GATHERING NUTS FOR WINTER – A SQUIRRELLY IDEA

GATHERING NUTS FOR WINTER – A SQUIRRELLY IDEA

A very kind reader e-mailed me yesterday and said that it was good to find a blog that was not geared to people under twenty-five.

Phew! That’s a relief to me, because I keep imagining people reading my posts and saying to themselves, “She’s just so out-of-it, so un-hip, so old!

As I think about it, a lot of what I write about is directly related to my age. That makes sense, because the first rule of writing, as we all know, is: Write about what you know. I know something about being fifty-four in the twenty-first century. I don’t know about being twenty-four. Oh, sure, I remember being twenty-four (and by the way, I shudder every time I do), but I was twenty-five in 1974.

The world was so different then. If memory serves, that was the time of leisure suits, wide ties, Watergate, really bad hair-dos, and a time when we were still reeling from the war in Vietnam. It was the early stages of the “sexual revolution”, before A.I.D.S. It was the heyday of Women’s Lib. Some people still smoked pot, and even inhaled (I hear). The seventies were the transition years between the socially and politically explosive sixties and the beginning of the socially and politically conservative (some would say reactionary) ideology that budded in the eighties and came into full bloom four years ago.

So here I am. Admittedly, an aging hippie. My hair is shorter and my butt is lower. I wear new jeans instead of old ones from the thrift shop. My drug of choice is my little white pill (which I only take for getting on airplanes). My live-in lover has become my husband. My only form of activism is this journal that I share with you, gentle reader.

Well, the only true reward for age (apart from having the privilege of being on the earth instead of in it) is wisdom. And the only true wisdom that comes with age is the wisdom of having made your fair share of bloopers. Then you try to share that wisdom with the “young-uns”.

For example, one piece of advice for twenty-five year-olds in 2004 would be to plan for retirement. I can hear you now: “Boring!” But let me tell you why.

I have had the great good fortune of watching my parents’ aging process. No matter what you think you know about “the golden years”, forget it. Nothing in your life so far can begin to prepare you for the physical changes, the financial setbacks, the social restrictions, the steely strength coupled with a gigantic sense of humor that it takes to grow old – unless you, like me, are witnessing the process at close range with someone you love.

Now, you can’t really plan for a lot of this. For example, you can’t say with any reliability, “I probably will need oxygen by the time I’m seventy-five”, or “All of my best friends will be either dead or in Florida fifty years from now”. But you can do one thing: You can plan your finances.

I am by no means an expert on the subject – as a matter of fact, I’m just beginning to learn, myself. But I can help you twenty-five year-olds out there to at least start thinking about all of this.

Remember that your Social Security benefits – if they exist by the time you retire – probably will not cover all your living expenses, or even your most basic needs. Remember that even if you have responsible adult children, they probably won’t be able to cover all contingencies. Remember that an extra twenty thousand dollars spent on a car will probably translate to an extra hundred thousand dollars that could have been saved for your declining years. Remember that you’re probably not going to want to work much beyond a certain age (with very rare exceptions). Remember that you might need medical care beyond a once-a-year once-over from your GP. Remember that you will maintain your right to enjoy life beyond sixty-five. And yes, there’s a very good chance you will live way beyond sixty-five, given the medical breakthroughs we’ve seen in recent years.

There is a wonderful article in the January ’05 edition of Consumer Reports about planning for retirement. (That’s what got me started on this).

But if you’re twenty-five, you probably can’t even think that far ahead, and if you can think that far ahead, I’m probably preaching to the choir. (Sigh). You can’t tell anybody anything, but I’ll probably keep trying.

© 2004, Robin Munson

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

It’s going to be one of those days.

You know the kind of day where you just get up with all of the energy and get-up-and-go in the world and you think to yourself, “This is the day I’m really going to get a lot done. Today is the first day of the rest of my life!” And then you plan:

1) I will restrict my caloric intake to exactly one thousand calories.

2) I will do all of the laundry in my hamper, including the fine hand-washables which have been at the bottom of the hamper for three months – which I swore to myself I would only buy on the condition that I would wear them once, then soak them in Woolite and lay them flat to dry.

3) I will not watch TV.

4) I will not indulge my urge to curse in traffic.

5) I will exercise ten minutes longer and twenty percent faster.

6) I will clean behind the refrigerator.

7) I will scour the stovetop.

I will finish three more pages in my screenplay.

9) I will make Henry an appointment for his annual with the vet.

10) I will make me an appointment for my annual with the ob-gyn.

11) I will nag Art to make an appointment for his annual with the GP.

12) I will cook a real dinner, as opposed to nuking a frozen pizza.

13) I will set a proper table instead of eating in front of the tube.

14) I will write something meaningful in my blog, or at least –

15) I will write something mildly amusing in my blog.

