Live with Joy; Live longer

Hi, Boomers,

I haven't really been slacking off since my last blog. It's only been a week but it feels like an eternity. I spent the 4th of July weekend reading my book, Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer, one last time and making final corrections. I thought I would get bogged down in the OMG factor of "did I really write that?" But I was relatively free from flogging myself after my two year saga with an idea I had once upon a time at a milonga (a tango salon) when one of my friends said to me, "I think you should write a book about sex and dating in your 60's." It seems like a lifetime ago.

Speaking of lifetimes, it's Saturday night and I'm in Vegas, but I'm not near the Las Vegas Strip. I'm visiting my family - my two sons and those ever-growing four grandsons who have more energy than a cluster of atoms. Then again I'm on the boomer side of life so it might seem I exaggerate.

I found myself giggling with my oldest grandson, Jordan Mac, tonight as I read him some stories. It's one of my favorite rituals in life and I cherish the moments I have have with this young, bright and talented 5 year old. After shooting a round of hoops in the backyard in the 105 evening heat and taking a bath, we went to his room to pick out a few books to read. We had one of those inexplicable moments that two people have when the world stops, our funny bone takes over, and we succumb to non-stop, uncontrolled laughter.

I opened the page to a Curious George book about donuts and we both looked at George the monkey in bed and began to giggle, which lead to laughter, which lead howling. We didn't quite know what struck us as funny, except that George was reclining in bed with his long pencil smile drawn across his face and his huge funky head nestling into a pillow. It seemed to us ridiculous and terribly funny.

It's such a delicious moment to laugh at nothing in particular, to find silliness in the absurd, but it is much more delightful to do so with my five year old grandson. It's always the best Saturday night date with any one of my progeny.

Minutes before I was to read to Jordan, I was wandering through the latest Newsweek magazine on "The Science of Healthy Living." I was reading about the aging brain and scientists understanding of normal cognitive aging; i.e., it's more than memory exercises and crossword puzzles. I'm always so happy to hear that part about not having to do crossword puzzles to keep my brain from atrophying. It seems that as we age, we keep in tact the knowledge we learned decades ago (think our times tables); however, as we age, it is more difficult to learn new things and solve novel problems. We may even improve our vocabulary even into our 60's. Good news, boomers. I would like to add that watching a great amount of television and reading fashion and pop culture magazines won't help you get smarter or increase your mental and physical reaction time.

What does help us support mental acuity as we age that's also good for our heart, lungs, immune system and muscles? Three vigorous 40-minute walks a week can do the trick because aerobic exercise increases the volume of white matter, which connects neurons, in areas responsible for such executive functions as planning.

I'm going to throw in yoga as part of this anti-aging routine - yoga for the strengthening of the mind and the body and our respiratory system because it increases the amount of breath taken into the body on a consistent basis. Good for the heart, lungs, immune system and muscles. In a sense, it is resistance training - moving through our mental and physical resistance as well as keeping our bone density numbers high. It's a happy hunting ground for neurons. Because yoga yokes or unites mind and body through breath, we are able to practice staying present and increase our level of awareness. Hence, we are using our mind in the present and not succumbing to the numbing past or delusional future.

Walking and yoga produce and sustain joy and happiness because it releases endorphins, increases adrenalin, serotonin and dopamine. Live with joy; live longer.

So back to Jordan and our laughing jag. In those silly moments of laughter at something as simple as our shared perception, my grandson and I increased my lifespan - maybe not by much - but sustaining the mantra of living with joy and following my bliss is the best way I know of to living longer.

Why would one want to live longer? Well that's a blog for another time.

Namaste

Joan

Leading With The Heart

Hi, Boomers,

I had to make a rather big decision last week. It involved matters of the heart.

As a yoga instructor, the overriding emphasis in a practice is the opening of the heart. Yoga is a heart-centered practice. The symbolic nature of the heart is its generosity of spirit, it's aspect of forgiveness, its ability to understand and create compassion and empathy for the human spirit and its aspect of gratitude and universal love. That is not to say that our heart centered practice concerns romantic love, although one can't have romantic love without an open heart. An open heart implies a more spiritual aspect of love.

If my heart is open and I am conscious of leading my life with heart centered intention and I am mindful (present) about listening to my heart charka, (i.e., the energy in my heart), then I hope that all my decisions that involve the heart are truthful.

I think about the heart every day when I teach yoga. I think about it so much that when some experience in my life actually takes me to my heart, I am often so surprised that I am rendered unconscious.

