In the opening lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the poet says that he found himself in the middle of his life, lost in a dark forest (una selva oscura) with no clear pathway through it. It’s usually accepted that he was describing what we in our modern, label-applying world would call a mid-life crisis.
We all know about the mid-life crisis—that nasty little time in our forties where we look at our lives and say “My God! Is this all I am ever going to be?” People do radical and imprudent things while in its clutches. This is when stockbrokers become piano players and marriages break up. Stressful? Of course. Predictable? Probably. But the thing about the midlife crisis is that it is self-made. That makes it controllable—sooner or later. It’s as if the mid-lifer is suffering from buyer’s remorse. He or she wants to revisit choices made in the throes of youth and maybe go back for a refund.
As angst-ridden as the mid-life crisis may be, however, it is nowhere as shattering as the crisis that awaits at 65. If I could, I would tell Dante that if he thought the midlife forest was dark and confusing, it’s nothing to the one waiting for him twenty years in the future. The senior forest makes the younger one look like a thicket.
The senior crisis is more complex and darker because it is a combination of many factors. There is physical reality: even the most fit bodies need tune-ups. There is emotional reality: families are grown, children have families of their own, friends move away or die. There is economic and professional reality: careers end and professional relationships are lost. There is external reality as well: people often start treating seniors as if becoming older also means becoming incompetent. Speaking for myself, I can more or less deal with the first realities. It’s the external one that I find the most difficult. It brings out the worst in me.
I want to snarl when I come across assumptions about and condescension to elders. If you look for them, they are as ubiquitous as the senior discount. I saw it the other day in a doctor’s office. “We don’t give out instructions about what to expect after surgery,” we were told by the surgeon. “Patients might read the possible side effects, convince themselves they have the symptoms, and the phones would be tied up.” Substitute senior for patient and a picture emerges of seniors (the practice serves senior clients) as garrulous hypochondriacs, chronic phone huggers to be treated as children with cheerful firmness, and worriers not to be bothered with details they probably wouldn’t understand anyway. The words patronizing bastard rose to my lips but I didn’t say them. It wasn’t my appointment. God help him if he ever gets me as a patient.
I turn 65 this year and I’m pissed off about it. Maybe that’s my 65 crisis. I don’t want to find my way through the forest. I want to burn it down. I am not comforted by being told that I should be joyous that I have written two books—after all, I’m told smugly, I should be proud that I’ve accomplished them. The words at your age cling like smoke to the mock admiration. Hell, if they’re so great, why aren’t they best sellers? Sure I have a Ph.D. in English and I earned it. But if that’s so wonderful, why couldn’t I get a job when I applied at Barnes and Noble?
I have no idea at this point what to do with myself. I hoped that writing would give me dignity and a role in life. But I am not a retiring Emily Dickinson. I write to be read. And I don’t write the lurid chainsaw murder stories that seem to sell these days. I once tried writing a Harlequin Romance. I couldn’t write to the genre. I kept trying to turn the flimsy structure into some intense exploration of life. I respect the authors who can do it. I can’t.
So here I am, thrashing about in that dark selva oscura looking either for a pathway or a match. But even as I do that, I realize that pathway may not exist. We may all have to take a machete and cut our own ways. I suspect that as we do so, the world will have little advice to help us and many will try to take advantage of our plight. Bette Davis was right: old age is not for sissies. I suppose finding purpose will be the great challenge of turning 65 and dealing with what follows.
All I can say in the meantime is noli nothis permittere te terere—don’t let the bastards wear you down.
Please feel free to comment either below or e-mail at dianamdeluca@aol.com. My website is www.dmdeluca.com
Friday, May 23, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
If Only We Knew Then
Our friends Nancy and Peter in Colorado Springs recently had a problem. The manufacturer of their refrigerator had thoughtfully saved himself a few dollars by using a plastic tube to connect their ice maker to the water tap. Over time the plastic did what plastic does. It got brittle and leaked. For most of us (including Sid and me), the leak from these plastic tubes produces a drip in the basement and the weary realization that the plastic must be replaced with the copper it should have always had.
