Who Am I Now? July 7, 2005
There is a book cooking in me right now---it’s on simmer while I move hither and yon to interview folks who are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. My book will be about people who live with a celebrant sense of being alive. Their stories are about the riches to be found in cherishing each day. To acquire this personal wisdom takes time, for some it comes sooner than for others—but when and if the passion for daily living arrives, it is a glorious thing.

I have just interviewed a woman 98 years young. She lives in her own apartment without assistance. Her only complaint is that she is a terrible cook but she no longer wishes to go out to restaurants in the evenings. She laughed when she told me she has learned to put up with a bad dinner. She recently decided to teach herself how to draw. She gave me a small ink sketch and I have it on my desk; she says it’s nothing though she may have worked on it for hours. I say it’s beautiful.

I learned of her through one of her pupils. She gives private bridge lessons in the mornings, and has a bridge game every afternoon. Everyone wants to play with her. It was her neighbors who convinced her to give private lessons. It is stories like this one, of what I call creative aging, that I am collecting.

So who am I now? I am a Creative Longevity and Wisdom Alum Fellow with a view of life as something magical. While the music of life plays, we are free to move to its changing rhythm, and put aside old habits of mind. If we invite in the music, it touches a new life force we have yet to know, and this is how we learn to design our older years creatively.

A good lesson in living can be found in the words of Tim McGraw’s song “To live like you were dying.” The song advises skydiving, climbing rocky mountains, watching eagles fly, speaking sweetness and forgiveness, and living each day as if it might be one’s last. I would also add to have a good conversation with a friend, and to think new thoughts, these too can be as rich in living for some as skydiving and rocky mountain climbing is for others.

In the book I write about aging there will be a lightness of heart and mind in the elders’ stories. I am by long training a counselor, and I want the stories to show that becoming older is a beautiful gift to be anticipated with a positive outlook. Growing older is a gift to be cherished and developed to its fullest.