I was going to visit a new friend, a tango friend, and over the last couple of months a man who has become someone I got to know in a more intimate sense through emails and phone conversations. I had met this man in Los Angeles several days before he was returning to his home city. In the course of our conversations, we both thought it would be fun to meet up in his city, dance tango and explore the beautiful city where he resides. He would be coming to Los Angeles to spend four months during the winter with his family as he does every year and so we would get a head start on knowing each other by spending time together on a couple of occasions before he arrives in southern California.

It all sounded perfectly logical until several weeks ago. I realized that email and phone conversations were the most imperfect way to understand and acknowledge another human being, especially someone of the opposite sex. It began to feel like an artificial situation whereby we both have to always be on our best behavior. I was so busy being accommodating that I was losing track of feelings and emotions. What exactly were my feelings and my emotions in regard to him? I didn't have time to breathe and reflect upon our male/female situation for any length of time. The emails kept coming; the information kept arriving; the time frames of voice conversation was shrinking. Mix messages multiplied. Confusions set in.

In the past, the younger Joan would have said, "screw it, " I'm going anyway. What the hell! It's only a week. But a week in my life at sixty-six is a precious week. Besides, walking into a "maybe" situation is fraught with the possibility of conflict and struggle. We didn't actually know each other for long enough to make a decision about spending a week with each other. But because we were excited about a new friendship, we wanted to spend more time exploring our relationship. So we jumped the gun and pulled the trigger and made reservations.

Were those decisions made from the heart or from the adrenalin of meeting someone new and with potential possibilities? Hormones make us do the darndest things. And most of the time the things we do when we are excited are manifestations of our unconscious nature. We are going into the lizard mind, the limbic system where pain and pleasure receptors reside. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! I want, I need, I desire.

I don't think my situation with the potential male partner was a conscious response to my open heart. But I think my canceling the trip to spend a week with him revealed a conscious intention of listening to my heart. My heart said stop, wait, patience, listen to your breath.

One of my yoga students asked me why I wasn't taking the week off as I had indicated I would to my students - preparing them for a substitute and letting them know I would be away as a point of courtesy. I told her that I was not sure it was the right thing to do because my heart didn't lead me to this man at this time. The yogini smiled at me as we both took in the silence.

"I want to be just like you when I get to your age," she said.

"Why?," I asked her.

"Because you are not afraid of life. You are not afraid to say it was a mistake. And you are now moving on from that decision."

I told her I was able to do that because my heart was open and clear and full of energy in this moment. It's all about taking my yoga practice off the mat and applying what I have learned from my practice to my life. I released the struggle; I released the negativity. And I brought myself back to balance.

Namaste

Joan

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

Attention Boomers: Let's Turn Back Time

Dear Booomers,

     Did you know that most of the airports in the great and glorious and super tech U.S. do not have Internet access, and if they do, we have to pay for it!  This is the United States of American in the year 2009.  Years ago I went to Amsterdam and the Internet was available at free computer stations and I thought I died and went to heaven.

     Can't we do something about this situation of no Internet access in airports?  We are supposed to be the leaders of the free world and we can't even access our Internet for free in our airports!  It's a pathetic and shameful situation.  But what is more pathetic and shameful is that no one does anything about it.  No hue and cry; no letters to the editor; no flood of email to our so-called legislatures. When are we ever going to give something away for free in this country?  Hey!  Aren't the airwaves free anyway?

     I was sitting in the Las Vegas airport last night waiting for a delayed plane.  Every Southwest plane was delayed because there were very strong winds and dust storms in the lower and upper deserts.  Los Angeles weather was just as bad.  I thought I'd get on standby on the flight before mine, but I was #20 and it wasn't going to happen.  Out of a sense of desperation, I asked the man sitting next to me if he thought I could get Internet access in the airport.  "Not in this B Gate," he said with authority.  "You mean there are other gates with Internet access?" I asked excitedly.  "Yeah, you can get it at Gates A and C."  The obvious question was "What happened to Gate B."  I felt stupid asking but I asked anyway.  "They ran out of money," he replied.  "My company wired A and C Gates and they ran out of money right after that."

     I wanted to know who ran out of money, but I figured it was the McCarren airport with its usual shortfall.  Airports always have money problems and that's why most of them look half finished or in need a facelift almost immediately after they are built.  If you've been to LAX recently, you'll know what I mean.  Outdated and outmoded.  

     

     But where was the outrage not only at the lack of sophistication and technological expertise, but it was also one of the most chaotic scenes I have ever witnessed in an airport and I've been to many airports around the world in my long life.  Okay, India and Cairo are really bad.  I was stepping over bodies all over Gate C.  People were practically pitching tents it took so long for Southwest to get organized with their out of control flight delays.  I waited an extra 50 minutes after my plane landed because there was no crew.  They were coming in on another flight that was delayed and then delayed before that.  It took five hours to get home on a flight that was 46 minutes.  

