Blurt on Old Age and Community

What I didn't expect when I took on the position of Chair of our Tenants' Committee was the level of enthusiasm and engagement at our first couple of meetings.

There was no problem with securing a secretary and a treasurer and a vice chair and a liaison person with the social committee. A speedy agreement on our mission was established. 

Frankly, I was surprised at the different life stories and backgrounds that bring so many to the table of mutual benefit and co-operation. 

There are 5 women and 3 men on the board. All in the same age bracket. 70 and upwards. I expected some misogyny from the men, being of the age of more patriarchal dominance, but so far I've seen none exhibited which heartens me completely. None over-talking the women, everyone listening and respectful.

I am not a social butterfly in the building for I am a gregarious loner as long time readers of my blog know. I do not participate in all the social activities here apart from the odd BBQ or Seasonal Communal Dinners. The fact that I was voted into this position continues to astonish me. I have only a select few co-residents in the building that I would call friends. I have very strong boundaries on those with whom I engage on a familiar level and discourage doorbell ringing and unexpected "drop-ins." 

But it really struck me after the last meeting a few days ago that elders have so much to contribute on a communal level when given the opportunity.  

We have a seniors environment that often resembles a boarding school with cliques and infights over the tiniest things. As I've mentioned before, I have the kind of face that everyone tells their secrets to. So yes, I hear about the spats and romances (you'd be shocked!).

But with expanding their worlds into the bigger picture, kindness and working, even a little, for the benefit to all, these elders show a different, side, a better side.

I'm hoping my perception doesn't change. 

And if it does, only for the better.

So many thoughts

I have a brain that is very busy all the time. What about you?

Meditation is helpful, it calms me and centres me and focuses me. As does knitting. 

I love me a good knit. Or taking photos or writing fiction, which takes me outside of myself. 

I look forward intensely to alone time. More than people time. I have never been able to manage small talk. When I was in public office I would wander around with a camera which worked like a charm to keep people at a distance. I never know what to say apart from a series of stock clichés.

I live in a building which is full of small talk. I put on a nice face, being well practiced at my advanced age, and do my best, I remember things about people which soothes them. Like where they used to live and I ask about that. "Have you been back there recently?" Weather is a good coverup. And I range through my string of tropes and haul them out which seems to soothe others: inflation, weather, health status, weather, grandchildren, weather, new tenants, weather. 

I scan my list of internal topics of off limit stuff, climate change, Sudan, Ukraine, Somalia, floods, arctic collapse, rising sea levels and about a 100 more and shut my mouth. Along with the stuff I love to talk about, books, theatre, good films, art, seniors' concerns which usually draws a blank with most. Those I would chat to about such things are all gone to the great beyond of stardust.

One of the enormous voids of old age is losing those with whom we went to the opera or concerts or great theatre or a new showing at the galleries. Those who had this commonality of interests and could discuss such enhancing wonders with kindred spirits.

I imagine if one has a soulmate, old age is much more enhanced by shared interests but then again, if the soulmate dies it leaves one very unprepared for the loneliness and isolation to follow. So six of one and half dozen of the other.

I am so used to being alone and it's totally by choice as there were a few opportunities over the years to change that. I had a few great loves, one particularly of such depth and magnitude that I was only recently able to write about it in a memoir. He was definitely "The One" but there were far too many barriers in that time and place so very many years ago to take it further. 

I am grateful for so much in my life that often I find myself tearing up. I realize that any of us with family love and respect and living in the privilege that is Canada are so very fortunate and find myself crying openly at the child massacres in the US - the Gunster Capital of the world - and when the Ukrainians arrive on our island here with their hope and their pets and their little children, leaving everything they held dear in the appalling mess behind them.

A long post. I stop myself here as I could go on all day and never stop.

I never had to kiss the Blarney Stone. When I was a kid, I would ride out here on my bike from home, about five miles, and wait underneath, and pick up the coins from the tourist pockets as they bent over backwards to kiss it.

