AGING IN PLACE: AGING IN PLACES

JULY 25, 2015 

Most of our ancestors grew old within the circle of their family, neighbors, friends and community.  Granny was often a fixture in her children’s homes, continuing to play a role in their lives and those of their grandkids.  Cook, babysitter, story teller, soother of a young child’s nighttime bad dreams.  When seniors living in extended family settings became less and less able manage independently, needing more support while able to provide less help, home care became overwhelming, often leaping from one crisis to the next.  A new variation to an old model began to emerge.   “Modern, tech-savvy, old age homes” staffed by paraprofessionals began to flourish.  Activities, recreation, socials, visiting artists and musicians, authors and newsmakers often provided an enriched experience. This allowed the aging generation to continue not only to sustain life, but to continue to participate, supported by paid staff, receiving visits from younger generations.  Safety, monitoring of health needs folded into musical, artistic and stimulating activities.  

Changes in health care research and treatment models fit this scenario well.  The elderly were living longer with the help of a growing body of medical knowledge and methodologies designed to support extended life spans.  So we began, many of us, to live considerably longer, with better preventive health care, new surgical, pharmaceutical and treatment options, allowing more of the “growing older crowd” to bypass the generic, medical-model of “old age homes.” In truth most were neither staffed enough to provide optimum healing, nor expected to bring their residents “back to independence”. 

One of the largest growing “businesses” in America has become the modified Nursing home, often named euphemistically “ Happy Harbors”, or “New Horizons”; “Heartlands” or “Sunshine Villages”: Places that are designed to allow you to “age in place”.  When designed and staffed well, they have become a valued alternative to living precariously alone in a multi-story home or confined to a “nursing home”.

Time and testing of models should help to frame a set of programs and policies that best meet changing needs.  Many reasonably healthy seniors push back against the idea of aging in “a strange place”; that will never be your home”. But if that place in fact becomes your home, encouraging maximum independence within a safe setting a new variation of our aging model can emerge.... I am calling it living in “safe” places.   So, I no longer live alone in a three story house, where a simple task of changing a light bulb may be the beginning of a downward slope toward broken bones, hospital care, adaptive devices such as walkers and crutches.  I live quite independently, cooking my meals, tidying up, driving on errands to shop, visit friends, eating in restaurants, enjoying movies and plays and concerts.  But if a light bulb goes out, I can call the maintenance staff member to change it. 

One way to look at this transition may be that while I was trying (and mostly succeeding) in aging in place, it feels empowering to continue that process by aging in different places:  an independent apartment setting in the summer, a more multi-aged condo apartment unit with no added services in the south for the winter.  For now, the balance is working.  For now, I am aging in many places, and beginning to feel centered and calm and balanced. 

recovery

to friends and followers:  Lots of "uppers" this week:  feeling well, with more energy than I can remember having for a long time.  loving my new downsized life style.  most important, starting to write again! here's the latest.  love comments.  

Recovery:  July 2015

The room grows quiet, the rustling of pages in our prayer book stilled

As we each rise and collect the threads of our prayer shawls around our fingers....

There is a stillness and quiet that settles us....we open ourselves up and invite into our sacred space the loved ones lost to illness, accident, old age..

I’ve changed over the past months, almost lost to a series of bacterial infections.

Memory, certainty of where I am within my space, within my life is slow to return.

I have to quiet those stray thoughts, quell the anxiety, let stillness fill the gaps, trusting that I will stay rooted in the moment, the place, the experience.

Many years ago while still in College, a few friends and I  would often engage in word play at our daily “commuter breakfasts”; I wrote the beginnings of a poem one day, or one of us did, and my memory of those words has suddenly returned:  “the mirror blinked blindly back at me this morning, containing not a me.” Not sure where it went from there, but it remains a teaser to me, especially now.

So I stop and look at my surroundings; furniture, books, paintings familiar but now inhabiting a new space.  I have “downsized”, moved a short distance from my old house into an apartment complex for those of us 55 and older.  I wake up most nights, knowing where I am, (no confusion here) but somehow certain that someone else is sharing the space with me; usually Ben, although sometimes I have been extra quiet so as not to awaken overnight guests; no one is present but me, yet it takes a few extra minutes to remember that I am the only one actually inhabiting the space; the others have most likely slipped into the tail end of a dream. 