For Nancy and Peter, however, the result was not only catastrophic but life-threatening. The leak from their ice maker was a flood rather than a drip. It soaked the floor in their kitchen and living room, ruined the carpet, and inched up their cabinets and walls. The worst though was when the inspectors came to see what needed to be done. They made that most dire of discoveries. The house contained asbestos. All of a sudden, a repair became a job for the hazardous material squad who sealed off the house. Nancy and Peter had no access to their house for weeks and have spent their time living in their RV on their driveway.
Asbestos was a common building material when the house was built. It was great to put in floors to contain a fire in the basement from reaching upper levels or catching the roof on fire. The trouble was its effect on human lungs, which no one knew at the time. It was like the other things whose dangers came to light long after an entire generation had been exposed. My mother, for example, had an ironing board cover that I think had asbestos in it. We were probably safe since she never had any reason to cut the fabric to fit anything. But we had no idea there might have been a problem.
Then there was DDT, the miracle pesticide that was used freely to kill insects. Unfortunately, as we learned from Rachel Carson, it killed off nearly everything else as well. I shudder when I remember the spray cans with the plunger attached to one end. And the dry cleaning fluids that are now banned. And the insecticide bombs that we used in Hawaii to try to control the roaches. And the harmful effects of using lead in paint. And the formaldehyde that we now learn is used in the production of RVs—our new RV has block letters saying that it is not designed for full time living. We thought it meant that the appliances would wear out. Now I guess it means that fumes might make us ill. Our RV has now become a toy that we are supposed to use sparingly with all the windows open.
Of course, all these now-seen ills were meant to provide some good. I have particular memories of the old shoe-fitting fluoroscopes. Anyone who was alive in the forties and fifties will remember them. They looked like a box with viewing portals. You inserted your feet into the opening at the lower part of the box and could look down onto the skeleton of the foot and the outline of the shoe. It was meant to show a parent whether a child’s shoe fit properly. We kids loved them. I liked to look at my feet and wiggle my toes. What I didn’t know and probably wouldn’t have cared about was that I was standing on an x-ray tube. No one seems to have contracted bone cancer in the foot from them, but since it turned out that they were leaking radiation, the salesclerks apparently had far more exposure than was healthy. They were banned in the US in the 1950s but continued to be used in Europe. I guess Europeans were less worried or have tougher feet.
I suppose there will always be a perfect hind-sight when it comes to harmful things. Thirty years ago, cigarette smoking was more acceptable and less understood. We are now starting to understand the effect of additives, antibiotics, and steroids in our food—heaven only knows what lurks in our bodies courtesy of unseen things in our food supply. Most recently, we have learned that those pretty plastic bottles may be leaching carcinogens into whatever is put in them. Given this, it seems to me that the challenge is how to deal quickly with what we learn. The unfortunate part is that our manufacturers usually hire lobbyists and lawyers to dispute the findings rather than adjust their processes in the interests of public health.
Somebody owes Nancy and Peter and their insurance agency a huge apology. It has cost $63,000 so far (still counting) to restore them to their home. Undoubtedly their insurance rates will rise and maybe they will even have to find another carrier (such being the way of the world). All so the manufacturer could save a few dollars’ worth of copper tube.
It’s enough to make those of us with radiated feet cry out for mercy.
For Nancy and Peter, however, the result was not only catastrophic but life-threatening. The leak from their ice maker was a flood rather than a drip. It soaked the floor in their kitchen and living room, ruined the carpet, and inched up their cabinets and walls. The worst though was when the inspectors came to see what needed to be done. They made that most dire of discoveries. The house contained asbestos. All of a sudden, a repair became a job for the hazardous material squad who sealed off the house. Nancy and Peter had no access to their house for weeks and have spent their time living in their RV on their driveway.
