They say we are all just walking each other home.

It’s a comforting thought, until someone gets there before you do…and you wish they were still walking by your side.

I just lost a dear friend. She was truly a unique light in the world. a bright, happy person overflowing generosity for others. Ready to serve when needed. There to listen when needed. And a great giggler on the back row of church.

Maybe most telling of all, she was a magnet for animals. Cats in her neighborhood who had been cast aside found their way to her house. Her dogs were truly the luckiest canines. She adored my dog, who loved her back.

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It tells you a lot about a person when they are able to connect so easily with the natural world.

It’s hard enough to lose a good friend. It’s even harder to watch them go through dementia for years. She was diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s 7 years ago. She knew what was coming. And while she certainly had her moments of fear and tears, she turned her worry into action, learning how she could prepare and what arrangements needed to be made for her care. Unselfish as always.

I guess her final act of unselfishness was to teach us how to go through something like this. With a smile when possible. With patience when she struggled for the words and did her best to communicate. With a sense of humor when she began to lose control of the movement of her hands, and she gave each one a name so she could chastise it when it failed her.

Our friendship had so many facets. Birdwatching. Helping set up a weekly evensong service at our church. Trekking to Trader Joe’s to scout the latest irresistible delight. Walking my dog on beautiful trails. She even got me on top of a brahma bull in downtown Denver…how’s that for trusting someone?

I will always miss you Jill. The hole in my heart is huge. But I rejoice that you are free of that body…I believe you are already surrounded by more cats and dogs than you could ever have imagined. I believe I will see you on the other side and we’ll share a giggle or two again.

You are my new irreverent guardian angel. Just as it should be.

“A generous heart is never lonesome.” John O’Donohue

Going to your new internist who says she wants to do a “memory test” on you, and then she forgets to do it.

Not realizing how gray your hair is because you don’t have good lighting in your house.

Noting how the physical trainer in the gym thinks it’s cute you are asking about a piece of strength equipment, and resisting the urge to tell him how many years you’ve been working out.

Starting to realize the person in the mirror really is what you look like now.

Not only making lists, but making duplicate lists. One for the kitchen table. One for the car.

Watching your prayer list grow longer and longer with names of friends dealing with serious health issues.

Avoiding unnecessary drama in life whenever possible.

Two words:  elastic waist.

Four words:   “I’ll take the discount.”

Fully paying attention to how beautiful a full moon is, how sweetly a wren sings, how good a cool breeze can feel on a hot day.

Being grateful you were alive when the Beatles first appeared, when the astronauts landed on the moon, when stores were festive and fun at the holidays and window-shopping was a treat (and safe), and when nothing felt better than roller-skating down the sidewalk or waiting for the ice cream truck (Merry Mobile) to stop by. 

Wishing people would stop starting at their phones 24/7.

Being able to remember who sat next to you in fourth grade but having no idea where you put your keys. Or those two lists you made.

Being astonished that Herb Alpert is 87.

Getting in extra steps by looking for your car.

Deciding that it really is time to get your life together.  Really.

Setting new goals…for the next 30 years….why not?

“My mother always used to say, ‘The older you get, the better you get. Unless you’re a banana.” Betty White

So are we less creative as we grow older?

Or do we just know more than we did when we were younger, so we are more apt to rely on what we believe to be true and not explore new possibilities?

Or are some of us late bloomers anyway, so we hit our peaks in our 60s?

Interesting debate. I watched a TED talk with a scientist who charted when the great minds of physics came up with their breakthrough ideas. While several did so in their 20s, it wasn’t true for everyone.  In fact, because of having more resources, time and fewer responsibilities, some of the researchers did not hit their peak until after age 50.

It can be so frustrating in this youth-obsessed culture to know that you really are doing the best work you’ve ever done…but your gray hair means you don’t get chosen for the sweet assignments. Proving ourselves becomes a daily task (but isn’t it always that way, no matter our age?)

Seems the thing we boomers need to keep in mind is it’s true we’re aging, our knees are aching and some days, we run out of energy before we’d like.  But we’re also stubbornly, fiercely driven to do a good job—to fulfill that work ethic our Depression-era parents so successfully drilled in our heads. 

Creativity shows itself in many ways.  People who have the “one hit” in their lives and then fade away (or just enjoy the fruits of their success).  People who switch careers late in life so they don’t do that first painting or write that bestseller until they are well past 60. 