Peopled Out, Iceberged In

Because I'm a gregarious loner, I like a lot of downtime, away from the maddings. This week was a rough one, an ongoing intense quality and quantity to human exposure for me. Drop ins. Don't like them. But I foolishly hung out the tax services shingle and I figure all told, with the drops and convos about life stories and Uncle Ned, great fellah you should have met him, I'm making about $5.00 an hour if I factor in the social aspect. Big Mistake.

I'm very fussy as to friends. Loads of acquaintances but friends I can count on one hand. So I have to wear my nice for these tax clients and engage with them reluctantly but smilily. I am sensitive to social cues but most people are not, I find. I say I'm sorry but I'm busy but I imagine they think that applies to others and not them as they ramble on about Auntie Mildred and Grandfather Jack and just who are in these photos around my living room.

Meanwhile some ancient ice has been hanging around outside my front door. Pictures, yes. And this is after a couple of weeks as the weather has been glorious and most of the ice has melted, it covered the bay at one point and there were mini-mountains bobbing along.

I can't imagine what this gigantic ice melt has done to the glaciers of Greenland and to the planet's health. And they are here far too soon this year. And apparently are only the precursors of more yet to come.

My World of PGs*

*Paying guests

It's busy out here in my little corner of the Edge of the Atlantic. Tourism season chugs along. I run out of Nice after a few days of it. Hospitality means I have to share my home with strangers. And ensure the rooms look decent and breakfast is palatable and I'm interesting. My reviews are such that I think my PGs walk through my door expecting a performance. OK. I'll give you an example:

We had a most wonderful night with WWW. We talked and laughed like old friends. She gave us a great dinner recommendation and we had a wonderful sleep. Breakfast was lovely with homemade yogurt and partridgeberry jam as well as eggs ham oatmeal and toast and more great conversation. We really wished we had longer to stay and know we will be back next time we are on the island. WWW is the most wonderful Airbnb host we have met.

WWW made us feel right at home and this was my favorite place to stay in Newfoundland. It was like stepping back in time but with a host who was a literary genius. WWW knows so much about the area and Newfoundland that it was a real education. It was also the best breakfast of our entire trip. I would love to stay there again.

And many in this vein. Which is wonderful for business but if you're like me, a gregarious loner, it can be a little wearying. Reading the reviews I fall in love with myself a bit and want to visit me but then I gladly welcome back my inner Cranky Crone and joked around with Daughter the other day asking her should I present CC to the guests, a la The Soup Nazi and bark orders at them to go to their rooms and not disturb me and if they don't wash the dishes tonight they won't get any breakfast in the morning, and only use one tiny towel as the others are just for show, and if they want sheets it'll be $100 extra, etc.

All in good fun and a stress buster. My guests are quite lovely. I just hosted an opera singer and his dancer girlfriend who were cycling around the Avalon. He and I bonded over Gilbert & Sullivan, he is set to play the lead in the Pirates of Penzance in January in Toronto.

And then there was the doctor and her wife who were so incredibly well-travelled and interesting and invited me to stay in Vancouver with them anytime I wanted.

And the French couple who were working in Guadaloupe who were on their way to St. Pierre and Miguelon to visit friends. There are many such French outposts on our globe.

Then there was elder-biker, a seasoned road warrior, and I can't forget the Quebec father and daughter couple and.......

And yeah, I get paid for this.

Which is the icing on le gateau.

As you can see, the francais is rubbing off on me.

Time for the Cranky Crone to emerge.

Hospitality

hos·pi·tal·i·ty


/ˌhäspəˈtalədē/


noun

noun: hospitality

1.
the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.

synonyms: friendliness, hospitableness, warm reception, welcome, helpfulness, neighborliness, warmth, kindness, congeniality, geniality, cordiality, courtesy, amenability, generosity, entertainment, catering, food
"we found nothing but hospitality among the local inhabitants"

adjective

modifier noun: hospitality

1.
relating to or denoting the business of housing or entertaining visitors.
"the hospitality industry"

I just hosted a young teacher from Boston. She booked for one night and then booked another. We talked solid for both nights. She was in her early thirties and had travelled the world. It is extraordinary in this hospitality industry the deep connections that are possible. I think it's the opportunity to reinvent oneself. To present this temporary self: a shiny version of what one would like to project all the time to the world. Fresh, clean, no hang-ups, positive, tidy, organized and optimistic. A scintillating raconteur. A story teller par excellence. A few days of mutual discovery are just about right. Though I have hosted singles for nearly 2 weeks. Twice.