Asbestos was a common building material when the house was built. It was great to put in floors to contain a fire in the basement from reaching upper levels or catching the roof on fire. The trouble was its effect on human lungs, which no one knew at the time. It was like the other things whose dangers came to light long after an entire generation had been exposed. My mother, for example, had an ironing board cover that I think had asbestos in it. We were probably safe since she never had any reason to cut the fabric to fit anything. But we had no idea there might have been a problem.
Then there was DDT, the miracle pesticide that was used freely to kill insects. Unfortunately, as we learned from Rachel Carson, it killed off nearly everything else as well. I shudder when I remember the spray cans with the plunger attached to one end. And the dry cleaning fluids that are now banned. And the insecticide bombs that we used in Hawaii to try to control the roaches. And the harmful effects of using lead in paint. And the formaldehyde that we now learn is used in the production of RVs—our new RV has block letters saying that it is not designed for full time living. We thought it meant that the appliances would wear out. Now I guess it means that fumes might make us ill. Our RV has now become a toy that we are supposed to use sparingly with all the windows open.
Of course, all these now-seen ills were meant to provide some good. I have particular memories of the old shoe-fitting fluoroscopes. Anyone who was alive in the forties and fifties will remember them. They looked like a box with viewing portals. You inserted your feet into the opening at the lower part of the box and could look down onto the skeleton of the foot and the outline of the shoe. It was meant to show a parent whether a child’s shoe fit properly. We kids loved them. I liked to look at my feet and wiggle my toes. What I didn’t know and probably wouldn’t have cared about was that I was standing on an x-ray tube. No one seems to have contracted bone cancer in the foot from them, but since it turned out that they were leaking radiation, the salesclerks apparently had far more exposure than was healthy. They were banned in the US in the 1950s but continued to be used in Europe. I guess Europeans were less worried or have tougher feet.
I suppose there will always be a perfect hind-sight when it comes to harmful things. Thirty years ago, cigarette smoking was more acceptable and less understood. We are now starting to understand the effect of additives, antibiotics, and steroids in our food—heaven only knows what lurks in our bodies courtesy of unseen things in our food supply. Most recently, we have learned that those pretty plastic bottles may be leaching carcinogens into whatever is put in them. Given this, it seems to me that the challenge is how to deal quickly with what we learn. The unfortunate part is that our manufacturers usually hire lobbyists and lawyers to dispute the findings rather than adjust their processes in the interests of public health.
Somebody owes Nancy and Peter and their insurance agency a huge apology. It has cost $63,000 so far (still counting) to restore them to their home. Undoubtedly their insurance rates will rise and maybe they will even have to find another carrier (such being the way of the world). All so the manufacturer could save a few dollars’ worth of copper tube.
It’s enough to make those of us with radiated feet cry out for mercy.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Bare Ruin'd Guarantees
My very close friend, Kimi, once told me that we are not born with any guarantees. I’ve decided that when it comes to good things happening in our lives, that is just so. But since those margarita days of college, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are guarantees after all.
Some things we already know will happen as we grow older—or at least we think we do. We know that older people lose some degree of hearing. This is nothing new. Back in 1588, people used wooden hearing aids made in the shape of animal ears (mule deer perhaps?); a hundred years later, people were using ear trumpets. With the noise and chatter of our world, even more of us are probably in trouble. One UK study suggested that 50% of us will require some kind of hearing aid. We also know that a good percentage of older folk lose some of their sense of smell, and with it the loss of taste (pass the pepper, please). Time takes its toll on eyesight: by forty most people need some form of refraction to see up close (I have little sympathy as I’ve worn glasses since I was 16) and extra lubrication for contact lenses. It also has a role in losing bone, which requires ever more elaborate schemes to save our teeth and keep our hips together.
These things we know, these things we can hope to avoid to some extent by taking the pharmacy of pills and procedures advertised on television, these things we can smugly put off worrying about until approaching the witching hour of 60, and these things we can joke about while in the midst of dealing with them. The devil is in the details, though, meaning that many things we don’t even know about are lurking out there with the almost certain assurance that we will meet with them at some point in our lives.
