Age is a moveable number determined by our internal joie de vivre quotient, or so we are often told. According to this premise, we are just as old as we feel. Our true age may be 75 or 85, but we might still prefer to be 50 or 60 in our mind’s eye.

The Internet is awash in pages that celebrate aging well. You can find the

35 Best Age Quotes, 14 of the Best Quotes About Aging, 70 Best Getting Older Quotes About Aging Gracefully and so on and so forth. Amazon has no end of books that want us to get the most out of our later years. Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives is one. Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don’t Have To is another. It turns out that aging may be the only thing that unites all of us living on Planet Earth at any given moment. Each and every one of us here today will be one day older tomorrow if we are blessed to open our eyes in the morning. Or as Eleanor Roosevelt once put it, “Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.”

Albert Einstein admonished us: “Do not grow old, no matter how long you live.”  No other than Benjamin Franklin told us that Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. On aging, Gabriel García Márquez knowingly wrote What happens is that you don’t feel it on the inside, but from the outside everybody can see it.

There is no wealth of opinion zeroed in on aging.

No other than Sophia Loren has had her say: “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”  Sorry, Sophia, no matter how well felt your observations, I don’t believe any of us ever defeats age. I prefer Golda Meir’s insight, “Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard there is nothing you can do about it.”

We all age, whether we like it or not. Sooner of later, thoughts of aging will come home to roost for even the youngest of us alive today.

Many of us, getting older, are happy to share our later years with our family and long established, or even new, friends. We are ready to put our energy to work in the effort of reflection, contributing where we can, thoughtfulness and winding down. We never quite put it in terms of letting go, but yeah we are learning to let go.

Many of us, as I said, but not all.

These days, there are still music stars going strong well on in years – Cher is 76, Streisand 80, Dolly Parton 75, Bob Dylan 80, Ringo Starr 81. Yet, no other than Mike Jagger 78, recently had this to say, Rock ’n’ roll, or any kind of pop music honestly, isn’t supposed to be done when you’re in your 70s. It wasn’t designed for that.

A lot of life, in fact, was never designed for doing in our 70’s or 80’s. Of course, we have never turned to our rock stars to lead us. They get on with their business in the background of our lives. We don’t check in with them on a daily basis. A new song, a new record, drops whenever they have something new to share, every year, every 5 or 10.

We do check in, however, with those we have voted or not voted for, with those in charge of the leadership of our future more often than we should, perhaps, those who have chosen to represent, to influence or to channel their wisdom into setting the best path forward for our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren.

The desire for the glory of leadership in later life, it turns out, is distributed only among a certain few, but that certain few influence, and how, our daily lives to an inordinate degree.

Putin is on the cusp of his 70’s, younger – even if more delusional – than many of his peers. Not far behind him at all, Trump came to office in January 2017, the oldest ever US President at the time, sworn in at the age of 70. If he were to come back to haunt us and win in 2024, he would be 77 on election day and 81 when leaving office. Biden does him one better. Our current President took office when he was 78. If he runs again, wins and completes a second term, he would be 86 by the time 2028 comes round.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a recent New York Times piece on a Biden second term:

To nearly all the Democrats interviewed, the president’s age — 79 now, 82 by the time the winner of the 2024 election is inaugurated — is a deep concern about his political viability. They have watched as a commander in chief who built a reputation for gaffes has repeatedly rattled global diplomacy with unexpected remarks that were later walked back by his White House staff, and as he has sat for fewer interviews than any of his recent predecessors.

… The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s two winning presidential campaigns.

Trump and Biden are not the only US or world leaders not yet ready to let go.

Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch in the history of the United Kingdom. She recently celebrated he 96th birthday and announced no date to relinquish her powers.

Nicaragua’s dictator, Daniel Ortega, is 76. His accompice wife, Rosario Murillo, is 70.

Republican Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, is 80. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, is 82.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still a Supreme Court Justice when she died at the age of 87.

Diane Feinstein, 88, is at a crossroads. Once again the Times offers insight. Feinstein, the Times reports is far from the towering presence she once was on the American political stage. The Times continues:

At 88, Ms. Feinstein sometimes struggles to recall the names of colleagues, frequently has little recollection of meetings or telephone conversations, and at times walks around in a state of befuddlement — including about why she is increasingly dogged by questions about whether she is fit to serve in the Senate representing the 40 million residents of California, according to half a dozen lawmakers and aides who spoke about the situation on the condition of anonymity.

To age is human. Aging is real. As much as we might try, we cannot deny it. We lose some of our abilities as we get older. Yes, some of us can still do bungee jumps. I can assure you that those are the few and far between. The World Health Organization defines aging thus:

 At the biological level, ageing results from the impact of the accumulation of a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time. This leads to a gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity, a growing risk of disease and ultimately death.

