The 40 Percent Solution

Hi, Boomers,

Yesterday, I had the privilege of having lunch with a classmate of mine from high school. I hadn't seen Frank in 51 years. He was coming into the Los Angeles area with his wife to visit family and friends and then to head off with a couple or two in their RV's to sightsee some national parks.

Now, really, I didn't know Frank well at all in high school. He went to St. Anselm's grammer school in San Anselmo while I came from St. Raphael's in San Rafael. The two schools were only about ten miles from each other, but us Catholic kids were all going to end up in the same Catholic high school. He was a handsome, rather shy fellow who ended up dating my best friend whose energy was the spark plug for our clique.

Shortly after I signed up for my high school's Facebook page and subsequent web page, Frank was one of the first to contact me. I was surprised. And I was pleased because I don't think we said much to each other in the three years he attended Marin Catholic High School. He probably got some gossip from my boyfriend in junior year because they were best friends and I think we probably double dated for awhile. Of course, I wondered why he contacted me but after a few chatty emails about family and life and grandchildren, we were instantly connected. I think people in our class are curious as to how we all turned out.

As I walked around a corner of the Third Street Promenade on Saturday on the way to the entrance of the restaurant, I suddenly realized that I might not recognize Frank. Come on, fifty years, so much gray hair, glasses, widening of the girth, wrinkles, more wrinkles. But when I started to walk toward the entrance, I would have recognized Frank anywhere.

Three hours later, I began to know and understand this kind, generous, embracing human being. What we hit upon as former students together in high school was how the values we learned in our school, at home, and in our social environment have carried us through our lives with strength and generosity.

Here's how Frank put it: he is a man devoted to time management and making room for all the important things in life that are crucial to his happiness. In order to create his happiness, Frank devotes 30% of his day to work (which includes helping other people and finding time to still be on the emergency ski patrol in his home town), 30% to his wife, three adult children and grandchildren (he created a family blog and they check in with each other once a day, and, most important, Frank gives over 40% of his day to being surprised at what life will bring him. I am impressed with Frank's very balanced and conscious life.

How Frank arrived at this blissful state is a miracle. He had to overcome a difficult family situation, a mentally ill mother, moving constantly, changing schools, living in an orphanage, and surviving a life that would have done most young men in by the age of 15 when he finally landed at Marin Catholic High School. Frank told me that the turning point for him in was in his sophomore year when a few of the boys in our class offered him a daily ride to school in their car pool. And then he met and started dating my best friend whose humor and warmth gave him confidence. Frank began to come out of his shell and discover the kind and caring man he was going to be . High school was never hell for Frank. He excelled at sports, became quite popular and was able to withstand the sadness of having to move again - this time across the country to New Jersey to face his senior year without his gang of friends. But Frank had grown into a man by then and this time he brought along his self-confidence.

I have been given many gifts in life, but one of the special gifts turns out to be a man whose exemplary life inspired me with his friendship and honesty. I'll see Frank again next year at our 50th high school reunion, along with other fine men and woman who shared life together at a special time and place.

It strikes me that we should all take a piece of Frank's journey and find out 40% solution to happiness.

Namaste

Joan

It's A Girl

Hi, Boomers,

Well, finally, after thirty-eight years of trying, my family came is about to produce a girl baby. It's a miracle! And it was random, of course. My oldest son and his wife gave birth four months ago to a perfect baby boy, Jude Love. It was their third boy. Oh, there was the usual, "Are we ever going to get a girl in this family" remarks, but everyone was happy because Jude was a healthy and a happy baby. My youngest son produced a male heir the first time. And now: Here comes the girl.

My last blog was about being a grandmother and its miraculous joys. It's still a mind-bender to me. However, it brings me around full center to living in my 60's and finding surprises and unexpected moments.

I was speaking to the marketing consultant from my publishing company this morning. The call was by way of introducing himself to me and getting my ideas on how to market my book, Sixty, Sex & Tango. Now, if I had to choose a marketing mentor for me vis a vis my book, it would not be a forty year-old male. And yet, the voice of this forty year-old male captured my attention. He actually was familiar with the themes in my book about living joyfully in the decade of the 60's, finding passion in life and love, and was going to recommend my book to his mother-in-law.

I posed the question to him about his interest in my book's topics. He thought that life brought a variety of experience to each decade and it was always worth reading about what other's have gone through.

"I get your book," he said. "While it is not specifically a self-help book, it is a book with experiences of a woman who has lived fully in her sixties and has insights and opinions and experiences that might help others."

Wow! Did he really say that. He's forty; he's a male; he's so far away from my sensibilities.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you," I was raised with three older sisters."

How did I get so lucky today? I can't wait to hear his marketing suggestions and work with him after the book comes out. Mr. Marketing Consultant was fun, humorous, intelligent and randomly assigned to me by the publisher. It's a good thing no thought went into the selection.

On the bad news side: I just found out that my beloved therapist made so much money investing in a prostate cancer drug that he is retiring. When I say so much money, I'm referring into the 20 to 30 million range. He bought the drug at $2.00. I had a chance to buy stock in Dendreon, the company that brought the drug to market. But what would a schlepper beatnik/hippie yoga teacher do with a millions of dollars? I actually contemplated that thought in my 7 am yoga class this morning. And I actually couldn't think of how I wanted to alter my life. Sad, but true.