Take a colonoscopy, for example. This delightful procedure begins for most people at 50. In my case it started in my forties because I am high risk through family history and now repeats every few years. With each passing colonosocopy, the chances of finding something are climbing skyward. It’s the law of averages. Cataracts are another example. While people in their forties and fifties can get them, it’s after 60 that—as one study delicately puts it—cataracts start robbing vision. What the studies don’t say is that just as the intrusion on vision goes up, the possibility of side effects for older people goes up as well. They don’t tell you that. Then there are the things we all take pills for—the indigestion as stomach acid slips back past loosening muscles, the cholesterol levels that hint at the possibilities of stroke, and the thyroid replacement for the inevitable decline of the thyroid gland.
Some other, exciting things are sex-specific. As women age, they must deal with the decline of hormones. For a while, it seemed that hormone replacement was the fountain of youth but it turned out to cause more problems than it solved. Once through menopause, all sorts of fun little things happen including the run on the bathroom after a sneeze. Men have their own challenges with enlarging prostates that are guaranteed to happen after a certain age and with abdominal aortic aneurisms that are predictable between the ages of 60 and 80.
It’s not a comforting picture to understand that the beauty and health we all had as young people slips away in predictable stages. It makes the argument for us to enjoy every day in every way before we become, as Shakespeare puts it, “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” It also makes the case for the ability to laugh and a strong sense of the ridiculous.
Yes, Kimi, we are born with guarantees. Just not what we would like to have.
Some things we already know will happen as we grow older—or at least we think we do. We know that older people lose some degree of hearing. This is nothing new. Back in 1588, people used wooden hearing aids made in the shape of animal ears (mule deer perhaps?); a hundred years later, people were using ear trumpets. With the noise and chatter of our world, even more of us are probably in trouble. One UK study suggested that 50% of us will require some kind of hearing aid. We also know that a good percentage of older folk lose some of their sense of smell, and with it the loss of taste (pass the pepper, please). Time takes its toll on eyesight: by forty most people need some form of refraction to see up close (I have little sympathy as I’ve worn glasses since I was 16) and extra lubrication for contact lenses. It also has a role in losing bone, which requires ever more elaborate schemes to save our teeth and keep our hips together.
These things we know, these things we can hope to avoid to some extent by taking the pharmacy of pills and procedures advertised on television, these things we can smugly put off worrying about until approaching the witching hour of 60, and these things we can joke about while in the midst of dealing with them. The devil is in the details, though, meaning that many things we don’t even know about are lurking out there with the almost certain assurance that we will meet with them at some point in our lives.
Take a colonoscopy, for example. This delightful procedure begins for most people at 50. In my case it started in my forties because I am high risk through family history and now repeats every few years. With each passing colonosocopy, the chances of finding something are climbing skyward. It’s the law of averages. Cataracts are another example. While people in their forties and fifties can get them, it’s after 60 that—as one study delicately puts it—cataracts start robbing vision. What the studies don’t say is that just as the intrusion on vision goes up, the possibility of side effects for older people goes up as well. They don’t tell you that. Then there are the things we all take pills for—the indigestion as stomach acid slips back past loosening muscles, the cholesterol levels that hint at the possibilities of stroke, and the thyroid replacement for the inevitable decline of the thyroid gland.
Some other, exciting things are sex-specific. As women age, they must deal with the decline of hormones. For a while, it seemed that hormone replacement was the fountain of youth but it turned out to cause more problems than it solved. Once through menopause, all sorts of fun little things happen including the run on the bathroom after a sneeze. Men have their own challenges with enlarging prostates that are guaranteed to happen after a certain age and with abdominal aortic aneurisms that are predictable between the ages of 60 and 80.
It’s not a comforting picture to understand that the beauty and health we all had as young people slips away in predictable stages. It makes the argument for us to enjoy every day in every way before we become, as Shakespeare puts it, “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” It also makes the case for the ability to laugh and a strong sense of the ridiculous.
Yes, Kimi, we are born with guarantees. Just not what we would like to have.
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