Getting older, it turns out, is really a thing.

Benedict XVI ruled his Catholic flock until he resigned as Pope, aged 85, in 2013. He cited a lack of strength of mind and body in annoucing his decision. The present Pope, Francis 85 is ailing in health, and if rumors are true, also on the cusp of announcing his resignation. We should applaud him if that is the case. Knowing when to step down and when to bow out is not only admirable and counter-cultural to a certain extent, but at times necessary.

We set limits for those wanting to enter our leadership roles. To be President of the United States, you have to be at least 35. To be a Senator, you need to be 30. To be a Representative in the House, 25.

Perhaps it’s time to contemplate upper limits for those in power. We don’t have any in place. Life expectancy was not the same when our Constitution, rules and regulations were written. The World Health Organization, again, reminds us that:

People worldwide are living longer. Today most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. Every country in the world is experiencing growth in both the size and the proportion of older persons in the population.

… By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. At this time the share of the population aged 60 years and over will increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion. By 2050, the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1 billion). The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected to triple between 2020 and 2050 to reach 426 million.

The Social Security Agency defines eligibility for full retirement as 66 if you were born from 1943 to 1954. Biden was born in 1942, Trump in 1946. They could both easily step back from the public arena right now with a robust pension if only humility would allow them to do so.

Is that ever going to to happen.

Of course not.

In the meantime, the internet is overflowing with positive sentiment on the plus side of retirement. AAG, (Retire Better) has the 60 Best Inspirational and Funny Retirement Sayings. Senior Living has 30 retirement quotes. Southern Living has its 50 Retirement Quotes That Will Resonate With Any Retiree.

The post Old as the Hills appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In real life, I’m about to turn 70, or someone who looks a lot like me in the mirror in the morning is about to turn 70. It’s 2020, and I was born in 1950, which would tend to insinuate by basic mathematical calculation that I’m now almost (let’s not get carried away!) 70. My birthday is still a ways away in June.

But just a minute. Me, 70?  That can’t be right. I don’t feel like 70. I don’t think like 70. At least I don’t think that I think like a 70-year-old thinks. And who knows how a 70-year-old thinks anyway? For one, many of us in the past never got to this point in life; lifespans were much shorter. And for two, many of the rest of us who did and have gotten to be 70 and beyond are too busy with aches and pains, doctor’s appointments, yoga, seeking public office, looking for partners in their 20’s and 30’s, getting drunk in the afternoon or Oy vey celebrating a thousand other ways of denying to even think about noting.

That being said, I have to admit that people now ask for my opinion a lot more than they used to. And at times people give me to believe by the way they listen to my responses that my observations of life might actually have some weight. The weight of air, truth be told: Little do these people know how little I know. You’ve lived so much and seen so much, people now say. But just for the record, being 70 or thereabouts doesn’t make anything anyone of us says or does right, deep, attractive or even reasonably well-thought-out just because. Good Lord, Trump is 73. And in the interests of political fairness, Biden is 77, Warren – just like me – is 70 this year, and Sanders is 78.

I didn’t die in my 20’s, or in my 30’s. Or in my 40’s or even in my 50’s though I angsted about dying all through those years plenty – is angst even a verb in English? And, not even as a small aside, I have been known to have suicidal thoughts. Now, many of my friends and family members from those times are gone, internal collateral damage to my obstinate refusal to make a decision to end my life long ago.

Get over it, just get on with your life, I hear you saying. Every single one of us is getting older day in day out. It’s called being alive! (That’s you again.) My New York therapist used to put it to me in as many words during our sessions. You’ll be dead, buried and gone forever, she would say. Whatever this is, this is better, her words.

I get it. I got it even when I wasn’t even close to being 70.

I celebrated my 50^th birthday in a swell hotel in Paris. Swell is arch, of course. But the hotel was swell not because of its meager 2-person ancient elevator, nor for its exorbitant room rates, and not even for its oh so chic and tastefully re-imagined rooms, but because the croissants, butter and jam in the hotel dining room in the morning were why croissants were ever invented. It wasn’t what I had planned on that visit to Paris, but it’s what I remember – I enjoyed the perfect croissant in France on my 50^th birthday.

And for my 60^th birthday, I was in/at/on Machu Picchu –choose your preposition – in Peru. To be honest, I was flailing in the shade of Inca precision rock constructions at a great height fighting for breath due to my asthma for much of my visit. But I was there. And if I’m being totally honest, my favorite part of my visit to Cuzco and Machu Picchu was the one night I spent at the railroad hotel in Ollantaytambo, an overlooked calming way station on the mythical route between present day Peru and its distant past. The esthetic sparseness of my room and its soaring mountain vistas impressed and calmed me. Not to mention that it was there that I first learned how to set my iPad alarm clock. It worked. I made my early morning train –- it was literally outside the hotel door — to get to as it turned out a lack of breath high in the Peruvian Andes.