It shows me also I am not too reclusive, I love good conversation but not all the time. These interactions sharpen my skills and also extend me a little as I include breakfast so thus have to be a little creative in the culinary arts. But not too much.

The gregarious part of my "gregarious loner" status comes out to play and interact. And that is all good. And to get paid for what I love to do is pretty damn amazing.

A Lonely Old Month.

The last ember of the year, fizzling and dying. Pauline writes so beautifully of twigs and birds. E writes of creating new memories.

I am inspired by such writings for many reasons. There's nothing wrong with a lonely old month. I do have choices. I force myself out the door to a large gathering of turkey eaters yesterday. I bring my camera to such events which gives me purpose and avoidance of small talk. I am so hopeless at small talk. I must have missed those lessons early on in life.

Small talk lessons:

# 1: The weather

# 2: Clothes, hair styles, makeup, nails, OMG shoes!

# 3: Vacations in the sun. Cruises.

# 4: Neighbours.

# 5: Christmas, shopping for, cooking for, baking for, preparing for.

I get tongue-tied or glazed over or both. I also have the challenge of being the only genuine Irish person on the whole peninsula who chose to live in Newfoundland so I am the resident expert on all things Irish and everyone here has visited Ireland at least once and wants to talk about the enchanted land forever and ever amen. (Um, I emigrated for many reasons, left fairyland behind me, I'm awful, I know, I should go back, yeah.)

Those particular convos can take hours as every tour, every castle, every city and town is stroked and fondled in memory. To me it's massive small talk. So I skedaddle early with my photos and put them up on FB for the town to savour when they get home after the dancing. And we're all happy.

Did I mention the dancing after the feed? (i.e. the scuff after the scoff - I love Newfoundland English). Lots of it. And the Irish music. The sentimental yankee kind, ah, Mother Macree, toorah, loorahs.

I know. I should shut up now.

With the assurance: I do play nicely. I do smileys and happies quite well. And. The big and: the huge, big hearts of Newfoundland people never fail to warm me and revive me and nurture me. They are a breed apart. I've never met the like.

In this lonely old month.

Being Present

Fogo Island at yesternight taken by Paddy Barry, enbiggen to take your breath away

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with people's kindness. Today, and I hope all days, I will notice and be grateful.

In the last few minutes, an acquaintance, a boat captain, dropped off a passel of freshly caught cod.

After lunch at a friend's today, she gifted me with fresh limes, more cod, moose and my dinner for later.

Then my cousin called from Ireland, it was "free calls to Canada" day on her service.

And it looks like my two person play is going to fly with wings now and play here and maybe Ireland in the fall of next year.

I feel like I'm coming out of an awful, stumbling, numbing fog. I haven't shared a lot of it here as, seriously, I thought I was losing my mind along with my health. I can't thank my grief therapist enough. My treatment is ongoing and his assistance in my process is invaluable. It's far from over. It's almost like I have to reinvent myself and focus more, much more, on my existing support network and forcibly interact at a level I'm comfortable with, with those who care for my wellbeing. For a gregarious loner like me that can be a bit of a mountain but I'll put on the climbing boots. I was making streams of excuses about old friends being far better than new friends, why invest time in new friends when they could drop off the face of the earth too, blah-blah. And no joint history doncha know. I'm awfully good at shopping from the excuses wagon.

As the man said, I had lost all trust in myself and now it's filtering through.

Being present. Meditating. Suiting up and showing up. All is beginning to feel well.

30 Days - Day 9

The man in front is 95 YO next birthday.

I'm boring myself. These slices of life aren't too interesting are they?

