Borrowing Trouble From the Future (Again)

Jean didn’t plan on writing about dreams, grief, or the strange places the mind wanders at night. But then she woke up crying—something she hadn’t done in months—and the moment insisted on being examined. She’d cried at the doctor’s office the day before, too, which was even more unusual. Jean is not a woman who cries easily, not even when life has handed her the kind of losses that would buckle most people. But something about that dream, and the day that came before it, tugged at her in a way she couldn’t ignore. So she followed the thread, the way she always does, to see where it led…. AI

I woke up crying. And yesterday I cried at the doctor’s office. What’s going on with me? Waking up with tears in my eyes from a dream has happened before, but crying at a doctor’s office? That hasn't happened since 1968 when a doctor lectured twenty-six year old me about the evils of having premarital sex. And trust me, I’ve had plenty of reasons to turn on the waterworks when doctors delivered bad news about my husband. I didn’t even cry after I had to make the decision to pull the plug on his life support, and ten minutes later he died. I saved those tears for when I got home.

The dream-tears that woke me featured my mom hanging clothes on the line at our family cottage, my dad tinkering with something nearby, and my husband driving his yellow Chevy Cutlass convertible. I was walking home from a sleep lab in a far off city and I woke up when Don pulled up alongside me and said, “Why didn’t you call? I would have picked you up.” Since I’ve been using my BiPAP machine, I haven’t remembered many dreams, but this one was an exception. I can’t wait for my follow-up appointment with the sleep doctor to ask if not recalling dreams is normal when getting treated for Central Sleep Apnea.

I used to keep a dream journal and spent time analyzing my dreams each morning. The long walk from a sleep lab wasn’t hard to figure out. I had my first appointment with the sleep doctor last December, and it took until a month ago to finally get a BiPAP machine because his final diagnosis didn't come until after he'd sent me to three additional specialists plus an overnight stay at the sleep lab. Getting all those appointments scheduled took time. I had to see an ears, nose and throat doctor, a gastroenterologist, a urogynecologist, the sleep lab technician and last but not least, I had to go in for an out patient surgery plus go to the durable medical supplies place to get fitted for a mask. 

My mom hanging clothes in my dream was no doubt symbolic of airing my “dirty laundry” at the doctor’s office—the thing that made me cry. I had asked my primary doctor’s Nurse Practitioner if I was a candidate for one of the new weight-loss drugs on the market, and she listened—actually listened—to my history with weight gain. Unlike my primary, who told me several months ago to “just move more.” She said severe sleep apnea is one of the qualifying factors for the weight-loss shots. She ordered a bunch of blood work and will submit the request for Medicare approval. (Fingers crossed.) I’m not sure how long that will take, but that’s what made me cry. Not the full-blown ugly cry of a toddler whose candy was snatched by the family dog, but she could tell I was trying to hold back tears. I would have managed it, too, if she hadn’t turned around as she was leaving to ask, “Do you need a hug?” I thanked her for listening while wiping tears from my cheeks.

When Don drove up alongside me in the dream—now that has a scary interpretation. Was it a death wish? Just hop in the car and go to the Great Unknown? Or a comforting thought that I won’t be alone when I do die? In the back of my mind, the predictions on the insurance actuarial table still weigh heavy: that my time in Independent Living will be up by October, when I’ll be moved to Assisted Living. Being a two-person lift in a place like that would be fertile inspiration for a horror movie plot. And that thought is what my mother used to call “borrowing trouble from the future.” I may not have mastered putting on compression stockings, but I am a master at borrowing trouble and trying to prevent it from happening. She may have called it borrowing trouble but I call it long-range planning. Tomato, tomatoes.

According to the online Dream Dictionary, “Dreaming of the dead can be both rewarding and terrifying depending on the context of the dream. There seems to be a fine line between actual contact or repressed memories or emotions that have come back to pay you a visit...” Are they coming for me? That was my first question. My second thought was that my dream was expressing my anxiety over running out of quality time. (Most likely the best explanation.) But my third thought—the Little Miss Mary Sunshine version—put a smile on my face: If I had hopped in Don's convertible, I would have been able to tell Mom that I finally learned to enjoy tea as much as she did. I probably wouldn’t tell her I make it the English way, with cream in the cup before pouring in the properly steeped tea. She drank it straight.