I remember both decade birthdays for odd unplanned details. My decades have always been mathematically easy. I was 10 in 1960, 20 in 1970 and so on.

Bigger plans tend to go by the wayside. Intentions go by the wayside. Twice in my life, I thought I was going to move to Barcelona. It never happened. I also thought I was going to live in Mexico City. That hasn’t happened either. Unanticipated turns of events, on the other hand, have come about. I lived in an 1850’s cottage down a dirt road in upstate New York for years. And then, I spent years in Sarasota, Florida. Florida is never a place that I would have pictured myself in when younger. And did I ever think I was going to live in South America? No. And yet here I am, 10 years on, a resident of Bogotá, Colombia.

I did spend many of the middle years of my life in New York City, and I celebrated many birthdays there.

I arrived in New York in 1979. I was 29. I hate you, someone said to me at a party just this past weekend in Bogotá – not for how easy it is for me to remember how old I am in any specific year, but because You lived in New York in the 70’s and 80’s!  There it is again, You’ve lived through so much.

Just to be clear, I never went to Studio 54. I never hung out with Andy, or Bianca, or Liza. I never went to the Anvil or any of the other sex clubs. I was just a regular Joe eking out a living at minimum wage in an extraordinary city at an extraordinary moment in time. I loved every moment of those years, every daily sweaty running for the subway, every bounding up staircases at Grand Central and every getting to my morning midtown classroom to teach just on time. I loved every getting home late at night, having earned just that little bit of money that made it possible for me to continue living in New York City.

I loved being young in New York in the 1980’s. Now, people believe that just to have been there, to have walked on those streets where a legal decision allowed booksellers along 2^nd in the 50’s blocks to sell hardcover bestsellers at discounted prices, where pasta was still being freshly made at a popular restaurant window that I passed every day on 43^rd,, where there was still an Automat on 42^nd is the equivalent of having lived through Nirvana. Who knows?

I do remember that my older brother – we were peas of the same pod, literally – when he was visiting from Ireland sat me down in front of the Citicorp Building at 53^rd and 3^rd when I was 32 or 33. I was on a lunch break from teaching classes. Life goes fast, he told me. Embrace this. Live, were his exact words. Don’t fuck around, are the words that I remember, though I don’t think that those are the words that he said. Don’t fuck this up are more specifically the words that I remember now.

Did I or didn’t I fuck it up? I don’t know. My brother, one of my few judges, is long gone. Now, it’s just me.

And where am I going to celebrate being 70? That I don’t know either. But 80 is next on the horizon. And just for the record, and according to what I hear, 80 is the new 60.

The post If 60 is the new 40, then I’m about to be 50 appeared first on Occasional Planet.

This is not a political post. Today’s the day that I stop thinking politically for just a little while and think historically and sentimentally instead. Because today, November 13, 2013, is my mother’s 100^th birthday.

She doesn’t want a party. She doesn’t want a lot of visitors or bouquets of flowers. In fact, the fact that she has told us that she doesn’t want these things is, in itself, testimony to the fact that my mother is still, in fact, running her own show. Her memory is amazing. She can still play a mean game of Mah Jongg. She can write her own limericks, design and sew her own  signature berets, write in the clear, consistent, Palmer-Method script handwriting that she learned in grade school, tell the Aesop’s fable story of “The Thirsty Crow,” replete with props she made herself, and create photo albums for her great grandchildren. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, shown this post, she edits it for grammatical correctness.

For her birthday, my sisters and I have created a collection of limericks and anecdotes submitted by friends and family. The response to our call for submissions was a tsunami—resulting in an 82-page book. Undoubtedly, it too will bring out Mom’s inner editor, and she’ll spend as much time correcting historical inaccuracies as she will simply “kvelling” over the words themselves.

Here’s a limerick I included in the book:

Mildred Shur: Who could be more create-y?

Or surpass her in thoughts that are weight-y?

For Mildred, whose mind

Is quite nicely aligned,

100 is just the new 80.

Worth mentioning, I think, on this day, is this tidbit: Born during a monster snowstorm in Cleveland, Ohio—so huge that my grandfather had to carry my grandmother to the hospital when she went into labor, Mom has outlived many notables who share her birth year—and outlived them with a quality of life we can all envy: Loretta Young, Rosa Parks, Mary Martin, Albert Camus [I should make some kind of existential joke here, but you already get that], Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Danny Kaye and Burt Lancaster.

It’s a Jewish tradition, on someone’s birthday, to wish them “Ad me’ah v’esrim”–“May you live to 120.”  In Mom’s case, we may need a bigger number.

Just for fun, here’s a gallery of images from the year my Mom was born.

[cincopa AcBArV7SFZar]

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