn with her mother-in-law, my grandmother - in the early 1950s.

She grew up in my hometown, married my father’s brother, Uncle Paul, and they set off to California where Uncle Paul plied his knowledge of farming and cows to the benefit of Carnation Milk.

They raised their boys to enjoy surfing and California life, and when she left, there were five grandchildren, and at least four great-grandchildren still on the west coast.

Losing Aunt Marge was definitely a loss, but not a shock.

It also wasn’t a shock when our 107-year-old Aunt Mimi passed in April.

Aunt Mimi in 2007 before she left New York.

Mimi was known outside of our family as the secretary to Oskar Schindler who typed the now famous list of those who were saved from extermination by working in Schindler’s factories during World War II.

Mimi grew up outside of Vienna, Austria and when war broke out, was living in Poland with her husband and infant son. When her husband was killed early in the war, she hid her son with another family before she was taken to a Nazi labor camp near Krakow. Her impeccable German and a course in shorthand saved her life when Schindler chose her for an office job.

Mimi was a beautiful woman who experienced the worst humankind can throw at a life. She lost her first husband and the father to her son to violent hatred, and outlived her second husband and a daughter. Yet she was always kind and interested in the lives of all around her. She moved to Israel to be near her son Sasha when she was 92, and became the bridge champion of her condo building until the end. Another remarkable health-span until she was gone.

Again – the sad loss of a life lived well, in spite of the horrors she experienced.

Each of these women were remarkable either for lives lived long and well, for valiant efforts to retain joy despite illness, or for being spunky individualists. Each taught me important lessons in life, and if I hadn’t valued them so much, it wouldn’t feel so bad.

Yet it’s Megan that feels like the biggest loss – the loss of potential, the loss of reaching for the dreams she was beginning to articulate, the loss that feels so personal and close and unnecessary. This one is leaving a painful hole that will be difficult to move beyond.

Waking Up from The Big Fatigue

Time to Wake Up, Focus, Get to Work - and Be Kind!

 This year so far has been characterized by periods of professional chaos, random disruptive household issues, and the ongoing theme of bone-level deep exhaustion.

It’s that exhaustion I call The Big Fatigue that comes up all the time and is most worrisome. I understand it with my peers – we’re old, so that might be the cause. But it also is a topic with the 20-somethings I’m working with now. So, what’s this about?

It’s not that we’re behind on sleep. In fact, in this house, we’re doing a darn good job of getting at least eight hours.  

It’s that we wake up, seemingly well refreshed. Make the coffee and then are ready for a post-coffee nap. This isn’t normal.

But then, we left normal a few years ago

I’ve spent about three months trying to find something to blame. As the national pastime of this nation, it’s what we do. It could be COVID’s fault – lots to point to there.

Maybe it’s the war in Ukraine – real-time war on social media is horrifying.

Could be the economy that’s on a speeding race to enrich the top 1% and harm everyone else – causing flip-flops in supply-chain driven market chaos in the gambling casinos of Wall Street.

Or it could be watching top leaders from the past President’s cabinet testify to the events that took place between November 2020 and January 2021. That has been a lesson in honor and courage. Men and women I may disagree with on a whole slew of social issues stood up to increasingly erratic behaviors, fueled by lies and a deep need to retain power at all costs.

Unfortunately, there’s no time to kick back and relax and let this fatigue just pass on by.

It turns out that our generation broke America. Right, left, center – one thing we all agree on is that this country is broken. We may disagree on the fault lines and what needs to be fixed, but we do agree that there is fixing to do.

And this week, the Supreme Court actually issued the decision we knew was coming regarding the concept of privacy rights protected by our Constitution. Today it is Roe v. Wade and the concept that a woman is protected in her right to make decisions for herself and her family. But Justice Thomas made it clear where he hopes to act next in his comments.

Yes – there is no time for The Big Fatigue in this broken America of ours. We Boomers have work to do, and it’s time to get on it and fix what we’ve broken.

