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Posts Tagged ‘age’

One Special Barbie

Posted in humor, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2024| 1 Comment »

dollhouse

“One of the hardest jobs in this world is to be able to preserve the innocent face of our childhood in our adulthood as well!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Let’s play in my room,” my four-year-old granddaughter says.

I’m accepted as another kid. A genuine compliment. My daughter-in-law smiles. Very few preschoolers have a playmate named Grandma.

I take the observation seat on the floor as our granddaughter begins a run with various dolls through the girls’ dollhouse. She includes a monster at least twice the size of several Barbies. Monster is given the part because her hair is twice her size. Something like a fuzzy hot-air balloon the color of a faded blue dishcloth.

“Ahhhhhhh!” our little girl yells. I suspect the drama is for my benefit.

I watch as each doll slides through the window. Enthusiasm complete.

I grab one of the team from the stack. It is wearing a short, semi-existent top. No pants.

“Uh, I think this Barbie needs some pants.”

“Oh, it’s okay she just wears a butt.” My playmate’s voice sounds matter-of-fact as she finds a fresh antagonist for her play. A rabbit taking on the role of a skunk. Is the show for me or is this a standard activity?

I face fairy tales with a twist.

“What’s wrong with your hands, Grandma?” my playmate asks as she studies the smooth back of her hands.

“Not a thing, sweetheart. It’s a thing called age.”

Oh, well! I guess I didn’t escape reality as thoroughly as I thought.

 

 

 

illustration made from public domain image

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Old People, an Acrostic

Posted in poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2024| Leave a Comment » 






“It`s not how old you are, it`s how you are old.” 
― Jules Renard

Old People

Old People,
Look at the present and savor it because each
Day may not be
Perfect, but if it’s not
Enveloped in pain, it’s okay.
Old folk, celebrate the
Persons in your lives who
Love because it alone makes
Existence worthwhile.  Love back~
 

					
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Perspective, Time Delivered

					

					Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , ,  on June 4, 2023|
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The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected. (Robert Frost)

At dawn and dusk
the sun touches the horizon
with the same elegance.

I celebrate evening.
Not because night
dissolves the sky's brilliance.

But because day
if lived
brightens midnight.









					
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So What Is Age?

					

					Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , ,  on May 3, 2023|
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“The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles!” – Ralph Waldo Emerson


Capturing the whole of life continues to evade me. I have been 70 for more than a few years. Yet, learning doesn’t stop. Life has too many complex parts. 


When I stood waist-high to grownups, I thought gray hair and wrinkles belonged to creatures of a separate species. Children in the late 1940s and early 1950s lived in another realm. 


We learned rules after we broke them. For example, building a campfire in the basement is not advisable. Even if the responsible individual planned to put it out after the Native American ceremony. I was probably about five at the time. And yes, I was the child who found fire in a box by the hot water heater. 


Children sat separately from their elders during family events. We didn’t listen to any adult discussions. Some of our questions received a laugh and others found censure.  


Why isn’t Grandma bald like Grandpa? The observation was innocent enough that a quick guffaw was the only answer. Asking why Mommy and Grandma were so fat was another matter.


Distance. A distinct memory of my early life. The higher and the lower class. Where they were to meet was vague.


Transitions take tangled curves. I wonder if an easy path would have left space to experiment and fail before succeeding.


Now, I speak to my grandchildren at eye level. We play. My three-year-old granddaughter has no understanding that my husband is my son’s daddy. There is no need to explain yet. Wisdom doesn’t come with a set of rules. It’s organic. 


I earned the lines in my skin. I treasure a few more as long as each road offers new passageways. 


 


 The above painting is part of something new I am discovering.


 


 
					
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Good Morning, Mirror

					

					Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , , , ,  on November 28, 2022|
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“Ageing is just another word for living.” 


Cindy Joseph




Good morning, mirror. I can count on you to be truthful. This day may be young, but my face shouts geriatric. Reflections don’t need to speak to shout reality. You can be powerful. I watch and let what I see connect with my brain and heart so soon after Thanksgiving. Life is a precious gift. I think about gains and losses. People. Things. 


One glance outside shows me trees with rough bark. When birds and animals visit a growing oak or maple, they don’t change the tree’s mind about what the species is, or why it doesn’t have leaves this time of year.  I wonder, was my last storm worth fighting? Or would it have been better to wait it out? Wisdom discerns when to act and when to remain silent. Whatever I do, may I choose to do it, to be it, to act with as full a vision as possible. May I lose this notion that I need to be perfect to be okay.


Good morning, mirror. Good morning, fresh-day me. One more opportunity to make a difference. 
					
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No Clapping Zone

					

					Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , , , , , , ,  on July 14, 2022|
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“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” – Mark Twain

No Clapping Zone

Dupuytren’s Contracture in my left hand
joins with an arthritic thumb to create
its own clumsy five-digit island.

On my right hand, a long-ago 
partially healed broken middle finger
refuses to bend. And avoids vulgar messages.

None of the ten appendages chooses 
to juggle anything more challenging
than a dose of Tylenol.

On one point both hands agree.
No clapping possible.
We look like drunk spiders.

And yet, both left and right concur
in more important matters.
In everyday places.