Namaste

Joan

The Single Life and Bali Here I Come

Hi, Boomers,

I was musing today about being single. After years of fighting the odds to mate with man, I have succumbed to the freedom, the joy, the bliss of being single. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up sex. Being single and sex are not antithetical to one another. I love sex now as much as I loved it at 19 when some hunk took my virginity at UCLA on New Year's Eve. Funny, we never forget who took our virginity. Oh, well, sorry, "took" is not appropriate since I was the other half of the consenting situation. I can still remember that small, dark motel room in Manhattan Beach, past midnight, January 1st, with a little light coming through the faded white, shabby venetian blinds. His name was John and I was madly in lust. But I digress.

So being single is being able to come and go as I please without checking in with anyone. It's being able to be in Las Vegas with my family and not worrying about whether I have called my significant other today to let him know that I miss him and I promise to be home on Saturday afternoon. It's fully planning my day without questions, planning my trips without censure, planning my meals without a thought for anyone else. I can go to bed when I want and get up when I want and take my computer to bed and read at 3 am if I want and listen to the silence. I can get up to feed Baby Jude Love at 4 am and gaze into his little face with love.

I'm going to Bali in August with two single female friends. I am visiting my tango friend, Brenda, who, with her husband, built Desa Sanctuary in Ubud. Check out the website. It's so very beautiful and special.

The way this trip camd about was that Brenda emailed me on Linkedin to connect with me and to say she was reading my blog. Bali had been in my head for a long time and I felt I needed to get there before the Eat, Pray, Love movie came out this summer and the followers of Ms. Gilbert began to pay homage in Ubud to her personal journey. A few days before, my friend, Carol, a yoga student of mine at UCLA, was talking about going to Bali with her friend and I immediately invited myself. I showed Carol and Adrienne Desa Sanctuary and everyone was hooked. It took us 3 days to make the plane reservations and reserve a sanctuary for a week. Women are so smart and efficient with organizational execution because we know what we want and communicate efficiently. Bali, here we come.

Last year I went to southern Spain and Morocco with GAP Adventure Tours and I was the oldest of the seven women. It was a fabulous journey and one that I will remember always. The year before I went to Costa Rica for a yoga retreat and then an eco tour with my guide friend. Another great adventure. Being single allows me to plan my travels intuitively and take fully advantage of my curiosity. I used to think that I could never, ever travel without a man beside me. Life sure plays funny tricks on us.

So while I think that I may be falling in love as indicated in my last post, I am not rushing to fall in love. This is probably the first time I have been reserved in a relationship process. I have some things at stake this time around. I'm older and maybe a little wiser and maybe, just maybe, happier with who I am, my family relationships and my dearest friends.

Life is beginning to work out very well for a change.

Namaste

Joan

I'm Too Old For This Life

Hi Boomers,

I've been thinking that my blogs go into cyberspace and no one is going to read them.  I'm right about that, I know, because I should have a website and blog on my website and I'm not there yet.  I'm waiting until I publish my book (stupid) or get an agent (I should be so lucky) and I'm not really kicking ass like I should.  

I'm 65 and too busy working.  Can you imagine teaching 27 classes a week in yoga and one tango lesson to my best friend?  By Friday I can't walk or talk.  Don't get me wrong.  I absolutely love teaching yoga and meditation.  In fact, I'm taking a seminar in Kundilini yoga tomorow for 4 hours at UCLA through the Mindfulness Center.  It's all very wonderful every day, but the physical toll on my body worries me.  Someone said to me, "That's why you're in such good shape," and I responded, "It's overrated."  

More angst this week with my old lover returning and the same pattern materializing.  I finally got up on Friday morning and wrote the email of all emails to him about how I see our relationship developing if he would just get out of his mother complex long enough to listen to his heart and stop running away.  

Which leads me to ask:  Do people really change?  Do men change?  I was talking to my ladies in recovery (from drugs and alcohol) in their meditation class  on Thursday and I posed the question to them.  Well, they are in recovery and, of course, they feel people can change.  They are changing, for God sake!  But these are women - nurturing, open, compassionate women and in this moment of their lives fully conscious for the first time in decades.  But can men change?  Can we change the strips of a zebra?  I do not know.  I will let you know if there is a man that can change when I find one.

I'm closer to publishing my book, SO YOU'RE 60, GET OVER IT:  CONFESSIONS OF A BEATNIK/BOOMER.  I have 2 agents to hear from and one publisher and my contract with another publisher and then I'll move forward.  I'm feeling low on energy right about now.  It's the lull before the storm.  I need patience.  That's why I meditate 4 times and day.

My iPod shorted out this week.  On Monday, no less, with the entire week ahead.  I play music in all my classes.  My iPod is my life!!!   It had 80 GB and they don't make those anymore.  I got a nano iPod with 8 GB and it isn't enough to hold all my favorite music.  

I'm off to see the new Chinese gardens and the Chinese art exhibit at the Huntington Museum in Pasadena with one of my male best friends.  Andrew will help me load my 8 GB iPod.  Really, men can be great in other ways.  They really don't have to change.  I wouldn't want Andrew to change a hair on his head.

Namaste

       Joan