REFLECTIONS ON AGING

One of the first exercises in the class on the Inner Journey of Aging was to reflect on the following questions.  After writing our responses we then shared them with one of our classmates.  I share mine now with you and encourage you to do the same with a friend.  Get the dialogue going on a deeper level.

Q.  How do I feel about growing older? 

Lyrics: I’ll go my way by myself . . .                                                                  

 Growing older brings up a different set of unknowns.  This third wave is the first one on my own, i.e., without parents and husband.

Q.  What do I look forward to?  

Lyrics:  I’ll try to apply myself and teach my heart how to sing.

Experiencing the unknowns.  Expecting many changes.  Adventure.

Q.  What are some of the challenges of getting older? 

Lyrics:  I’ll face the unknowns; I’ll build a world of my own.

Challenges ahead but challenges throughout life.  Learning to adapt to the changes; physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Q.  What are some of my fears at this time?

Lyrics:  No one knows better than I myself, I’m by myself, alone.

Fear that I’ll die too soon, before I’ve purged the basement, before I’ve put in order years of photographs, read all the books in stacks on the floor, etc.  Before I’ve lived all the etceteras.

Q.  In what ways do I want to grow more? 

CHANGE THE MUSIC.  Lyrics: You gotta make your own kind of music; sing your own special song

Learn to be more comfortable letting go.  “Love wastefully” (Bishop John Shelby Spong).  Be kind always.  LAUGH MORE.  Follow the energy and trust.

By Myself: songwriters Shinoda, Delson, Bennington, Hahn, Bourdon

Make Your Own Kind of Music popularized by Mama Cass Elliot and written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

The Sound of Music

Lyrics:  The hills are alive/ With the sound of music/ With songs they have sung/ For a thousand years.

We had moved from Washington to Cleveland, Ohio, our first time away from the familiarity of place and family.  We were explorers as we got acquainted with our new home city by the lake.  One day we went downtown to a theater on Euclid Avenue to see Julie Andrews come up over the Austrian hills, spread her arms, and fill the theater with The Sound of Music.  Magical moments, magical memories.

I’ve heard tell that a memory my sons have of growing up is of their mother always singing.  I was probably fantasizing a starring role on Broadway then.  I had music playing all the time.  I’m partial to vintage music; 1920’s to 1950’s, including Big Band music that the Rose Man and I loved to dance to, and classical music, especially Rachmaninov and Wagner overtures.  Today I need a balance between sound and silence.

Paris born, Jacques Lusseyran, was eight years old when he lost his eyesight in an accident.  In his memoir, And There Was Light, he writes about the power of music.  “For a blind person music is nourishment, as beauty is for those who see.  He needs to receive it, to have it administered at intervals like food.  Otherwise a void is created inside him and causes him pain.”  Sidebar: Lusseyran was eighteen when the Nazis occupied Paris and he became a hero of the French Resistance.  Good book.

I wonder if music isn’t always attached to something; a person, a place, a time, a feeling and that creates a memory, one that returns every time you hear that particular piece of music.  Memory nourishment.  Neurologist Oliver Sacks has written that for Alzheimer patients music can be very much like medicine, a necessity with power beyond anything else to restore them to themselves and to others, at least for a while.  Memory nourishment.  Memory care facilities are using headphones these days rather than restraints to calm agitated patients.  Some patients respond to music with moments of recognition of family members, nonverbal patients start speaking again, and staff see “lost souls” joyful and laughing.  One woman has even organized a choir of Alzheimer patients.

I remember the calming effects on the family when my dad was making his transition and the hospice harpist from the Chalice of Repose program came into his room to play.  I think of the importance and care we take making music selections for weddings and funerals.  Two of the best voices in Seattle sang The Rose at the Rose Man’s memorial service.  It’s a sweet, lump-in-the-throat memory I cherish.

I’ve heard that humming can be even more therapeutic than singing for the rest of us because it goes right into cellular vibration.  Hmmm.  Feel the buzz.  But . . .

In silence you can hear the Universe hum.

Lyrics: The hills fill my heart/ With the sound of music/ My heart wants to sing ev’ry song it hears.  Music and lyrics by Rogers and Hammerstein (1959).