I've moved now, from three floors of rooms filled with furniture, clothing, books, art work, photographs and memories.  three weeks in, and I feel centered, in control, safe.  transitions are hard, and this one made mostly alone, no spouse to share the work, the memories, the decisions!  do I keep the dozen pictures of each of our kids and grandkids, in picture frames and binders, printed "books" and loose.  Is t his baby picture of my son, or perhaps his son?  looks a bit like my husband as a small boy too.  I've changed my address countless times, over endless "on hold" telephone calls, forms to complete for voter registration, car registration, The Nation and New Yorker mags that I want to continue to receive.  so, some lessons I've learned:

1. slow down!  not everything can be done in a day, or week.
2 enjoy the process:  unwrapping each picture and book could be done with speed and haste, but how much better to look at each, remember when paintings were bought, when trips to foreign lands were taken, when a special book was read.
3. feel free to decide if something, a picture, a wall hanging, clay bowls and plates and teapots (three which I've never used), can be donated.
4.read your body:  don't lift stuff too heavy, or try to reach a top shelf, or carry to many items to 'save time'.
5. save time each day for play:  a walk, a visit with friends, of course including lunch; meditate, breathe.....yes,that does help!
6. think of something you have always wanted to do, but never found the time:  writing, or learning a new language, or taking up a new hobby, anything from bridge, to painting, to yoga.  

oh, never forget to laugh, and hug, and share, ideas, food, time.  
June 23, 2015 ( one day short of my 74th birthday!!!!!

I have recently recovered (they tell me) from a serious, potentially life threatening major bacterial infection which affected my brain, leaving me in a state of confusion and my family and friends frightened and bewildered.  I have mostly recovered, and hopefully this poem signals the start of a new chapter.  

And yes, because I do tend to take on new challenges, and it was clearly past time to move out of my three story house into an apartment, I am in the throes of moving over four decades of stuff; clothing, furniture, books and pictures and mostly memories.  At times the task has been daunting, leaving me exhausted and fuzzy; did I really pack the only glass I had left in the kitchen?  do I want to shlepp a large cedar chest that held pictures of trips and family and friends over time?  the chest stays here, given to the family who purchased my house, the albums are neatly stored in cardboard boxes, to be studied, shared with family, hopefully they will be my children's memories in kodak- color now.  

Moving, relocating, even if nearby has changed from a relatively smooth transfer of furniture, clothes, books and pictures.  Decisions are relatively easy; will I still need all those winter clothes when I head south every winter; I haven't used that (bowl, silver services, etc) in twenty years, so pack or donate?  

An added element is present in today's tech, google, facebook, I- everything world.  Its not enough to move the television, you have to return the electronic DVD box to the content provider, order a new one from a different company that is wired in the building and have a computer buddy restore cable cords and boxes with new equipment.  Mail to be forwarded, address change to regular providers of services( alarm system; plumber, heat/air conditioning company, etc.  Newspapers need to be rerouted, trash pickup days re-learned. the list is endless.  but each day that I empty a closet, fold clothing or linens or toiletries into boxes I edge closer to walking away from the physical reminders of 37 years of my life.  Making the move as a widow is particularly hard.  Who do you turn to and say: "remember when we bought that print?  Eight years gone and your bathrobe is still on a hook in the closet, time to wash and donate it."  checking the back of shelves in the kitchen, I come across six or seven "chicken wishbones" dried, wrapped in paper towels, saved for luck? habit? 

And finally, the lists, endless lists: changes to make, calls to stop or reschedule services, notes on when a particular company will come to turn off one service or another, while neighbors stop by to offer a lunch break in a local restaurant, Off I go, remembering to stop at the new apartment house management office to pick up my keys.  I am almost 74 and this is the first home I have ever had with only one occupant, me.  how odd.  

LAND OF LOST TIME

I’m not quite ready for poems that rhyme,

For cute little ditties and such.

My (hopefully) short slide into the land of lost time

Has shaken me right to the core.

I’ve managed my share of medical crises,

Broken ankles, a rotator cuff tear.

I’ve had surgery on more toes than I can count.

Now, that certainly was unfair.

I’ve gained a partial third set of teeth, through crowns, implants, and caps

At least now my smile is reasonably normal, with no obvious gaps.

I pulled through managing Crohns’ disease

In spite of a rare burst colon.

I’ve followed the orders of doctors and dentists

Treated quickly anything swollen.

As much as I love food that’s salty or sweet

I try to contain my weight

It helps to practice the art of Tai Chi

With a focus on feeling fit and great.

So how did I happen to meet with such a daunting challenge?

Silent, no symptoms, no signs.

That managed to totally consume my mind

Bacteria on my brain had designs!

“Let’s not let her realize how dangerous we are,

We’ll sneak into her bloodstream, swim near the left ear,

A bit of deafness to start”.

“We’ll hide in the coils and twists of her brain,

Mess up memory so she seems to be addled.

We’ll short-circuit her recall, her store of knowledge

With confusion she will be saddled.”

And best of all, we’ll be hard to find, and harder to understand

Until a team of great Docs, MRI’s and blood tests

Ferreted out the vandals.

With high powered medicines, lots of rest, to be sure

This was something I could handle.

My memory is slowly reasserting itself, so I’ll know who you are if you call.

