LIFE ON A WIRE

 

            Dangling by fingertips from invisible wire strung between two buildings in Downtown Grand Rapids—holding tight to a sliver of hope while life passes by beneath and around. 

          Old age can feel like that. 

For me it was a sudden unexpected event (illness) and I fell from life as I knew it, grasping in a fragile finger-hold the life I had left—from living life fully to watching it go by around me. 

Even now, even when I’m participating, I find it is hard to focus on the now.  My mind strays to thoughts and worries about blood pressure and cholesterol, clots in my heart, arrhythmias and mind farts or holes in my mind.  My hips and knees don’t bend.

The enjoyable day with family at ArtPrize became embarrassing when I couldn’t maneuver climbing down and back up a three-foot wall without the help of my two teen-aged grandsons lifting me, and I lagged further behind as the day went on despite the yoga, daily walks and occasional swims I do to keep up my strength and agility. 

          “If that old lady can do it, you certainly can.”  Do I imagine the impatience in my daughter-in-law’s voice?  I want to believe she is paying me a compliment; that she and my family do not see the real me fading slowly, becoming slower physically and mentally—less able to do it all myself.  Is it my own impatience I’m witnessing?  My own chastising voice pushing me to keep moving, don’t slow down; telling me age is only a number.  Sometimes it is a number.  Sometimes also a fact of life.  Can I be honest with myself, paying attention to what I still can do and also what I can no longer do as quickly and as well?  Can I be honest without being dramatic?  Can I continue to meet changes with humor and compassion? 

          We allow trees to age gracefully and we see beauty and strength in gnarled old trees.  In old people we so often see only weakness and loss of value.  Can we, can I not see beauty in my wrinkled hands with prominent veins? In my gray hair? When did beauty spots turn to age spots, to imperfections, and meet with such derision? 

          I’m torn between appreciating Tim’s help on stairs and his hanging back with me when I slowed, and frustration that I’m the “little old lady” who needs that help.  Selfishly I want the world to slow with me, to “stop and smell the roses.” 

          Yet I remember me as a teen and young—even middle aged adult—racing ahead of my mother (and even my six-foot husband,) proud of my speed walk, impatient with those who walked too slowly for me. 

          Growing old has forced me to slow and in the process has shown me things I would have missed…an afternoon watching butterflies gather on a butterfly bush, a morning of watching wrens take turns feeding their newborn young whose faces and large beaks crowd the entrance to their nest.  One day I sat still as I felt, then watched a chipmunk take the shortcut over my shoulder, down my arm, onto my lap, down my leg, on his way from a bowl of sunflower seeds I’d left on my deck.  His mouth was crammed full when he went down a hole just beyond my foot and empty when he poked his head back up.  I sat quietly while he made the same roundtrip several times. 

          Yesterday art and people swirled around me—happy faces, happy voices, bright colors, warm sunshine and light breezes.  Interactive art and people.  Art recycled from rejected objects, recreated.  Hopeful art of love bridging the river—fragile yet sturdy—and the sculpture of a man hanging by his fingertips.  All rushing by me or me by it.  Unable to take in foreground because of the rushing forward of background.  A piece of art I focused my camera on would disappear, replaced by people walking between us.  The people became the foreground. 

          Seldom really in moment.  Seldom in the experience.  Pushed by life, by others, I long to slow down, live life fully at my own pace.  Time keeps racing by.  I grasp what I can, enjoy the moment, then let it go.