Angst

My beloved 25-year-old friend, Lauren, who helped me write Y Chicks and then had the bad manners to get married and have a full life without me, came over this morning. We did immediate catch-up and surprise, surprise, 20-year-olds and 80-year-olds share the forever existential question: what am I doing here; how do I make my life purposeful, creative, and fun when you have the luxury of a lack of structure? We came up with one same old answer--talk to your woman friends, because they will get it without offering pedantic advice.

So once again, I've decided to take blogging seriously. And Lauren is going to come back when she can, until she comes up with a more grandiose scheme of saving the world in her terms.

In my August struggle, I've decided I don't have enough friends, although all my friends would tell me I have more than enough. So, today at the Y, I started to kibbutz with the woman at the locker next to me. Her name is Bridgette, and she looks like a Bridgette should--unbelievable blue eyes and blonde hair. I hope she'll be my first Bridgette friend. How bout throwing down your wet bathing suit next to an academic archaeologist with a specialty in art history?! Do I live in a great place?!

So, why am I always complaining...

Today

I've decided to get serious about blogging.

I finished the "Y Chicks" manuscript and decided not to try to publish it because it needs too much editing and it was already a wonderful finished experience for me--learning how other people grow from their tragedies rather than staying stuck in grief, realizing how little we know about our neighbors unless we take the time, and confirming stereotypes about the similarities and differences between the Jews and Gentiles in this book.

Jerry's Euphoric Alzheimers is both fascinating and loving to live with. It deserves a whole article (which I will post in the future).

The Israel/Palestine crisis has reawakened all my Zionist sensitivities, caused me to mourn the original dream for the country, and examine my own ambivalence on how to best contribute to the peace process.

I look carefully at my aging--assured that I still have much to give--but in a world that's falling apart, how do I choose priorities? Never go near a group that doesn't share my values? Never schedule too many night meetings? Never schlep out of Santa Monica during traffic? What are my limitations considering the technological savvy of other generations? And, where does "been there, done that" come into play?

That's where I am today. Stay tuned in...if you have two minutes to spare. And, if you do, what's wrong with you? I don't (including my naptime).

Y Chicks Preview...

Within an hour, we knew that many of us had been married more than once. Some of us can’t get enough of our grand-kids. A few of us are sorry that our grown up children and grandchildren live quite so close ,because we don’t want to be on instant call for childcare or worry. All but one of us is retired. We are. Poets, writers, community activists, housewives or single by way of divorce or widowhood. None of us are under-stimulated—we all claim not to have enough time. We all have friends who are very sick. We are aware of our good fortune with financial security, and only minor aches and pains. That doesn’t mean that we can’t and don’t complain about the ordinary.

Y Chicks

Just finishing up a manuscript about 6 post-70-year-old women. Normal, average, West LA Y members who I met at the pool, not a support group. None of them splashing around look like they need support. Somehow they got to this age having experienced the following:

Marie, the New England Wasp whose Scientologist daughter married a Nigerian con-artist; Adrienne, the nice Jewish girl from New York and her complicated ménage-à-trois resulting in a pregnancy; Rita, Lefty social activist and mother in anguish over her adored son’s heroin addiction leading to San Quentin and ultimately his fatal overdose; Susie, who's mother stole her 20-year-old boyfriend; 90-year-old Beth whose past is less traumatic but no less challenging; and Kathryn, devoted Catholic who survived the appalling discovery of her late-husband’s incest with two of their daughters.

Any suggestions for an interested publisher?

Oh So Wise

I did it.
It took 80 years
But I did it.
I am wise
Oh, so wise.

I learned from the East:
Here is the only Now
Take naps
Love.
Be Lucky

I learned from the West:
Optimism
Keep trying
Have health insurance
Love. Be Lucky.

I learned from the poets:
Listen, feel, touch, taste
Remember, forget.
Be in awe.
Love. Be lucky.

I learned from my friends:
Take the high road
Vote right—left.
Be there—here
Love. Be Lucky.

I learned from the Jews:
To kvetch is human
To act, divine.
Love.
Be Lucky.

I learned from my children.
Mutual respect
Letting go
Forgiveness.
Love. Be lucky.

I learned from my husband:
Fearlessness, presence, laughter,
To love what is.
How easy
If you are lucky and he does the dishes.

I learned from the world:
Choose your place, carefully.
Chose your time, specifically.
And this above all
Be Lucky.

83 vs. 40

It was encouraging to be with a forty-year-old highly successful professional today who couldn't find his mouse, and said it gets worse every day. I am trying to convince myself that this has less to do with aging and more to do with the fact that we are all simply fragmented.

How dare they give us something new to learn every day. No brain was created to endure such treatment!