It's odd ...

… this experience of aging. Its impact—emotional, physical, mental, social, all of it—continues to catch me off balance. It’s not that it’s unexpected, exactly. It’s just that it’s so often … well, unexpected! I’ve always known, of course, that I’d get old. But somehow, I never knew what that experience would be like. Especially, I never knew how many daily, momentary events would make my age suddenly, unexpectedly salient. Like these …

Last Friday, my sister sent me a mass email, a reflection on the writer’s awareness that she is in the “winter” of her life, with age slipping in and the memories stretching out behind. Saturday, I went to a feel-good movie about a retirement home for musicians, a now-formulaic story about resenting old age and then embracing it in a swirl of happy rebirth. Sunday, I went to a memorial service for a man who was younger than I am and listened as friends and family described a gentle soul who was the crux that joined a vast variety of lives. Yesterday, I got an email announcing that Resonance Women’s Chorus of Boulder will celebrate its 10^th anniversary in April, bringing “celebratory attention to the dynamic process of a community growing and aging together.” Also yesterday, I came across a medical study showing that our genes largely determine whether exercise will or will not reduce the loss of muscle that comes with aging, so “working out” only works out for folks with the right genes (which might, of course, be any of us!). Last night, I spotted an online video about an arch in Southern Utah, and just seeing it brought back decades worth of memories of times spent in the red rock country there.

Today, I read news chock full of commentaries on the Supreme Court’s hearing arguments in California’s Proposition 8 case, one of two cases they’ll hear about same sex marriage. This is simply astonishing: in my lifetime—between young and old—we’ve gone from sick, sinful, illegal to contemplating same-sex marriage. And today, I made travel plans for a trip to NH for an anniversary celebration of a program where my partner taught—a trip that also means a chance to see old friends and visit old haunts.

I just finished a book for my American West class, Fire on the Mountain, which is about the 1994 wildfire just west of Glenwood Springs, CO. As I turned the final pages, I said to my partner, “I need to hike the trail to this fire site.” When she asked why, I had no answer. It just feels like something I need to do. Having read about it, I want to be on that hill, literally put myself in the place where those young people—fit, happy lovers of the outdoors, lovers of challenge, youngsters like I used to be—faced the fire that would end it all for them. As it will end for all of us. It feels disrespectful not to go. If, that is, I can do it. A hike that once would have required only the will and the time might not be possible for me now, despite having both.

All of these have been moments when my age became salient. I suspect that if I were still young, many of these events would pass and then get quickly lost in the stream of a busy life. But now, they carry heightened meaning because now, they are explicitly about aging, my aging. I don’t consider this “dwelling” on aging. It’s more a state of openness than one of preoccupation. The truth is, age is slipping in, and memories are trailing out behind.

So far, I have not figured out what I’m supposed to gather from this jumble of experiences. For the moment, I’m just hanging out in the unexpected complexity of it all, acting as if it all made sense.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.