I found my tribe

Me at the Volunteers party

Last Friday, we volunteers were treated to a wonderful Roaring Twenties party to introduce us to the new venue for the Bellingham Senior Center. It won't be ready for a couple of years, but I should be an old hand (in many senses of the word) by then, knowing all the tricks and trades of the kitchen helpers. Although I've now only been to four Thursday lunch setups and serving duties, I feel it's where I belong. I always get at least 10,000 steps running around and helping people, and no other volunteer activities seem to offer as much exercise, which (as you know) I love. If you give me a chance to move at top speed for more than two hours, and feeling well used at the end, it's my idea of time well spent. 

Diane looking really pretty on the dance floor

The first task I had to undertake in this group is to accept that I belong here, with these seniors, and that I have something to offer that uses my skills and helps me to feel useful as I approach my eighty-second birthday. That large area where the seniors are dancing will be redesigned to be a place where many different activities can take place. Right now we are in a building that has few options for expansion. I took a tour of the new facility and am very impressed with how it will all be used.

I can still take the occasional Thursday hike with my old hiking partners, as they are also getting older and slower, but mostly I have migrated over to the Tuesday hikers, since they take a much less strenuous walk or hike and I end up being one of the more fit hikers, rather than struggling to keep up, as it often turns out with the Thursday hikes. I do know, however, that it's important to keep my exercise routine going for as long as I can. Once I stop, well, it will be something I did in my early years. When I was young, my whole life stretched before me, I would use the phrase "the rest of my life" as if it was infinite. But it's not. Life for each one of us is finite and limited by the events we experience, whether or not we stay active. 

When I was just starting out, when I first began to feel like an adult in my early teens, I had no idea what the future would hold for me. I remember a long-ago Fourth of July in our backyard, when Daddy gave us sparklers to play with, and he lighted them with a cigarette. He asked me to hold it while he set things alight, and I still remember how grown-up I felt holding a cigarette. Many years later I tried to stop smoking, and I finally succeeded in my thirties. No, that innocent foray long ago didn't get me started with smoking, but peer pressure and then addiction held me in its sway for much longer than I wanted.

And then as I simply lived my life, I got old and felt as though I could no longer be free to act like the kid I still felt myself to be. Life is a true blessing, and all the various iterations of the many versions of myself are still part of me. Being old is also a blessing, right? Not everybody gets to experience it.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled. —Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was one of the most prolific poets of her day; she was born in 1928 and lived to be 86. She was always an inspiration to me, and the phrase "I know why the caged bird sings" is what I think of when I remember her. It communicates everything to me. That's another aspect of age: I think of those who are already dead as mentors who will help me over that hump we all face in our future. When I was young, I felt that once you had died you were simply gone. I don't think that any more, partly because of the continuing effects on the living that many who are gone still impart to those of us still here.

When I ponder the wonderful gift I have been given, the life I have lived and continue to enjoy, even through the tribulations of change and diminishment, I cannot help but be filled with gratitude. All of the many people I have been are still part of me: the mother who played with her infant and the mother who buried them. The earthbound person who learned to fly in the air with her friends, and the person who finally gave it up when it was time. The person who searched for her tribe once she got old, and finally found it at the Senior Center, surrounded by others who find that service to others is very uplifting and joyful.

It certainly helps me continue to enjoy life to be able to share it with my dear partner, he who shares my days and sleeps next to me every night. And I do cherish all the wonderful gifts of community that I have with my virtual family as well. The fact that I can still see well enough to read and write is something I never take for granted these days. I know one day it will be gone, but then again, so will this body. It wasn't made for permanence, whatever that is. The only true constant of our existence is change, and I accept that with joy and sorrow. Glad I have it now, but sorry it will be gone in the future.

Mercy! This turned out to be different than I expected it to be, when I decided to write about my new senior existence. But it's appropriate, and I do feel better now that it's out of my head and poured into the post. I think of you, my dear virtual family, often when I consider that the continuance of my days and our time together will one day pass away, but not yet, not now. You deserve to look for joy and happiness in your days, just as I also deserve the same thing. Until we meet again next week, dear friends, I wish you all good things. Be well.