Today. Well, today I made a huge stockpot of soup. I start off with my batches of stock from the freezer, every time I cook veggies or fish or meat, I save the water and freeze it. So the soup? I've been making this "recipe" for yonks, it's a pumpkin based effort with aforesaid stock. I fry up lots of onions and garlic first in a good oil, I then add my own pungent spices, coat masses of any on-hand veggies (I counted 11 different ones today) in this, golden them all up and add the pumpkin, the veg stock and about 16 cups of water and sprinkle about 1/4 cup of coconut flour on top. Adds a lovely smooth sweetness to it. After mixing everything thoroughly I simmer it all for 2-3 hours.

Then I take the immersible blender and have at it for a couple of minutes until it's smooth. This freezes beautifully in small containers. Yield today: 16 servings. Daughter dropped off all her fridge contents here before going to Ontario for a few weeks so soup was the solution to these masses of veggies.

But the big question remains: what do I do with the 3 dozen of her eggs. I already have 2 dozen of my own.

This afternoon I went to a party, see picture above. And enjoyed myself. Great live music and I entertained myself with taking pictures and smiling a lot. The gregarious loner emerged briefly from her cave.

And tonight the fire is beautifully warm as there is a distinct chill in the air.

And in the idle hands department: I started another afghan for a special person.

30 Days - Day 2

Parties. There's one on tonight. A lovely lady who turns 88. Big hall rented. Loads of food, booze and live music. About 50km from here.

Invitations like this have two responses in me. Initially I agree to go, especially when the lady herself phones me and tells me I HAVE to be there. I always agree. Initially.

Second response is today. Reality: going there will destroy my Saturday. I despise participating in such events. Mainly because I'm not very social. Small talk evades me completely. Being around relentless conviviality leaves me exhausted.

My week's quota of rhubarb-rhubarb was used up at a dinner party yesterday and the host, a dear friend, was in bed with the flu and all the out-of-town guests milled around to lay out the food, etc., and I dredged my brain coming up with topics when called upon and responding with interest to those brought up. There was a toddler and lots of baby talk and the teevee on all the time even during dinner. I made it through for about 2 hours but I always leave such events thinking to myself: what the hell is the matter with you? I'm definitely and positively missing some kind of social gene.

See, I'm basically a gregarious loner and the prospect of two nights in a row making nice is frightening to me. Don't get me wrong, a gathering of likeminded spirits really turns my crank and one-on-ones are fantastic, I've had a few throughout this week.

So my strategy now is: an "oops, not feeling well" at the last minute. Which seems to work best though I need to brace myself for onslaughts of tubs of chicken/turkey soups which has happened before for this socially inept liar. Which makes me feel worse, i.e. sickened.

And I deserve to feel that way. Right?

Did You Ever Lose a Day?

.

Penne with pancetta, pesto, sultanas and cauliflower. Made in a fog.

I just did. I can't find it anywhere. I was out on the roads today, doing a bit of training, avoiding the phone, I knew it was full of demands on my time. You know how that is? It was Gregarious Loner time, emphasis on the loner part. I had upped my mileage and as is my wont I make of these long treks a kind of meditation. I hear the brooks, the soft lap of the ocean, the birds, oh the myriads of sounds from the birds!, I feel the slight fog on my face as I listen to the far off foghorns warning the ships at sea, count the wild flowers which are consuming the roadsides, wafting a heavenly scent which mingles with the pinewood.

I thought to myself: I can do the phone catch-up thing tomorrow, I'll be up to advancing out, being entertained and entertaining for some visiting guests of friends. Sunday is like a vast beautiful blanket in front of me. I'll finish the short story, I'll respond to some emails, hey, I might even go and whale-spot too. "Good times" as Daughter is fond of saying.

But something wasn't right. You know how that is. I'd called my old friend in Dublin this morning as it was her birthday. But surely her birthday was Sunday not Saturday? June 30th. That is Sunday. Today. OMG! I stopped in my tracks. What happened to Saturday? Think.

