Newsletter Nr 2. August 31 2012

“In every older woman lives a young girl that says: ‘What the hell has happened?’”

(quote by Cora Harvey Armstrong)

I was recently interviewed for some yoga journal. The subject of the interview was ‘yoga and aging’, and I was asked what I thought about that, having recently crossed the 70 Landline.

In my usual innocent way I said that aging was a matter of choice and opinion.

Oooops, that was a wrong start. I should have known, but then, I am not an Olympic champion in diplomacy or, in other words, beating around the bush.

As we all know, words have power – they have the power to create emotions, feelings, prejudices.

We also use words in a general sweeping way, lumping a lot of things together that basically have very little to do with each other, like sheep and goats and chicken and cows as ‘livestock’. Why those and not also cockroaches and butterflies and robins and crocodiles and people??

Why not lump chimpanzees and gorillas and rhesus monkeys and homo-little-sapiens together as ‘Apes’. Or livestock.

The word ‘aging’ is one of those huge garbage bins where we throw in a lot of things that have nothing to do with each other, and whatever doesn’t fit anywhere else we throw into the bin too for good measure.

When we talk about ‘aging’, what exactly are we talking about? Which part of the bin are we talking about?

Are we talking about wrinkles? So if you have a face lift you are suddenly ‘young’ again?

Are we talking about sex life? Aiai, prickly subject. I know a lot of very sexy older men and a lot of very boring limpedylimpysex young men with whom I would not want to be seen in bed or anywhere else for that matter.

When I was in my twenties I lived in a boarding house where the lady had just started a love relationship after having lost her husband. She 70, he 75. I caught them in bed one day. In my upstart twenties mind I thought that that was scandalous, and that at that age you were only fit to push the pram of your grandchildren. Sex was only for ‘young’ people.

Changed my mind about that, sure.

When we talk about aging, are we talking about getting heart problems or having a heart attack? How many times have we read in the paper that some young footballer or baseballer or other baller has rolled over in the sand in the middle of a match, never to get up again. Recently in Soiano (very interesting village teeming with Rom gangsters and would-be bank robbers and other animals) a young man, 21, on holiday with his parents and grandparents, went to have a siesta and boom, died, heart attack. Never had a problem in his life. Family devastated, doctors scratching their heads.

Or are we talking about numbers: counting from 1 to 100 the more you get closer to the last number the ‘older’ you are. Well, I have met once or twice ten-year-olds that were old in every sense, obese, dull and lifeless, while I have also known people, and I remember Krishnamurti and Vanda, who deep in their eighties were as exciting and lively as many a young person could be jealous of.

Prejudices, and how we judge according to standard procedures.

Vanda and I were once traveling on the bus in Florence, she tiny and frail and full of wrinkles, so some kind Italian gentlemen (they were still around then) stood up for her, but she declined, and at the next stop, to his dismay, climbed over his shoulder (the bus was rather crowded) to get to the exit of the bus to get out, me following her and smiling sheepishly at the astonished gentleman.

I belong to a yoga generation that is getting ‘older’. I remember the days that we all went through menopause (just the girls, mind you, even though men also go through some kind of womanopause). My my, having to sit through hours of conversation about hot flushes and pulling shirts off and on, depending on whether you went through a hot or cold flush.

And through all that the sun was shining, the birds were singing and the flowers were flowering and the earth was rotating towards the 100 photo finish line.

Now that same generation is talking about ‘aging’, having a lot of fun comparing all the miseries that are supposed to be the result of aging, like arthritis and all that.

Scientists have found dinosaur bones with arthritis. Maybe they also compared notes?

I think we live by choice.

Everything we do and are is the result of choice.

We are free – we can choose what we want. We can even choose old age, disease and death.

I have seen women in action that are well over 70 and are dealing with problem horses, trying to make a 500 kilo animal think differently about the world he lives in. Dangerous job. But those women go for it. The reason? They just love the animals. Compassion and love are great rejuvenators. Boredom, feeling sorry for oneself, reveling in every little pain or ache or problem are great aging agents.

When we talk about aging, are we talking about the mind? Is the mind subject to aging, or is it subject to boredom from repeating years and years the same mindless thoughts, the same mistakes, the same endless and meaningless chatter, feeding on gossip, watching the same stupid TV programs? Can the mind be ‘Zen mind beginner mind’?, always fresh, curious, new, vibrant? Young, if you want? Which mind is young? I have known, and still do, many ‘young’ people, who ‘know’ everything. Utterly boring. You can’t talk to them. Impossible. They know everything. And then I have known ‘old’ people, who are curious about everything, and can’t gobble up new information fast enough.

Are we talking about the emotions?

When I was (very) young and innocent I thought ‘grown-ups’ never quarreled or got upset. Their emotions, if they had any, were perfectly smooth like a scoop of ice-cream. Well, guess what – I grew up, and have been many times upset, quarreling, angry, unhappy – wanting to put someone’s face in a bucket of white-wash.

Emotions don’t get old. They are as violent as they were when we were in the cradle screaming for milk. Only now we scream for money, for recognition, for love, for enlightenment, for being a famous yoga teacher, for that new IPad, for that bigger TV. One may play the holy-boly and pretend they are not there, but at some importune moment they peep out of their hole and go cuckoocuckoo. Emotions don’t get old.

So when we talk about aging, we have to decide which part of aging we are talking about, and we have to keep a wary eye out for the clothes of the Emperor. Many things we lump under aging actually do not belong there, but rather are the result of a mind that is habitually feeling sorry for itself. We also have to decide on which side is the horse: is the horse pulling the cart or is the cart pulling the horse. In other words, is age creating the diseases, or are diseases, mental and physical, creating the aging process.

I was once in an office for some papers. In walked a gentlemen, impeccably dressed, slim, eightyish-looking. All was normal until the lady behind the desk screamed: ‘What? You are one hundred years old?’ ‘Not yet, in a few days’ time’, the gentlemen responded. ‘How do you do it?, she asked. He smiled and said: ‘Good food, no wine, and lots of laughter’.

The interview about aging lasted the whole day and was done partially in the restaurant.

In the end I got a letter that my views were too difficult, and so my guess is that the whole interview got swept under the yoga mat, never to see daylight again.

Sic transit Gloria. Or rather sic transit Dona’s views on aging. Imshallah, but the lake is beautiful under the summer sun and the two kitties are chasing each other in the living room.

Difficult, like easy, beautiful, ugly and funny are only opinions.

They reflect on the observer, not on the observed.

In the end there is only one thing that has the power to sweep everything under the carpet – emotions, thoughts, aging, everything.

That is gratefulness. To be grateful to be alive. The number on the calendar does not matter.

This is our choice.

It is not so difficult.