Our brains, especially during sleep, are mysterious places. They spin stories vivid enough to feel like time travel, dredge up fragmented memories we thought were long settled, and nudge us toward truths we’ve been avoiding. They can scare us or thrill us to death—a figure of speech. And maybe that’s the real purpose of a dreams like this one: they are a reminder that even in the strangest corners of the mind, something is still trying to move us forward. ©

See you next Wednesday! 

If you have fifteen minutes for something upbeat, inspiring and fun, watch this video of Kermit the Frog at the University of Maryland giving their commencement speech. Several Fox News reporters were bashing it but Facebook was showing this video along with Trump's commencement speech video at West Point where he talked about getting bored with trophy wives and owning big yachts. Kermit's speech ended with the entire audience singing the Rainbow Connection.

The Dog, Dying, Hillary, Laurel, Eleanor, and Victoria---Oh My!

I will never understand why the dog always wants to take one of his stuffie toys outside on his first trip in the morning to pee. Does he think his frog, duck or squirrel needs to pee too? Does he not trust me with his toys? I’ve never played with them without him being present, but Levi might not know that fact of his furry little life. It took a long time to train him to leave his playmates on top of the deck when he goes down to his duty yard and often times when he comes back up the steps Levi will sun bath lying next to his stuffie. It’s his ten o’clock ritual here on Widowhood Lane while type on the other side of the kitchen window. 

I heard a story the other day about woman who died and when her daughter got in town to plan the funeral she had the woman’s dog put down. Just like that. Didn’t ask around to see if anyone would take him. Didn’t give him a chance to find another home. I tell everyone who will listen that Levi has a little stippling that follows him for his care, should I die before he does. The idea of putting down such a sweet and likeable dog like Levi for no reason other than my death inconvenienced someone makes me sick. I don’t know. Maybe she thought the dog was unadoptable and she was doing the lesser of two evils. But I doubt that. The person who told me this story said the daughter “isn’t a dog person.” I hate thinking about this topic. 

I also hate thinking about dying. I’m not ready yet and I carry around too much guilt because I waste so much time. I’ve always been a self-absorbed time waster but now that the hour glass is running out of sand, I wish I had more to show for my time on earth. Yadda, yadda, yadda. You’ve heard me sing this song before: Poor me! I’m in one of those moods again. I’m beating myself black and blue because no one but the dog will miss me when I’m gone. This time, it might be Hillary Clinton’s fault. I’m three quarters of the way through her latest book. Now, there is a woman who didn’t let any grass grow under her feet. I know she’s a polarizing figure---I get that---but I also get the truth in the phrase Laurel Thatcher Ulrich coined: “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Ulrich is a professor at Harvard and a historian of women’s history and she was referring to ladies like Elizabeth Cady Stanton who had a chance encounter with a runaway slave that caused her to break with conventional behavior to become an important figure in the Woman’s Suffrage Movement. Yup, I understand why Hillary identifies with that “well-behaved” line. I wish I could. 

I admire Hillary. With her pragmatism and geekiness she would have been a good president. To the haters who don't trust her I say, "If she did a tenth of what the conspiracy sites and rumor mills claim she’s guilty of doing she’d have superpowers." No one living in a fish bowl, like she’s done since college, could get away with that much "junk" without superpowers. I’m glad this woman I admire admired Eleanor Roosevelt and followed her words of advice, “Do what you feel in your heart to be right---for you'll be criticized anyway. ‘You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.’” Interestingly enough, Eleanor was quoting an evangelist’s sermon delivered back in 1836. He was preaching about how the Bible contradicts itself. “You can and you can't-You shall and you shan't-You will and you won't-And you will be damned if you do-And you will be damned if you don't." The things Google can teach you. I wish it could teach me how to be young again. Google has many tricks up its sleeves but so far, it doesn’t have superpowers either. 

