AgeLooksAtAging

Transforming the conversation on aging.

April 2011 Blog Posts (9)

Beach Retreat by Betty Breuer


Moving down the street

Walkers and our feet,

Who needs a car

Walking's best by far

Slower and slower we go

Sharing the walk with Joe.

It's such a relief

Resting at the beach.

That's our seat -

A beach retreat.

Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:46pm — 8 Comments

The Pelicans by Laura Olsher

The Pelicans.

 

I sit in an upholstered chair bequeathed to us residents on the tenth floor of the Ocean House where I live. I watch them. The Pelicans. Their black slim bodies and blacker wide spread wings drift through the iridescent afterglow of the sunset. It back lights them in blue, red-orange, gray-green, yellow, gold. They hover in the twilight sky. They are waiting for something.

 

The Pelicans.

They fly past my window, their regal wings parting…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:45pm — 9 Comments

The Sunset for Florence by Laura Olsher

I am living at a recovery hotel. It brushes toenails with the sea.

 

The sun setting into the sea making ever changing multi-colored cloud shapes appear and disappear is my Higher Power.

 

This is how:

 

I become a part of the panoramic view each and every night.

 

The diaphanous clouds present themselves as sheep, lambs, lions, small auto cars, all colors, every hue of orange and red, redder, redder, pale blue-green aqua blue, dark blue,…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:44pm — 2 Comments

Untitled by Margery Staugas

What am I doing here? This is a conversation I had with myself a few months ago. What was I doing here. I have all my faculties. Doesn’t everyone fall down? No one can read my writing including me. I’m computer illiterate but who needs a computer anyway?

 

These are thoughtful question that I have been confronted with over the last few months. My two best friends have both died, and I don’t have any close relatives. My husband had seven nieces who are all married with children.…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:42pm — No Comments

On the Wall by Martha S. Waller

The first thing I see when I wake up is the Buddha rug – yes, it’s on the wall, where it should be. It has a top and a bottom: below are the unchanging rocks of the past and then the ever-moving waves of the present, with the mysterious clouds of the future above. Along the sides the rug tells its history in traditional Chinese characters, with a two-foot square character, BUDDHA, in the center. The descending legends on either side tell us that it was made in 1847 (the ‘twenty-second year…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:23pm — No Comments

A Different Slant on Aging by Martha S. Waller

A friend had read my note on what makes a woman know she’s old. My offspring had read it and responded with interest and sympathy; how would a valued and wise contemporary react? “But you’re NOT OLD! Your body may feel old, but that’s not you – what do you think you really are?” What indeed am I? What is anyone? Are we mind? Soul? Spirit? Whatever William Butler Yeats had in mind when he wrote “…And fastened to a dying animal…”? The animal may be dying, but…

 

She gave me a…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:21pm — No Comments

When Does a Woman Know That She is Old? by Martha S. Waller

“You’re married, Mrs. Waller?” My interlocutor was Professor Ellsworth of the English Department at Indiana University. He was taking his turn at the duty of assigning graduate students to seminars. Stifling the temptation to tell him that his question was redundant—how could I be Mrs. Waller without having been married? -- I replied, “Why, yes.” After all, I was feeling out of my depth among the long-haired and under-clothed students at Bloomington in the late sixties. “Any children?”…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:20pm — No Comments

Life at Ocean House by Patricia Kint

My first meal at Ocean House, I was assigned to a table with two interesting ladies; one, Mabel, age 100, was bright and cheerful and seemed to have all her marbles. The other was a colorful lady named Jessie, age mid-80s, also bright and cheerful and “with it.” We three conversed easily and soon knew each other’s families and early experiences.

 

Mabel had certain stories she told often, which were usually factual. One, however, did not appear to Jessie and me as such, and we…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:16pm — 3 Comments

The Man in the Weelchair by Patricia Kint

He sits in his wheelchair, eyes closed, not sleeping, just escaping. Who knows what he sees? Is he dreaming of the beautiful trout he caught that year in Yellowstone? Or is he remembering his grandson’s first steps? Or is it one of his own children he sees – now grown – but in his memory forever a child? “Don’t run from me, child. Let me look at you. Let me savor the youth, the strength you have, that I may capture some of it for myself.” His eyes open briefly – light up when he sees me –…

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Added by ALAA on April 15, 2011 at 5:15pm — No Comments

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