Category Archives: Aging

Aging, Dogs

Go West, Old Man

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Spring                                                        Waning Bloodroot Moon

Tomorrow I take off for Lincoln, Nebraska to pick up our two grand-dogs, Sollie and Gertie.  They will stay with us while Jon and Jen’s house has renovation work done, adding another room, a new roof, much needed closets.  Sollie has been on a hunger strike for the last six months so we’ll see how he responds to a new environment.  He’s begun gaining weight just recently, so I hope the new digs don’t throw him off.  Gertie has a canine temperament much like Rigel and Celt, our first Irish Wolfhound.   That means she’s an adventuress–read, tries to escape all the time, territorial, mischievous and damned cute.  I have a hunch she’ll met Mr. Electric Fence soon after arriving here.

We have plenty of space for them and we have had, at one point, seven dogs, so managing this many is not new for us.  Besides this’ll be just five.

Though I enjoy long drives by myself this will be a marathon.  One day to Lincoln.  Spend the night.  One day back.  This is because I don’t want to handle Gertie and Sollie in a motel.  I don’t want to lose them, after all.  I got a couple of audio books for the journey, so I’ll just settle in for  several hundred miles and listen.

Spent more time today translating Ovid, a bit of time with Wheelock and then got back to work on Missing.

Aging, Humanities, Myth and Story, Retirement, Writing

Ovid and Me

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Spring                                                               Waning Bloodroot Moon

The Latin work has gone past difficult learning, though there is still that, too, into a different, almost ecstatic place.  Reading the words of another language and making sense, poetry, from them still seems magical to me.  I’m really doing it.  The closest analogy is my first set of glasses that corrected my far vision.  All of a sudden I saw individual stars in the sky.  william-turner-ancient-italy-ovid-banishedThe moment was extraordinary.  What had been a fuzzy, blurred night sky became black velvet set with bright points of light.

Now it appears I will finish Diana and Actaeon before the Titian show closes on May 1st and I might make my way through Diana and Callisto, too.  I’m enjoying translating the different stories, so I think I’ll move on to Medea, Pentheus and other discrete stories rather than try the full frontal assault I had planned, start with Book I, verse 1 and soldier through to the last verse of Book XVI.

Another idea that seems possible now is to investigate the Latin texts behind other objects in the museum:  Theseus and the Centaur at the Lapith wedding,  Ganymede and the Eagle,  Lucretia,  Germanicus.  I’m sure there are other objects that have particular Latin texts behind them.  I have no particular reason for doing this except to deepen my knowledge of mythology and of the specific objects in our collection with Latin connections.

Taking up a new intellectual challenge later in life is not only possible, it’s exhilarating.

Aging, Cinema and Television, GeekWorld, Great Work, Memories, Politics, Travel

I Want To Like Nuclear Power

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Spring                                                                                    Waning Bloodroot Moon

Japan.  Nuclear power.  Climate change.  Not a pretty picture.  I don’t know about others, but I want to like nuclear power.  Its non-carbon emitting energy production has a potential role in staving off the worst effects of global warming.  However.  With no place to store the waste permanently, the waste gets stored temporarily near the reactor in which it was used.  This seems safe.  Look at Prairie Island.  After all these years, still no trouble.  Then again.  How many years do we have to have in a row with no trouble?  25,000 or so, I believe.  That’s a long run.

That’s not all.  Situations develop, human error, mechanical failure, maintenance scrimping, natural disasters with unforseen confluences, say an F5 tornado and a once in a century flood.  Could happen over the span of over 25,000 years.  Probably will.  Three Mile Island and Chernobyl had become objects in the rear view mirror, errors, mistakes, but over with.  Until Fukushima.

Now, suddenly, they begin to look links in a chain, a nuclear chain.  Remember Godzilla?  Them?  The 50 Foot Woman?  Radiation.  Now there’s radioactive iodine in the sea.  I want to like nuclear power, but I’m having a hard time.  The stakes of mistakes seem too high.  At least for now.

Wish somebody would get a good fusion reactor goin’.

Aging, Family, Politics, Travel, World History, Writing

Path of Most Resistance

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Spring                                         Waning Bloodroot Moon

I have a new round of resistance work underway in addition to the Tai Chi.  This work I got from Brad at the Y.  It involves squatting on a balance board while doing curls, then shoulders followed by a second round, also squatting, focusing on the chest and triceps.  Every other day I do crunches, too.  That plus the aerobics and the Tai Chi, plus the Body Flow I attend with Kate should be quite enough for now.  My goal with the Tai Chi is to learn it well enough to practice it while on the cruise.

(in case you couldn’t tell, this is not me.)