I saw an interview of Judi Dench and Ali Fazal about a new movie coming out titled, Victoria & Abdul. It’s based on the true story of elderly Queen Victoria’s unlikely friendship with a young servant from India, an 1887 story brought to light by a journalist who studied their journals and diaries. In the official synopsis of the movie it says the pair “humorously explores questions of race, religion, power, and the farce of Empire through the prism of a highly unusual and deeply moving friendship.” In the interview these two leading actors shared that at first Victoria was joyless, even though she was the richest and most powerful person in the world at the time, but she was able to find a new zest for life after meeting the servant. That’s the kind of movie I need to get me out of my funk! I thought. We’ve got four multiplex theaters in town with a zillion screens between them but guess what! The only play time I could find for the movie is at 8:30 at night. What is wrong with people? They make a movie that appeals to people in my age bracket but they don’t consider the fact that many of us don’t drive after dark! Jeez! When it’s a box office failure someone will say, “Told you, senior citizens don’t go to the movies.” ©

Adventures and Misadventures in Aging

Have you ever done something and soon after you start questioning why you did it and if doing it was a sign that your mental sharpness is waning? That’s what happened to me last week when the irrigation guy was in my garage. He spotted an iron object and said, “Hey, that’s a Civil War cannon ball!” and I replied, “Yup, I know. I’d been carrying it around since I was ten.” “I could take it off your hands,” he offered and I shocked myself by saying, “Why not. Take it.” And that was the sum total of our conversation about the piece. I’ve given antiques and collectibles away to family and friends but never, ever to a total stranger and I can’t get it out of my head. Am I entering the land where old people are be easily manipulated? I’ve heard stories about elderly people getting conned out of valuable antiques but I never thought it could happen to me. Not that I was a victim of anything more than my own impulsiveness. Afterward, I thought he might think of himself as an American Picker and that was his clumsy way of expecting me to throw a price back at him. But the more I thought about it the more insulted I felt by his “take it off your hands” remark. One: I wasn’t looking for a way to get rid of it and, two, if I was, I know its value and how to use eBay to sell it.

With all my hand wringing about giving a Civil War antique away to a stranger the only thing I could come up with to explain my out-of-character action was a few weeks ago when I was sweeping the garage floor I saw the cannon ball and I thought, I should put a label on that so it doesn't get discarded as junk when I die. Maybe with that thought in the back of my mind, I was just happy someone came along who knew what it was and wanted that cannon ball with the same enthusiasm I did back when I was a kid? Still, afterward it shook my confidence and made me feel vulnerable. There have been other small changes I've noticed in my interactions with strangers that had me concerned even before this happened, a kind of need to please them. Will I start buying things from door-to-door salesman just to make them happy? At what point do I throw a lifetime of carefully cultivated caution to the winds and start inviting homeless people to crash on my couch? Is it possible to pinpoint the beginnings of dementia, of letting go of inhibitions that have worked to protect us from harm? Does that 'pinpoint' look anything like a cannon ball?

Enough of that! Yesterday was the long-awaited Conversation Day---a whole day of interaction with people I know and like, starting with a haircut from my stylist who seems to like hearing me ramble on about my misadventures. That was followed by a trip to Starbucks for a drink from their Cup-of-Kindness line and a couple of their new Sous Vides (egg white bites with bacon). For every ‘cup’ sold Starbucks is donating twenty-five cents to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation and the Channel Kindness project, guaranteeing a minimum check of $250,000 for the six day campaign. I’ve tried the Pink (strawberries with coconut milk) and Violet (blackberries with coconut milk) and I’m hoping to get back for the Green (malcha green tea with lemonade). No need to tell me how you don’t like their coffee; we’ve had this conversation before. Starbucks aficionados never, ever order a plain cup of coffee. Why would you when there are dozens and dozens of blended and shaken coffee and tea concoctions and flavor profiles from all over the world to try? Starbucks isn't just a coffee shop; it's an adventure park for your taste buds. If I could, I’d take all you naysayers by the hand to a Starbucks tasting party.

After Starbucks I went to the senior hall for the monthly Gathering (for people looking for friends). A new couple was there, former teachers, who after retiring had bought a sailboat and they’ve been all over the world with it. When they revealed that I wanted to be them, to be able to tell the stories they must have up their sleeves. The mauve-to-mango sunsets, the stunning pink sand beaches and the pearl white sails blowing in the winds. I used to be an artist, I know all the proper hues to describe those colorful things. The couple is new in town, downsized from two houses elsewhere. I admire them for having had the adventure of their lives but in the end their goals for the future and mine are the same: they want to be close to trusted family members as they age.