And then there’s the wonderful reality that most of us as we grow older stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. We take more risks in many ways, and that’s part of creativity. You walk by a funky house with plastic pink flamingos all over the yard. If it’s a young couple living there, you laugh and say that’s cool, they must be artists. 

If it’s a silver-haired man living alone, you shake your head a bit and say well, he’s probably losing his mind, but he’s harmless.

Now hang on a second…is that fair?  Is that what we do to those of us who decide to follow a different drummer as we age?  I think if you want to walk down the street with a purple plume on your head you should be able to, at 9 or 90, without people running indoors. 

Creativity is courageous.  Groundbreaking creativity is fearless.  Forget the jitters…doesn’t that have an element of fun in it?  (Younger people can’t always take those risks, they have the whole “it will be on Facebook if I do it” problem.)

 We don’t!

Buy the crazy outfit.  Paint the tree blue.  Get a blank page and write whatever you want on it.  Believe in your ability to come up with ideas, concepts, solutions, new ways to think about things. 

Someone laughing at us isn’t going to kill us.  (Boy, have learned that by now.)  Lots of very creative, very great people have been laughed at.

Let’s go for it. 

Let’s rock that wrinkle OUR way!

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” — Kurt Vonnegut

Where have I been? Why haven’t I posted in so long?

Such great questions. I owe an answer, yet I don’t think I’m the one you can ask.

Instead, ask the appliances, furnace, electrical connections, plumbing, and roof of my house. They will tell you how they all met one night under a full moon and decided to go haywire one by one, over the course of the past several months (continuing today).

Ask the gremlins that cause people I care very much about to have a disease, dementia, and other conditions that break my heart and steal my mental energy.

Ask the unpredictability of a work schedule that, even after 44 years (30 years as an independent), still can throw a wrench in the best of plans.

Not that I’m making excuses. I should still be able to turn out insight, humor, compassion, and even a little propaganda. But I confess that weariness does get the best of me sometimes.

You ever feel that way? Astonished at how tired you are? Wondering why it seems to take so much more effort to be out there than it used to? Is it our bodies, and the years behind them, that do this…or is how the world has changed and seems to take so much out of us than it once did?

So much anger. Too much fear. No clear path to higher ground.

Life is all about showing up they say. So we do. At our jobs. In our kitchens. At church. At birthday parties and graduations. We’re there, at least physically. I think a big part of us is somewhere else.

Hiking a mountain trail. Swimming in the ocean. Tossing a line into a moving stream. Watching the sun set.

And that’s okay. Because we’ve showed up a lot if we’re baby boomers and beyond. And maybe now a part of us is wanting some attention. After all, we promised our inner selves a fantastic retirement.

Yet it doesn’t seem to feel that way….shouldn’t there be something more? What is this longing that doesn’t seem to go away no matter what we accomplish?

Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue talks about longing…one that we never stop feeling. Regardless of how successful we are, how wonderful our relationships, how healthy our bank account, even just how happy we are. This longing never goes away.

As he says in his book “Eternal Echoes”….

“…Even when you achieve something that you have worked for over the years, the voice of this longing will often surface and qualify your achievement….even when you feel you have arrived, relax and let your self belong with all your heart. Then, the voice whispers and your belonging is disturbed. The voice always makes you feel as if something is missing. You are not able to name what is missing…. Something that feels vital to you lies out of your reach in the unknown. The voice comes from your soul….it confirms you as a relentless pilgrim on the earth. When you recognize that such unease is natural, it will free you….

“This eternal longing will always insist on some door remaining open somewhere in all the shelters where you belong. When you befriend this longing, it will keep you awake and alert to why you are here on earth. It will intensify your journey, but also liberate you from the need to go on many seductive but futile quests.

O’Donohue says this is a longing that can’t be satisfied on earth. We are born with it, we live with it, we leave this world with it. That may sound incredibly frustrating. But I find it a bit of a relief to know that I haven’t failed or dropped the ball just because I feel something isn’t quite complete yet.

As boomers we were raised to take pride in our work and to achieve success in as many ways as we can. That’s great. But there’s more to being alive, and these are the years to really experience as much as we can. And sometimes, that means recharging, stepping back, and dropping out for a bit.

The game isn’t over. We’re just waiting for the right time to make a play.

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” Henry Miller