Resetting the Compass
I’m sure that some of you are tired of hearing me talk about turning 70 in a few months, but to say that it is on my mind is an understatement. I have referenced a piece once done thirty years ago by Harry Reasoner of 60 Minutes fame, where he talked about turning 60 and why it was so profound for him because he finally felt that he had an ability to gain perspective on his endgame. What he meant was that he felt he could grasp the finite nature of the time that he had, and the things that he still wanted to accomplish. When I told my mother about his comments, she told me that she agreed with his recital of what it meant to turn 30, to turn 40, to turn 50, and to turn 60, but she added two more decades given her age. She said that when you turn 70 and you have generally left your productive years behind, people look at you and think of you as a somewhat annoying drag on the world economy. She went on to say that it was far more interesting to turn 80 because then people were just so amazed that you were still alive, so you regained some modicum of respect. I’m not sure how increased longevity bears on either Harry Reasoner’s or my mom’s assessment of aging but so far it still feels spot on. Unfortunately, Harry Reasoner died at age 68, two years younger than I am now, but my mother lived to 100, so I believe her analysis of the stages of aging is less impacted by longevity, and may be still valid today.
I went for my annual physical yesterday, and was told that all is well, so I am not particularly feeling morbid. And yet riding past my father’s gravesite on Sunday got me motivated to discuss with Kim how to best consider our final resting place (no decisions on that have been made just yet). So, I conclude that the issue of the endgame must be on my mind. I get rather preachy with my siblings and relatives about how we all must contemplate our plans for our endgames, so it would be wrong of me, not to have my thoughts in order. I do somehow feel that while I generally try not to be too focused on age, milestones are still important points of reflection. My point of reflection at the moment has to do with being retired now for about four years and about bringing my teaching career perhaps to it second stage of retirement (I retired from the Cornell faculty after 10 years of teaching in 2017). One of the things that teaching did for me was that it gave me a schedule. Whether I taught one course a week or two courses a week I always felt like my week started and ended in synch with those classes. Now that I know I’m not teaching next year, and I’m not entirely sure that I will resume teaching thereafter, I am a man without a finite schedule. Part of that is a good thing since I feel like I can plan travel and activities without concern of conflict, but part of that is also that I have to reestablish some sort of routine to get me through the week. Now is the right time to be thinking about that because my normal academic summer vacation is coming to an end once August concludes and I find myself in want of a plan.
I have observed how my neighbor Mike has handled this. He is far more diligent about exercise than I am, and since I like taking lessons wherever they are offered in life, I am thinking that I might try and establish a schedule around exercise the way Mike does. I assure you, I will never be as diligent and committed to exercise as Mike, but I can certainly benefit from a bit of Mike’s program. I have decided to take up aqua aerobics just as I attempted to do when I first moved out here four years ago. That initiative was cut short by COVID, but I am thinking that it’s time to try it again. I’ve looked for any alternative I could think of other than signing up again for the LA Fitness gym but I don’t seem to be having much luck finding a better alternative. I’ve decided to check out the LA Fitness gym in San Marcos instead of the one in Escondido since I seem to be orienting my personal services more towards San Marcos then towards Escondido. I will report back on how that works out, but I expect I will be several sessions into my aqua aerobics the next time I bring this up. But exercise alone does not a life make.
I am presuming that my exercise program will more or less give me a Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning schedule that will include aqua aerobics and stretching. When Mike reads this, he will chuckle to himself and think that this is hardly a sufficient exercise regime, but it seems like a good place for me to start for both exercise purposes and weekly scheduling purposes.
I am looking at my Queensland bottle tree at the moment, and I note that in the last week it has gone from losing all of its leaves, budding new leaves, and now having fully grown out new leaves. Here we are in the middle of August and this magnificent tree, that is from the lower half of the earth and from halfway around the earth from this place, has found a way to adapt to its surroundings and its circumstance, and live a good and presumably purposeful life without too much fuss. I should take a lesson from this bottle tree and perhaps just get on with it.
There is, indeed, my garden. Kim has little or no interest in gardening, so it really is all up to me to make the place look nice outside. So far, my projects have redone a number of areas (patio, Cecil Garden, Fairy Village, backside of the garage, sides of the driveway, play area, along the road, and, of course, the entire back hillside and its various subsections). I am also always out there pruning and watering to keep things fresh. I feel like I have mostly done what I can do and just have occasional new replacement projects now and again as the spirit moves me. My interests run in waves. I go through succulent waves, cacti waves, lilly waves, potted highlights waves, wind spinner waves, metal art waves and weeding waves. What might seem obvious to experienced gardeners, but is just coming to light for me, is that the gardening program is heaviest in the spring and fall. Winter everything is either dormant or simply static, even out here in sub-tropical Zone 9/10 land. Summer is spent letting everything just go through its cycle and keeping the weeds at bay in the first half and picking up the dead leaves in the second half.
I’m less worried about the summer since we are establishing a tradition of having it be dedicated to the grandkids and family gatherings. I am starting to think that we need to dedicate the winters to traveling with friends or to see friends. If we get that nailed down this year, I think we will have a sustainable program that makes sense for us. The complicating factors are Kim’s singing schedule (currently two concerts a year) and her need to be available for rehearsals, and our dear Betty, for as long as she lasts (she is 16 now and increasingly fragile).
When I redid my cactus side garden recently, I put some metal art on the stucco walls that form the backdrop. On one spot I put a verdigris compass that is positioned properly to indicate the correct ordinal points. Some people don’t seem to care which direction they are pointed in, but I am one of the ones that does care, whether I am headed somewhere or not. I suppose I just need to know where I am in the world at all times, so I am inclined to regularly reset my compass. It makes me more at peace to know at all times where I am headed.