Learning To Give Oneself Away

Recognition

The bird of ash has appeared at windows
And the roads will turn away, mourning.
What distances we survived, the fire
With its one wing.
And I with my blackened heart.

I came home as a web to a spider,
To teach the flies of my household
Their songs. I walked
In on the mirrors scarred as match-boxes,
The gaze of the frames and the ticking
In the beams. The shadows
Had grown a lot and they clung
To the skirts of the lamps.
Nothing
Remembered who I was.

The dead turn in their locks and
I wake like a hand on a handle. Tomorrow
Marches on the old walls, and there
Is my coat full of darkness in its place
On the door.
Welcome home,
Memory.
W.S. Merwin, The Moving Target


Sometimes, what matters as one grows older isn’t what one has but what one gives up. As we age, our memories of who we were and what we have achieved informs who we are now. But our day to day lives, our essential ego, our identity of the present moment, the true reality of who we are at this new minute after minute, also moves along and changes with the years we continue to spend on this planet.
We no longer are who we were. We no longer have the youthfulness, the biological vigor we once had. We have lost old loves, passions and friends. We are strangers in an increasingly strange new land. As we age, we become more and more estranged and lost from our old self and our old, comfortable loves, fears, and the reassurances of our past lives. We need to pay more attention to this passing of the old and must begin to learn how to welcome and integrate ourselves into our changing lives.
Yes, it is daunting to realize that we are losing who we were and what we have accomplished, that we can even lose those sad, bad memories which previously continued to haunt us. And now, in our middle and later years, we have a new opportunity to reinvent ourselves, to create new passions and desires; and most important, we can find new friends, do new work, spend more time in sharing with others in our new, emerging later lives.
Now is the time to learn how to give from our present, older, and hopefully, wiser, hearts and souls. We are who we are now, at this moment, new persons who have the priceless opportunity not to die unhappily, dwelling in our past, but to begin again in this new age with new prospects. We need only to have the courage and acquired wisdom to grasp and squeeze every drop of joy, satisfaction, and yes, gratitude, with the last bits of energy and compassion we still have left in us.
What I am telling myself, and you, is that this is our new, probably greatest opportunity. Look around you, what needs to be done? Who around you needs your help, your companionship, your comfort, right now? What can still make you happy, a little more content; what can make you feel like you are accomplishing something that will make a difference to the ones you love, your friends, the homeless, the needy on your block or in your town?
People and causes need you. You have a new opportunity to change your life, change someone else’s life, the opportunity to let go of those old unhappy memories and create new memories for the new you who is still alive and still has the energy and the will to do something new, maybe even revolutionary.
Let’s get going! Let’s let go of those old, faded memories and find some new ones to take their place!

Back again.

I'm back again, and ready to go!

There comes a time in every person's life when we think we're nearing the end of life, and heck, let's just give up.

But, if we're lucky and maybe a little smart, we then think, the hell with that. While I'm still breathing, I'm still able to be doing. So let's get going and see where our last part of life can take us.

Mr. Michael Sabon, that great author of "Wonder Boys" and other fine fiction said: "I aught to have been welcoming the bright angel of disorder into my life like a pickling flow of blood into a limb that had fallen asleep." And I said,

"I have enough trouble being who I am, and not what I used to be, so ...

"It's about time I face the reality of "now" and the life I have left before me..."

PS: If you have trouble following this, just take a little time and think about. We'll carry on this conversation later ...

My Dream

My dream is to create a new college curriculum for Seniors (those people over age 65) and Disappointed Adults (people of any age who have lost their youthful dreams, and maybe jobs, and want to start their productive lives over again}.

Today, many colleges and universities (and some community colleges) have “Lifelong Learning Institutes for Seniors”, programs for folks who are bored with “retirement” and want to spend some of their empty time studying subjects they weren’t able to take as undergraduates.

For me and for many Seniors, “retirement” can be the first stage of obsolescing and dying. We have lost our “job”; we have said goodbye to co-workers and our productive way of life. We are cast adrift in a limbo of no work, no responsibilities, and no real reason to go on living. So we fish, we go on trips, we visit grandchildren, and we slowly but surely die of boredom. We become invisible to younger people, we become more and more repressed, depressed, lost in the free-floating debris of aging.

Yet, we may still have one, two, five, ten or more years of relatively healthy and vigorous life. But what can we meaningfully, productively do with those days? What can there be between productive youth/middle age, and retirement, sickness and death? Of what worth am I now, age 76 going on 77, in this amazing new era of youth, vigor and vitality?

Is it the right time to look at myself, and, and the people around me who are both younger and older? Can I breathe new life into myself and maybe into many of those who have retired from meaningful jobs and maybe from life? By helping them, can I help myself as well?

Can we indeed retire from retirement? Can we create new life, and maybe a new career at this advanced age? Can we find a new passion, a new purpose in our existence; to keep us awake, aware, and eager for another new day, a new year, perhaps another score of years?

I have a new dream to create a college curriculum for Seniors and other Disappointed Adults who are looking for a New Way in their own life.

I am starting to create an adult college level Creative Aging Seminar and organize it to help us discover our hidden potential with new possibilities and a new future in our own lives. I have found professional geriatric, psychiatric, medical, creative and financial experts who are eager to help us revitalize our lives. These Seminars can become reality in my town and in your town as well. All we need is a dream and the will to do it.

Want to join the Senior Adventure of our lives?

Contact me at: rreed@ram-mail.com