I'll tell you what happened to Saturday. Saturday I had an 8k race scheduled at just about dawn. But back up to Friday night. Friday night from hell. When I'm sick it's like the end of the world. And Friday night? My stomach was in such spasms that there wasn't a wink of sleep to be had and I searched the entire house for it. Could. Not. Be. Found. Around 4 a.m. I gave up and took an ibuprofen. I rarely take meds of any kind. At 6 a.m. I finally fell asleep. At 10 a.m. I woke up again. Death warmed up doesn't even begin to describe the pitiful face I saw in the bathroom mirror. I crawled back to bed. And missed the race.

Saturday must have happened without my participation. I do remember cooking a lovely Italian dish from memory which involved penne and pesto and sultanas and pancetta and cheese. But I was like a bystander. The pain finally left me sometime in the afternoon but me and the jam-jams never parted company all day.

I'm prone to these occasional debilitating bouts now and again. But I've never lost a day to it before.

And I'll never get it back. And that makes me sad.

Old Non-Stories and the Lady Writer

(Old village school that my subject attended}

I'm in one of those moods. You know, the kind where there's very little you, I or the fairy godmother can do for me. Not that I need anything done. Just leave me be.

Grandgirl has gone back to Toronto, but that's not it. I'm a gregarious loner by nature. Others are visiting in the next wee while. Long term friends at different times. I'll have to fire up for them. I don't feel like firing up. Daughter understands this, we had a chat today. She's built of the same flying-solo-is-best gene pool. We understand each other. Don't do dumbos on each other like: "Ah, snap out of it," "Look at all you've got to be grateful for" and other depressing phrases of that ilk. Just leave us alone with our books.

Currently mine is: Broken Harbour, Tana French's latest. I'm nearly at the end of it. A massive 536 pages. But gripping. Tana can do it. Writing of the devastated building boom with its detritus of a half-finished and abandoned housing estate in Ireland and making it the bleak setting for the gripping drama.

Then, in the afternoon, I toddled over to a pre-arranged interview with one of the last of a dying breed of old timer inhabitants of my outport. One, I was assured, who would fill me in with the history of the place.

He was from the "life was wonderful in the old days" school of thought. We bonded over the Clancy Brothers and nights of song and dance in the houses of our childhood. But not much else. My inquiries about his school life and original work career were met with fairly monosyllabic responses. Ditto for arrival of radio and electricity and roads to his neck of the woods. And his lifelong bachelor status (he and a bachelor brother, the mayor here for over twenty years, lived together in happy siblingdom) caused no ripple of a sweet dead love to emerge. He was an extraordinarily good looking man, well into his eighties. I had the thought he would have been beating off the ladies with a stick in his time. I dug gently and persistently but no story to be found.

He wanted to talk about my hometown of Cork and asked when I was coming back. He may be of the mind to entertain himself with the lady writer for as many sessions as he can squeeze out of me as he gets far too few visitors.

And who's to blame him?

The Gift of Wisdom

Age presents wisdom (acceptance, too) if we let it. For instance, happenings that would have devastated me years ago no longer do.

For the first time ever in my life I awoke this past Christmas morning with nothing to open. In past years the pickings were getting slimmer but there was always something. It was a strange feeling, this absence of even a token, but also exhilarating in that our worst fears are often nothing to be afraid of. I don't really celebrate Christmas anymore. I find it so far removed from peace and goodwill as to be oxymoronic. A friend worked on the distress lines in Toronto and told me this is the peak season for violence, mayhem and murders and both attempted and real suicides and alcohol poisonings.

So I batten down the hatches, light a candle or two, remember my loved ones, both past and present and cook myself a turkey with all the trimmings. I also carefully select those I visit. I am partial to the families that still believe in magic. And there are a few. And I visited these and shed some tears in private afterwards. Missing my own. Intensely.

But also appreciative of my life, alone or with others. It is always my choice and how wonderful is that for a gregarious loner?

So no, this is not a pity pot post. Just a reflection on my life and the wee bits of growth and evolution I have had on my journey. A wise shaman said to me one time: Happiness is a direct result of the subtraction of stuff.

So I was alone. But not lonely.

Boreens

I've always loved the word "boreen" an Irish word, anglicised for every day use in Ireland. It means "little road". Bothair (bo-her) being the Irish for road. Add "een" to anything in Ireland and you have the diminutive. Little Mary=Maureen (maura + een). Little woman=Colleen (caill is woman or old woman + een).