As to the cruise, I’m buying books, reading, talking to friends who’ve been to various spots, trying to figure out the logistical possibilities for trips other than the usual shore excursions.  At Stefan’s suggestion I’m going to look into a day flight to one of the Galapagos Islands as well as the potential trip to Aerquipa.  Part of travel’s allure for me lies in this preparation, the ingestion of different places, cultures and histories, different natural and environmental histories, different literature and art.

Meanwhile we work at the legislature, the Sierra Club and the committee for which I am responsible, the folks keep coming to the MIA, the Woolly’s meet and talk, the Latin continues to flow and Kate and I learn more and more about retirement.  The novel?  Well…  Not so much right now.  You see, there’s the garden, too, and next will be the bees.

Aging, Humanities

Lost In Translation

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Spring                                                             Waning Bloodroot Moon

Just wanted to post a notice here that I have several verses of Ovid’s Metamorphosis translated, about a fourth of his version of Diana and Actaeon, the subject of one of Titian’s paintings at the MIA’s current exhibition.  This level of translation is a first pass, so is not meant to be in idiomatic English.  That’s a next step.  I’m excited that I’ve gotten this far.

The task of translation is far more complex than it appears, involving inevitable personal choices that reflect not the original work, but the mind and culture of the translator.  I suspected this, but now I know for sure.

This work has become a hobby for me, something I enjoy picking up in spare time, a jigsaw puzzle or a model.

Those of you who’ve mastered another language or languages, I’m getting to the place, at 64, where I may join you.  I have a lot of respect for any who have stuck the course with another language, we are so inept here in the US.  It’s been a fun ride so far.

Aging, Great Work, Health, Politics, Weather +Climate, World History

Clean Teeth. Legislation. Western Civ.

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Spring                                                                       Waning Bloodroot Moon

Dangerous driving conditions tomorrow. Winter storm warning.  Who stole my spring?

Into the city twice today, once to get my teeth cleaned and a second time for a Sierra Club meeting on legislative basics.  The teeth cleaning, an every 6 months visit, has become routine by now.  Mary, the dental hygienist I saw today, complimented on my teeth-brushing.  That feels a bit to me like being told, good boy, you cleaned your plate.  Mary has a gentle way with her and worked hard to convince me to take extra good care of my teeth.  It’s important for overall health, especially as we age.

On both trips listened to another lecture series, this one on Western Civilization, part II.  It focuses on the 500+ years in which modernism arose.  This is ground I’ve been over from several perspectives over the years, but each time it gets a bit clearer and the puzzle pieces seem to fit together better.  Modernism and the Enlightenment are key to understanding our current political, cultural, social and economic conditions, so it’s hard to become over educated about them.  What I enjoy now is finding connections between, say, Chinese history and Western.

I’m on lecture 9 already.  Just finished the Reformation, ground I know pretty well, but it never hurts to hear it put in the larger socio-political context.

The economic and environmental situation we find ourselves in now can be traced back to this period, both the good and the bad.  More later.  I’m tired.

Aging, Humanities, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

The OWM

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Spring                                                    Waning Bloodroot Moon

The Order of Woolly Mammoths, or OWM, the sacred sound that created the world, met tonight at Frank’s for our annual corned beef and cabbage feed.  Bill Schmidt gave us an insiders perspective on the nuclear crisis, explaining the safeguards in place and said, with some emotion, that if called and if he could contribute, he would go.  It gave me a personal connection to the brave, even heroic effort that engineers and other workers at the Fukushima facility have already offered and confirmed what I suspected.  These are men and women who have a wartime level commitment to their jobs, knowing that if doing them costs their lives; it’s a sacrifice both necessary and worthwhile.  They deserve our deepest admiration and respect as humans tested in a type of cauldron most of us will never, thankfully, see.

Tom, a new grandfather-to-be, asked for advice, stories, thoughts from current Woolly grandfathers.  He has chosen to devote his meeting, our next one, to the topic.  Gray heads discussing gray-headdom.

Stefan and I discussed a possible visit to Aerquipa when our cruise hits Peru.  It would involve a plane flight from Lima of about an hour and a half.  I want to make it work, seeing Lonnie and her folks at work, visiting someone I know.  Some planning to be done.

These men, this crowd of silverbacks, men I knew when our hair had color are a central part of my life.  It was good, as it always is.

Aging, Asia, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Retirement

Mind/Body

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Spring                                                                Waning Bloodroot Moon

The yard!  The yard!  If Tattoo had been here this winter, he’d have gotten pretty excited about this dreary muddy mess now more visible than not.  The mountain of snow over which I could not see as I degaraged my Celica has melted to foothill levels, allowing me sights not seen for two + months.  Yippee.