Seeking Energy

Energy in hand…

A young friend of mine – which is becoming a larger and larger population at this point – was baffled at her lack of energy over the past few weeks. She was generally struggling to find her “oomph”.

 Of course, my peers chalk it all up to our age – we’re no longer spring chickens, or even summer chickens for that matter.

But for this young woman, it was baffling. She turned to the internet to seek out knowledge and stumbled on sites that discussed seasonal changes and their effect on energy.  In other years or eras, I would just accept that and say yes – shifts from winter to summer through that stage called Spring does elicit energy shifts.

In this era, however, we’re learning about the properties of energy in a variety of ways – and of how we as humans experience energy.

Since early in 2020, we’ve all experienced the energy suck of living with fear, anxiety, and uncertainty brought on by an emerging viral pandemic. A low constant hum of awareness that is still with us.

And by mid 2020, we had experienced the systemic shock of the impact racism has on our nation. The range of emotions were an added drain on our energy stores.

Today I wake up every morning to check if World War III has actually begun – watching a megalomaniac attack a sovereign neighbor just because he can. A palpable daily energy zap.

If I were a physicist, I’d be focusing on the various forms or properties of energy. Energy is simply the ability of an object to do work. And I know that 2020 did a number on my ability to do work – despite the demands of the work I was called to do that year. It was truly a challenge to dig deep enough to find what was left.

Energy exists in a variety of forms – potential, kinetic, thermal, electrical, chemical, nuclear – there is light energy, mechanical energy, sound energy, and gravitational energy.  

Then there’s our human energy – mental, physical, emotional – all being depleted by the stresses of the 2020s so far.  

How do we replenish our minds and souls? Most of my friends and family have survived COVID. We are relatively comfortable. And none are living on a border with Russia right now. So where is the energy? Where do we find it? Ideas?

When Words Matter

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky standing his ground in Kyiv.

Like all of you, I have been watching a live-streamed war slowly evolve in a part of the world that seemed to believe this wouldn’t happen again. And yet it is.

It’s surreal. It’s horrifying. It seems truly unbelievable.

And it, like so much of recent history, is fueled by straight up lies based on the deep belief that Americans and Western democracies are too stupid or too distracted to pay attention to blatant acquisitive aggression.

I don’t believe that’s true.

When Putin seeks to overthrow – what he calls – a neo-Nazi regime, he’s assuming no one will ask how that could be true. How could the Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors embrace the dictatorial rule based on intense nationalism and mass narcissism that professed all non-Germanic peoples as “less than”. A Slavic Jew? How does that fit any sort of truth?

So that’s a lie. Ukraine’s government is not a neo-Nazi regime after all.

He also says the Ukrainian people want Russian rule.

Doesn’t look like it, does it? Watching old men kneel in front of tanks. Hearing the “F^#& you” of martyred Ukraine border defenders. Reading the story of the soldier who blew up a bridge and himself to stop the progress of tanks. All playing out on the global networks of media produced by citizens and people – not professional newsrooms or editors.

Here in the US, we also see former leaders praising the brilliance of Putin. Partisan hacks saying this is all good for the freedom of Ukraine’s people – that Putin is “anti-woke” and that culture issues are more important than “abstract ideas”.

Our entire country is based on abstract ideas – ideas and concepts and principles that we now see Ukrainians willing to die for – to lie down in the streets for, and to fight for. 

Abstract concepts like freedom, liberty, and democracy within the framework of a legal document called the U.S. Constitution that guides our progress.

Those abstract ideas are precisely what supports the right of hacks on the far left or far right to pronounce as they will, to demonstrate in the streets, and to protest rigorously without fear of imprisonment – which is now happening in Putin’s homeland, on Putin’s orders.

We’re watching bravery in action in the form of Ukrainian President Zelensky. We’re seeing what patriotism truly looks like. Watch closely so we can all learn that abstract ideas fueled by truth can be as powerful as weapons – which is what Putin is truly afraid of.