I was having a day of frustrations and minor disappointments yesterday. Nothing earth shaking, just a series of what-else-can-go-wrong-and-then-it-does kind of days.

I took this picture of a boreen heading off down the main road not too far from my house. Outsiders aren't aware of the enormous number of lakes (called ponds) in Newfoundland. We have thousands. Every time you turn a corner there is a seascape or a lakescape. This man was taking in his boat for the season. There is much trouting on our lakes.

Then I forced myself to go to a party. A Ruby (40th) wedding anniversary of dear friends. They'd booked a huge hall. 120 of those present were going to be relatives. The other 10 were close friends. I am honoured to be considered thus.

I'm not a fan of going to big parties or dances or dinners by myself. Visions of my lonesome at a solitary table hauling over a candle and reading a book extracted from my large purse while merriment and enjoyment surround me. Or knitting quietly in a corner pretending I'm one of those mad women out of fiction. Or best of all, happilly at home having refused to go on some flimsy excuse.

Anyway I went. I clung like an infant to my hosts for a while but pried myself off them when I realized they had other guests so went off, got myself a water and barged up to a large table and asked to join them. (Do any of you realize what absolute bravery this takes? No?)

And yeah, I had, oh, about 8 dances. Grand dances. Booty shaking dances. Laughy dances.

And then one of the women and I at the table get talking. She was a widow of two years and told me she didn't know how she got out of bed every morning. She was a sister of my bride-host. She'd lost her husband of 42 years the year before. But worse than that her only son had committed suicide three years before. He'd come home from up North with a failed relationship under his belt and she had found him in their garage the morning after, an apologetic note to her in his pocket.

And all of a sudden my day took on a new light. And today - which is again full of frustration and disappointment - is just another day. And I had no trouble getting out of bed to partake in it.

My boreen ain't half bad.

Suspension Bridge

On one side of the bridge is the solitude, the reclusiveness, the state of aloneness.

On the other is the support, the friendship, the love from others.

Sometimes I have to force myself to cross that bridge and interact with my own species. I've talked about being a gregarious loner, well sometimes the "lone" part has a very slender thread to the "gregarious".

I ignored a call to attend a turkey dinner yesterday with people I very much care about. The idea of being alone had far more appeal. And I find it does for the most part lately and I am more than a little wary of it.

The darker internal machinations start to assemble in a corner of my brain and begin to sharpen their weapons. I ask myself, are others like me? I do believe they are. Well, some are.

Old thoughts surface. Memories of my missing daughter for one. That never leaves, it just goes into a somnolent state and then the darker forces get noisy and wake her up. A few of the "might-have-beens" join her and then a cluster of long lost relatives and friends. I have to force myself to pick up the phone, rejoin community, make arrangements for a chat, share feelings with the few trusted others I have in my life.

So today, I move along that suspension bridge to the other side and rejoin society. If I hang in the middle too long, the wind picks up and it starts to sway rather dangerously.

I do not ponder on what would happen with an extended stay on the solitary side of it. I have seen those darker forces win the day, slashing the slender wires to sanity and allowing the madness to take over. Completely.

Gregarious Loner

I caught this self-description by a commenter on Friko's blog the other day and I thought: that's me.

This wonderful world of blogging gathers us kindred spirits from around the globe and pulls us all together in virtual conversations and we click with each other, no matter the age, no matter the gender. And blog meets, (though I have an affinity for the term Blog Meats, ha-ha, get it?) where one meets another blogger in the flesh so to speak, prove just as interesting as the virtual connection and are even more enhanced by the fresh non-blogged information exchanged.

Maybe the virtual circle of friends I connect with fairly regularly are all gregarious loners whether in partnered relationships or not.

I love my solitude, cherish it, defend it, embrace it.

And I'm one of the most gregarious people you'll ever meet!

And on that note, I am so looking forward to my Blog Meat with Conor. Soon. Yes, he of the recent trip around the world fame. And when I do, ye all can be assured I will shut up and be quiet.