     Did we Boomers march and protest in the good old days or was it my imagination?  What makes us so complacent now, so lazy, so like lemmings being lead to the edge of the cliff and told to keep going and we do and we fall in to Iraq or Guantanamo?  We've been content with less than adequate situations and immoral and unethical conditions for decades since our Vietnam protests and our Civil Rights days, and we've become immobile and satiated with too much food and good times to care a wit that we are actually sitting in pig shit.  

     I was starting to get radical sitting on the floor with my computer on my lap, my butt and legs numb from the hours of waiting.  I tried desperately to stir up some opposition to the enervating atmosphere.  No one took the bait.  No one seemed to care that we had been reduced to shells of our former selves, filled with stale pizza and sub sandwiches with too much doughy white bread and pepperoni.  Hours before we took off, our cell phones ceased to interest us so all we could do was just stare into space and find solace in the din of white noise.  

     Even I was beyond impatience and hostility.  I, too, crossed a mental line after failing to muster any support to picket the poor woman giving out hourly flight updates, which no one was responding to because the florescent lights had given us a lobotomy.  It was simply no use to shout, "Let's burn our bras and take over Southwest."  There wasn't a Boomer in sight who could have lasted an hour in a Gate C sit in.  What happened us?  Where is our edge?  What will finally make us take up arms against a sea of trouble and by opposing squash the incompetents.

       Or maybe I should just focus on finding a really cool and smart male companion to get me off of my mini-rant.  I'd at least get some satisfaction.

        Namaste

        Joan 

         

You Can't Go Home Again

Greetings, Beatnik/Boomers,

Sometimes it is tough being a parent of adult children and an ex-wife all in the same night.  With trepidation I entered the restaurant wearing both hats.

I mentioned in my first blog yesterday that I had hoped the birthday dinner of my oldest son was going to go well.  It was a family affair, minus one of my daughter-in-laws who was sick.  My ex-husband was the host.  My two sons were present as was my oldest son's wife, my other daughter-in-law.  

This birthday dinner should should have been routine, but nothing is routine in my family it seems.  There is always something going on.  We have a bit of a tendency to catastrophize events.  Couldn't I be 65 and have no drama at a family gathering?  Shouldn't every issues have been resolved by now?  It wasn't and why should it.  That's just the family dynamic.  But it is beyond tedious.  Sometimes I feel we are the The Adams Family on crack.

But this time we did not fit the goulish description of TV's one most popular program.  Yet, we didn't fit the phoney "Leave It To Beaver" family either.  Last night we fell somewhere in the middle of "Arrested Development" and "Brothers and Sisters."

My sons had fought bitterly over the winter holiday.  No need to give you the details, but somewhere in a matter of an hour, a stealth bomber had entered my ex-husband's house in Park City and exploded with flares and fires between my two sons.  The fight, a little on the physical side (let's just say they were chasing each other down the stairs and I broke them up in the laundry room), ruined the evening planned by my ex at a country club with his dearest friends.  I had flashbacks of the horror I felt at seeing my two boys go after each other in the manner they once did as kids.  I entered the country club, crying buckets as I entered the bar and drowned myself in a martini was was only four ounces and had no visible alcoholic content.  Of course, we were in Utah!  Everyone else put on a brave face.

Last night's birthday dinner was the first time I had been in the same room at the same table with my sons.  I wasn't privy to all that had been said and not said throughout the last three months.  I deliberately absented myself from my family for awhile.  It was my their fight and not mine.  Wasn't that good of me?  There were years when I always tried to make it all better for everyone and failed miserably.  But this time I closed my mouth and threw away the key.  Is that what it's like being 60is and wise?  Who knew it was that simple?

It all went well.  There were laughs; there were stories.  My second son had just returned from Austin and the South X Southwest music festival and my oldest had returned from DC on business.  It seemed he went jogging with a couple of right wing Christian Republicans around the Lincoln and Washington monuments ending up at the steps of the Capitol in a bizarre and really out of body experience for my son.  The Austin music festival was fascinating for all of us.  My ex, usually somber and sarcastic, was actually animated, albeit still argumentative.  I ate and drank great wine and relished listening to  the conversation.  No one came away emotionally scared.  It was a miracle.  