Let’s cook a meal. Ignore the spills.
Or type this poem, or send a message
to someone who needs support.

Let the larger audience carry
the greater approval for performances.
These hands will offer gifts. Just give them time.




					
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Through the Eyes of an Old Photograph

					

					Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , ,  on February 15, 2021|
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In my dreams, I never have an age. (Madeleine L’Engle)


A framed photograph dusted now and then.


The image never changes. One dresser 


dragged through locations and years.


 


Scratched, worn. I am part of both experiences.


My bedroom mirror and 1971 wedding picture


affirm long-gone years.


 


Not different women. I rise from a dream


and recall fragments of sunlit forest.


Ageless spirit sees through a body’s eyes.


 


Reality may make harsh demands.


Yet, when a spirit dreams and recognizes its 


power, it has an ageless vision. 


 


 

					
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Once Upon Every Season

					

					Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , ,  on October 2, 2020|
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Life is defined by time and seasons. (Lailah Gifty Akita) 





Late September. Two septuagenarians in a blend-in-with-the-scene white Toyota, travel a county highway. Vehicles of all kinds, shapes, and colors join or pass. With anonymous individuals inside. Some courteous, others impatient.





Did I bring my phone? the man in the white car asks his wife. “Right here,” she answers. “Good,” he says. “I’ll call after my doctor’s appointment. And pick you up at the same mall entrance.” His voice remains soft. She smiles. She knows her limited sense of direction.





Foliage changes colors in a different time frame than traffic moves. The woman wonders when the skin on her arms developed ridges. Long parallel lines. Miniature mountainsides. Her experiences saved inside them as one season blends into another.





She walks through the mall pathways. Sees signs demanding masks. Noses over the top. Nothing worth buying. Construction penetrates her ears.





While the season waits outside. One more time.








	

					
				

						
	

							

								
				
							

		
		

			
Time, it’s been awhile
						
…Yup, Time, It’s Been Awhile I chose large print with the hope that these words will stay in my memory longer. I sit by the heart monitor that lets hospital staff know my heart bypass is operating A-okay. However, I feel best when I’m not thinking about it. My mind is young. Young! Since I…

				

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							by terrypetersen						
										

					

	


		
	

		
	

				

		
	

	






	

				

						
	

		
	

		
	

				

		
	

						
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Old, Like My Nope-Won’t-Do-It Vacuum Cleaner

					

					Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,  on July 19, 2019|
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It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone. (Andy Rooney)


My vacuum cleaner and I have more in common than I like to admit. Two of my toes are bound together after a mishap in my living room, and the electrical cord on my vacuum cleaner is held together with enough tape to stock a hardware store.


The vacuum and I both wheeze around too much dust.


“Come on!” I call to it. “One more time over the shag carpet.” 


As an inanimate object, its answer is a weak whirring sigh. 


If I were asked to follow my double-jointed youngest granddaughter’s exercise routine, my sigh would be similar. 


Older citizens have limitations. Physically. Not when it comes to a capacity for giving and caring. We can live locked inside our pain or despite it. My grandson calls me a wrinkled kid because I get down on the floor and play with him. Perfection isn’t required. Not when imagination fills in the gaps.


Imagination, hope, love—gifts inanimate objects don’t have as they age. I pray to continue to learn, to celebrate possibilities hidden inside each new crease.


 


 

					
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Young at Seventy? Oh, Okay.

					

					Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,  on April 2, 2017|
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The only way out is through. (Robert Frost)


I don’t know the age of the woman to my far right in exercise class, but I’m impressed with her attempts to follow the instructor’s directions. She has a pronounced dowager’s hump and an unsteady gait, yet she shrugs, holds onto a chair, and fumbles with a length of elastic tubing used to increase strength.


Later, Jay and I chat with some friends, a couple who also attended the class.


The wife says the elderly lady told her at the end of class, “I wish I were seventy again.”


I smile, as if some angel were trying to get through via direct line, since I missed the subtle cues. 


I am seventy. Sure, I have limitations. The mirror is far more truthful than I would like. However, this seventy-year-old blogger can tread water for an hour. Two hours with an intervening bathroom break. My balance, despite vertigo issues, isn’t bad. I can play with my grandchildren—on the floor—and then get up again, without the help of any mechanical device. Or groans. Gracefulness may be another issue.


Perfect doesn’t exist anyway.


Goals for improvement? Yes, I’ve got plenty of them. Some reasonable, some not. That doesn’t mean I need to live inside expectations. (Easier said than done.) 


At home I haven’t finished breakfast dishes. There is laundry sorted in our tiny hall; mundane chores fill my schedule and complicate my priorities. And, uh oh, did I double book something this weekend?


As the four of us share my husband says something funny. In Spanish. I laugh. My knowledge of the language wouldn’t fill a tortilla, but I understand. Right now, life is good. The only way out…? Through. Every day. Up, down, and around as the path leads. Sometimes days and choices become difficult. At other times, they are as ordinary as a spin through the wash machine.


If or when, I reach the age of the woman in today’s class, I hope I have the courage and self-acceptance to struggle among the younger seniors, yet know inside my fragile body, my spirit is whole.


Whole, always whole, even in the most broken places…


my left hand, small, heavily veined, arthritic, yet capable



					
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