16) I will not go to bed tonight sighing, “Well, tomorrow’s another day”.

Have you ever had a day like this? No, I don’t mean a day where you actually did all the things you planned to do. I mean a day where you planned all the things you planned to do, then got distracted. Because, after all, the phone rings, the cat throws up, the basement floods, the car stalls, and Mercury is in retrograde. So you do what you can. You eat what you must. You curse because you can’t help it. And you do go to bed and sigh, just like Scarlett O’Hara – After all, tomorrow is another day!

© 2004, Robin Munson

GOD LAUGHS

A couple of days ago we were at the hospital visiting my brother-in-law, who had undergone surgery two days before. He was having a tough time, as the surgery was extensive, and they had him on a lot of medications. We were there to give him moral support and comfort.

I was sitting in a chair at the foot of the hospital bed, engaging in light conversation. All of a sudden, I got a stomach cramp. I told myself firmly, “Not now!”. I shifted in my chair to get more comfortable. Then I began to feel nauseous. I began to count backward from 100, trying to get into a meditative state. As I was counting backwards, I looked around the stark hospital room. My brother-in-law, Eddie, dressed in the ubiquitous hospital gown with the blue pattern on white, was hooked up to all kinds of I.V. tubes – Saline solution, morphine drip, catheters – he looked like the bionic man. I felt at that moment somewhat divided from him, as is always the case when the relatively well come face-to-face with the relatively unwell.

Now the nausea was beginning to get more intense. I began to feel very warm. I began to sweat profusely. I bent down in my chair, once again trying to find out how best to get comfortable. I vaguely heard my husband, Art, ask if I was okay. I mumbled, “I don’t feel very good”. Someone said, “Put your head between your knees”, which I did. Meanwhile, Art went out to the hallway to get a nurse.

Next thing I knew, a couple of nurses were in my face, telling me to sit up and asking me questions. I began to vomit. Someone put a bed pan in front of me. Once I had vomited, I began to feel a little better. I heard myself say, “I’m okay.” But the nurse said, “We’d better send you down to emergency so they can take a look at you.” I kept apologizing – to Eddie, to my husband, to my mother-in-law, to my father-in-law. It had not been my intention that day to add to everyone’s troubles. Had I had any inkling that I was at all under the weather, I never would have come to the hospital. And I was embarrassed. I mean – here I was making a scene, when Eddie was the one who truly needed attention.

Well, they put me on a gurney and wheeled me down to Emergency. Art stayed with me. A reasonable facsimile of Doogie Howser, a very nice young man, came in and questioned me. It seems they were afraid I was having a heart attack. Someone asked me if I was pregnant, which was the comic relief of the day. I had to take off my sweater and replace it with a hospital gown. As it turned out, they took some blood from me (they had trouble getting me to bleed, and I thought I would have another episode just from all the prodding). They took a chest X-ray. They gave me an EKG. Then, they decided to give me some I.V. fluids. Finally, I could see my reflection in the glass of the double emergency doors. I was a patient. There was no mistaking it – the hospital gown, the I.V. It had all happened so fast, so unexpectedly. For several hours I lay there, dextrose or saline solution dripping in to my veins, my name written on a big chalkboard. Nurses and technicians and Doogie dropping by every so often to reassure me that they were just waiting for results of all the tests.

Finally, at about 7:30 in the evening, the results came back. All was within normal limits. I could dress and go home. The I.V. was taken out. The official diagnosis was a “pre-syncopal episode”. The reason, basically, “who knows?”. The hospital gown came off and my sweater was returned to me. I got down off the gurney and walked out with my husband and my in-laws. For me, this time, it had been a five-hour ordeal, but it was over. Eddie was still up there on the sixth floor.

Sometimes odd things occur in our lives, and we are left to make sense out of them. I think maybe I was over-identifying with Eddie, and maybe that was the beginning of my feeling woozy. Or maybe I ate something that wasn’t quite right. Or maybe it was the smell of disinfectant in the hospital. Or maybe it was a combination of everything. But this time, I was okay.

It was a reminder to me that our lives can turn on a dime. Here we are, planning for our futures. Putting money aside for our “golden years”. We can’t help but see the future stretched out before us like a long, unending road, dotted with pleasant memories, holidays, grandchildren, perhaps travel, retirement, gray hair, learning a new language, hard-won recognition of our accomplishments, and the list could go on endlessly. But there is a Yiddish expression that translates to, “Man plans. God laughs”. We are allowed the illusion of having control over our lives, and within the larger framework, to some extent, we do. But the Big Picture is beyond our mortal control. And a little reminder such as I had the other day is a blessing. It forces me to remember that every day is precious. Every breath is precious. Our time here is limited, and we are definitely not in charge. Someone or something else is running the show. And whoever or whatever It is – It’s got a great sense of humor.