Business meeting this morning and we acknowledged both the new tax burden and our wisdom in saving adequately to deal with it.  This transition year into the retired life has had surprises, mostly pleasant ones, but this one caught us up short, at least at first.  We have enough money to pay the taxes and still go on with our cruise.  I’m glad because I’ve already got that Panama hat picked out.

I’ve entered a new phase of physical activity, one with not only aerobic and resistance work, but also with body movement exercise like the Tai Chi and the Body Flow class at the Y.  It feels different, maybe better.  The better aspect comes with the more body friendly Tai Chi, yoga and pilates.  Aerobic and resistance are necessary to retain muscle mass and heart/circulatory system health, but the others work the body in a way designed to calm, loosen, stretch.  The Tai Chi, too, has a strong element, as does yoga, of the Eastern mystical.  Yoga as taught here has lost much of that, but the Tai Chi world remains rooted in the ancient Taoist traditions of China.

Aging, Art and Culture, Asia, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Humanities, World History

Welcome Home, Tai Chi

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Spring                                                   Waning Bloodroot Moon

Once in a while something comes into my life and it feels like a part of me already, as if a missing piece had come back home.  Meeting Kate was like that for me.  My split-off.  When the Wednesday classes for the two-year docent program began, art history came home.  When I found a Jungian analyst over 25 years ago, my Self began to return.  Last night I attended my first Tai Chi class.  Another wandering aspect of myself has joined the others at the hearthside.

When my hands floated up last night into the second position, I felt an energy pushing away from my body, just I felt it collecting as I pulled my elbows in and those same hands back toward my body.  A sense of inner peace, momentary, but real, emerged.  My first class, but not my last.

It may be true as an article in the Star-Tribune this morning claimed, that memory takes longer to cement as we grow older, may be, but for me, I hold out for variability, that some things to take longer to seat, yes; but others, because they’re compelling or because they’re split-offs that have found their back to the homestead, just rejoin as if they’d never left.

I’m going to confess something here.  There’s a part of me, a looky-loo part, that hopes disasters will go all the way like the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan or the financial crisis or the riots sweeping the Middle East.  A part of me wants to see what a nuclear meltdown would entail.  What if that chief villain of high tech actually happened?  What would the consequences be?  Really?  This is not at all a desire to see more disasters or worse catastrophes, rather it is a sort of morbid curiosity, a curiosity about extremes.  What if a volcano like Mt. Rainier or Mt. Fuji erupt at full force?  What if the sea levels do rise by 2 feet or more?  This is the immoderate part of me, that aspect that wants thing to extend to their logical conclusion.

I wouldn’t feel embarrassed about this at all if there wasn’t the possibility, the great likelihood, of serious injury and death to people and eco-systems.  So, I feel embarrassed, but still interested.

Aging, Art and Culture, Bees, Cinema and Television, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humanities, Politics, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

Carpe diem

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Imbolc                                 Full Bloodroot Moon

Got my novel a boost by going out to Blue Cloud, got back and dove into the legcom, MIA, Latin sequence plus finishing my presentation,  Redefining the Sacred, and have gotten little novel work done.  The times.  Now the air has begun to warm up and the snow to melt.  That means more time outside, which I’m eager to get started, but that, of course, means less time inside and all of the winter work is desk bound or at the museum.

When I talked to Kate about my despair for human life on this planet (see yesterday’s post), I also commented on my zest for life.  It’s never been higher, I told her.  OK, yes, the sun shone, the sky was blue and it looked warmer, all boosts to the life zestometer, but it’s more than that.  Kate’s retired and that’s removed a lot of stress from my life as well as hers.  I know this for sure because I have a mild case of psoriasis and its gotten much, much better since her retirement in January.

I’ve also got two challenging volunteer roles, docent at the MIA and the legcom at the Sierra Club, each of them test different skill sets every week.  The Latin work has given renewed confidence in my learning capacity, plus it’s fun in ways I hadn’t anticipated.  We have two grandkids with birthdays coming up.  The dogs are healthy.  Our orchard should begin producing this year.  I know what seeds I’m going to start and what I’m going to plant outside, early.  There’s a novel underway.  I’ve made new friends at Bluecloud and through the MIA and Sierra Club work. This will be my third year as a beekeeper. The Woolly’s are in our 25th year.  Finally, Kate and I have started new physical routines.

Said another way I get to be around art, practice politics, create, grow, love, laugh, visit with friends and family.  Life is full of matters that can keep us excited and eager to get up in the morning.

No matter what the world may be like tomorrow today is a day filled with promise.  So, like my friend, Bill W., I’ll take my life one day at a time.