I never thought, never could imagine myself in my 60's living with a sense of foreboding or anxiety.  It was like my faucets got switched.  Which one was I turning on for what feeling.  Last night at dinner  I told my daughter-in-law that I had an outer body experience for a few minutes.  Of course, I was sitting there single again and facing my ex-husband and realizing that it was actually our 45 wedding anniversary if we had still been married.  I toyed with bringing it to his attention or making a joke or a toast to years of knowing each other but we really didn't know each other at all.  We pretended to know each other a long time ago when we were in our twenties.  That was long ago and far away and there was no sentiment left.  His struggles, and there are many, including the primary one of his living in a cave without light (my code for being unconscious), were too painful for me last night.  Bringing up an old, mangled marriage memory was out of the question.  I couldn't go home again. 

Live is certainly not lived on a level playing field, but is a wildly interesting character study.

Namaste

Joan

La Vida Loca

Greetings, Boomers.  Greeting to those who are 60 and over and living la vida loca.  

This is my first blog.  I'm nervous, anxious and technically challenged.  I'd rather write in Word.  It's probably no different than writing a blog, but it feels different.  I'm expressing my deeepest sense of self into virtual reality.  It feels impersonal.  I would prefer talking about living in my 60's face to face with a real person.  But I'm forging on, taking a personal risk and dancing as if no one was watching.  

I just finished writing a book called, So You're 60, Get Over It:  Confessions of a Beatnik/Boomer.  I had no intention of writing another book.  My fantasy was to do stand up comedy.  Soon after turning 64, well sometime before that probably,  I began to think of my 60's as a pretty strange and funny time when all the rules of living I once abided by were totally gone.  I wasn't really a parent anymore in the traditional sense; I was a cheerleader for my kids.  I became a grandparent, but it was really somebody else's child, and I had no say as to how to raise my progeny.  My children were adults and living their own life without my approval and caring less about my disapproval, which I could not voice.  My sons had turned the child-parent paradigm upside down by parenting me instead a long time before this.  I was now the one doing everything wrong.  And since I am single and sometimes dating, I have to keep my social life separate from my family life.  And if I didn't, the question was:  why did I date losers?  More important the dynamics of sex has changed and not for the good.  Sex is part of a relationship negotiation at 60.  Men and women are not having sex on a level playing field.  Men are losing testosterone but women can replace estrogen levels and have a pretty good sex life.  It is definitely time to try younger men.  

Everything about my life us crazy except my work.   I'm a yoga and meditation teacher fine tuning the spiritual mind/body connection living my Tao while practicing daily losing.

But sex preoccupies me.  Not only do I like sex, but I also thint that sex in my 60's is particularly funny and strange and sweet and generally kind of an out of body experience. One Saturday night as I was attending my regular milonga, the place where I go to dance Argentine tango (more later on that other passions of mine), I told a female friend, a film director, that I my fantasy was to do stand up about sex in my 60's and all the various, idiosyncratic and funny situations I and other women my age have encountered.  My friend replied to me:  "That's more than stand up.  You should write a book."  And I did and it was blissful and cathartic and full of wonderment at discovering my transformation as a woman in my 60's.  

So I put myself out there at 60, expose my innermost thoughts and desires and fears, looking for a way to be joyful and grateful every day for all my gifts of family and friends and yoga and tango and music.  I'm inspired and hopeful.

Times are difficult for us all.  It's not easy to find the humor in living with half my retirement gone, gone, gone and still working at 65 and looking at 66, 67, and 68 and on to 70 as working years.  But I decided that the economic downturn gives me another gift:  the ability to create, see clearer, be more inspired, and more loving to my family.  Now if I could not stop obsessing about the DOW, I might be able to clear out most of my cobwebs and be more conscious.

I didn't mean to get serious in my first blog.  But since I finished my book, the times got more serious for us Boomers.  Bad economic news is a definite drag and causes depression.  So can tax season.  We'll all get past this moment because what goes down must come up.  I'm an eternal optimist.  

But right now, I've got to be a grandmother because the my grandsons, Jordan, 4, and Luc, 2, are getting up from their naps.  Everyone is sick.  Even Greyson, my youngest grandson (10 months) whom I babysat for yesterday.  My entire family, including my ex-husband, are all in Las Vegas, both my sons and daughters in law, my 97 year old mother, my brother and his wife, and my best friend.  I'm on my once a month weekend warrior visit.  I don't go to Vegas for fun; I go to connect with my family.  And sometimes it can be fun.  Jordan just came into my room to ask me for a drink so I'm off to spend the rest of the weekend celebrating my oldest son's birthday (Jonathan, 37) and to hope that the rift between my sons (Aaron, 33) will begin to heal.  I feel like I'm a bottle of glue with arms and legs stretching out to bring my family some peace and hope.  

This is not what I expected from being in my 60's.  Where is my script?  My cheat sheet?  My advanced curriculum for Living 101?  I'm winging it like everyone other Boomer.    

More later.

Namaste

The divine in me recognizes the divine in you.

Joan