Walk: Hood
Distance: 3.5 miles
So Eighty is a difficult age to ignore. Impossible so far for Ciwt who has had a lifetime pattern of flying by - even forgetting - her birthdays. But not 80! It's coming for Ciwt and it's somewhere on her mind much of the time these days.
Maybe it has just been Ciwt's luck, but most of the articles or books she's read on older age/turning 80 haven't spoken to her. The focus of some has been on decrepitude or deep acceptance and spiritual connections. Then there are the spunky 80 year olds who start new (successful) companies or find love and marriage or become wildly participatory in activities and volunteer jobs. Oh and the very wealthy ones talking about golf, fly fishing, heli skiing and new resort homes.
Not many Ciwt has encoutered talk about people like her - somewhere in the middle - who enjoy good (enough) health, relative economic okayness (for now) and slowly, day by day, (reluctantly) notice and find ways to adjust to the myriad little parts of themselves that are lessening - balance, strength, focus, stamina.
So even though she didn't laugh, Ciwt related and was edified by the candid descriptions of such lives in Susan Evans' You Have to Laugh. It's a small, wise book of short, well-crafted essays (Evans calls 'riffs') told with compassion, intelligence and loving candor ; not too upbeat, not too downbeat, but just right on for Ciwt.
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