Author Mercedes Lackey, wrote, “Adventure, yeah. I guess that's what you call it when everybody comes back alive.” That means we can’t call the aging process a true adventure---it's more like a misadventure---because the one thing we know for sure is that no one gets out of this world alive. The most we can hope for is we get to keep our grey matter and marbles in place for as long as possible. And I write to help with that endeavor; it's my mental calisthenics. ©

 

Serendipitous Inspiration

Saturday morning I couldn’t decide if I needed a shower or not before taking myself out to lunch on a dark, raining day. Dermatologists don’t recommend daily showers for old people if you’re not doing stuff to get sweaty and dirty. Our thinning skin apparently is chronically too dry which exposes us to all kinds of nasty skin ailments, the least of which is wrinkles. I don’t care about wrinkles but I’d like to avoid cracking skin and eczema, thank you very much, so I listen to my doctor. I hadn’t been doing much but sitting at the computer so I stuffed my iPod buds in my ears and made a decision to get sweaty with music and exercise so I’d have a good reason to hit the shower. 

It felt good to listen to my old 'power walking' playlist. In my world that meant it was time to strut around inside my house, arms swinging and knees pumping high. I stop at certain places where I have something to hold on to to do a few leg lifts, squats or old-people dance moves---anything to get my heart rate up and my muscles working. My 'power walking' playlist includes: Stayin’ Alive, The 5^th of Beethoven, The William Tell Overture, Night Fever, Gangham Style, Hooked on Tchaikovsky and All These Things That I’ve Done. As you might guess I don’t have any ‘50s music on my iPod and I dread the day when I’m in a nursing home and the activity director thinks she’s doing a good thing by flooding the place with Elvis, Pat Boone and Bobby Darin. That’s what they do---match the music to the era in which the majority of their residents came of age. Actually, I should have ended that sentence with, “I dread the day when I’m in a nursing home.” Well, I’m not there yet and I’d better not forget it!

Exercise is supposed to be good for your mental health, too, a perk that I could use right now. I haven’t been doing much since last spring which is one of the reasons why I dug out my iPod and put it on the charger a few days before resurrecting my old power walking routine. According to HelpGuide.com exercise “promotes all kinds of changes in the brain, including neural growth, reduced inflammation, and new activity patterns that promote feelings of calm and well-being. It also releases endorphins, powerful chemicals in your brain that energize your spirits and make you feel good. Finally, exercise can also serve as a distraction, allowing you to find some quiet time to break out of the cycle of negative thoughts that feed depression.” I’ve always hated exercise but I’m willing to get out that big ugly gun to ward off the winter blues that I’ve somehow managed to acquire in August.

As I do my power walking around my house the dog thinks I’m the Pied Piper and there’s a good reason for that. I leave a trail of dog treats as I move through the house so Levi will stay behind me instead of getting in front of me the way he does when we do “doggie dancing.” (And why I don’t play more music in the house is a mystery I need to solve. It does lift my spirits.) The only song Levi gets to hear is, Stand by Me. I used to play it on my computer every night as a way of entertaining my husband and exercising the dog with obedience commands disguised as dance moves---leg weaves, circles, standing up on two legs, walking backward and forward. We’re not good at it like you'd see in dog dancing competitions---I shouldn't even call what we do dancing---but my goal was never perfection but rather to have fun and giving the dog five minutes of undivided attention. Since last winter we’d only been doing it three-four times a month and I need to give that activity back to him more often, if only because he’s got a more boring life than I do. 

Do you believe that inspirational messages come into our lives when we need them in a serendipitous manner or do you believe they’re always out there like white noise, ignored until our minds and hearts are ready to accept the lessons they teach? After I wrote the first draft of this post I was on Facebook where one of my friends had just posted a video of a Chinese guy in his eighties. I scrapped the original ending so I could write about Deshun Wang, a man who took up doing an intense workout late in life. He also walks the fashion catwalk with kids a quarter of his age---his gray hair flowing down to his shoulders and looking full of life. His easy smile and kick-ass attitude earned him the nickname of the ‘hottest grandpa’ and he became an instant internet sensation.

He says in the video, “At 80 I still have something left in me. I still have dreams to achieve. Believe me, potential can be explored. When you think it’s too late, be careful you don’t let that be your excuse for giving up.” Now, that’s an inspirational message I truly needed to hear! I've spent my entire life working towards goals and dreams but since my husband died I’ve let my age limit my dreams. I don’t have enough time left to do such and such, I’ve told myself. What’s the point of trying? Watching one video, of course, can’t change the trajectory of anyone's life but Mr. Wang gives me mega much to think about. How about you? Do you let your age edit the potentials you could explore? ©