I still stop at times when I forget to remember why I’m standing in the front hall.

Of course, the Times awaits outside, and I need that daily crossword

And yes, I walk slowly; walk carefully on side walk and lawn,

The last thing I need is to lose balance and fall.

So to all of my friends, The Florida crew, the Columbians I’ve known for years,

My family, my children, my neighbors.

Without your support I could never get through

To what I hope is a fruitful life, with poems and classes and movies too.

And I sit now, indoors, with my house in a shambles,

Moving boxes, filled with stuff, empty walls surround me.

And outside the woods, the stream and the brambles.

But they’ll be close by my new abode

With no stairs! One level!  A treat to behold.

I’m moving, downsizing, to an apartment that’s right sized,

For myself and my lifestyle today

But I carry my memories; they all fit in my heart,

And I’m only a few minutes away!

May 23, 2015

Susan Kleinberg (I think)

lost and found

Lost and Found

When we suffer the loss of a loved one we grieve, often retreating to memories of moments in time; the sound of a whistler on an empty snowy street in Greenwich Village in the early morning hours; turning a corner in Paris to see the Eiffel Tower lit with thousands of sparking bulbs as the sun set; watching our son brave the ocean waves for the first time, watching our daughter in awe at the birth of five tiny kittens under our dresser. Moving from a house called “home” for 37 years has reopened older worlds of loss but also of laughter, memories of our Christmas ritual of cheese, salami, chips and monopoly with the dog bent on resting atop the game board, displacing the carefully placed houses and game tokens. 

As I packed each book or painting, making decisions to keep some in a downsized apartment, pack some for Florida, donate the rest, I often found myself reliving the experiences attached to each.  This home has been witness to all our transitions: children leaving home, sometimes returning after a change of job or boyfriend, or school; rooms changed from bedrooms to dens or home offices; CD’s replacing dozens of albums of music; basement rooms mostly abandoned and empty.

By the time I checked the house a final time before leaving for Florida, it was a shell of its former self; bookshelves empty, kitchen counters uncluttered and bare, walls devoid of pictures and tapestries and their memories, closets empty but for random hangers. 

Two days later, after a long train ride down the East coast, I reclaimed my car and drove through warm Florida towns to my Condo apartment in St. Petersburg.  What a welcome!  Here was my other home base, one acquired 15 years ago and fully furnished by Ben and me to reflect our changing status as a two-some; shared office and guest room, photos and albums open and waiting to be scanned again, filling memories.  I moved through the familiar rooms, shelves filled with books most recently read, paintings and art work purchased only within the past decade, I came across a sketch of a Spanish style house Ben had drawn sitting on the grass of our favorite Bayou, watching birds swoop and dive for dinner.  I have returned there as well remembering past visits.

I have revisited the beach again, able finally to walk with comfort and certainty, watching the tide tease the many seabirds with its foam and fragments of shells.  There is a bell hanging on the deck of the beach patio.  It is, by tradition, rung each evening by a volunteer to signal the end of the day, sending the birds home to dinner.  Ben was recruited one day to be the toller of the bell, and more recently, after his passing, Zackary, our grandson was visiting.  I asked the women in charge of this daily tradition if he could have the honor that day, and like his much loved Poppy, he rang the bell with energy and gusto.  

This second home, our joint sharing of time within its walls and on its nearby waterways, has embraced me, welcomed me into its midst. I feel in balance again, centered and home within myself and my memories.  

BLOG POSTING 

October 5, 2014

Journey through the past: downsizing and discoveries.

When my mom died, my sister and I went through her condo, packing and discarding most of her "stuff".  We each kept some mementos but would never know the stories behind these donated objects; photos and books and vases, with no dates recorded, no history of their purchase or meaning. Lost memories.  My generation, born during or just after WW II has lived through many momentous changes in the world, transitioned from the age of radio and live entertainment, books with hard covers owned or borrowed from local libraries.  Communication changed from rotary telephones, often with party lines, and written letters to the multidimensional world of computers and smart phones, e-mail, scanning and twitter and texting; instant and encompassing information.  
I am now in the process of going from a three story, four bedroom home we moved into in 1977.  I had considered the option of moving to smaller space, but it remained a sketchy, vague plan.  I came home from Florida with a swollen foot, which ended up needing major ankle and heel surgery.  Instead of a summer filled with friends, and trips and thinking more about moving, I found myself  confined to a bed or sofa in the living room for more than 10 weeks.  The need to shrink my living space and move toward a one floor, accessible apartment became suddenly real.  Exhausted after surgery, feeling helpless and vulnerable, I returned to my home, now retrofitted to allow for single floor occupancy.  The kitchen, front door and small bathroom were all on this floor, only a bed was needed.  I would not, could not rent a hospital bed.  I had watched as my darling husband spent the last 6 weeks of his life in that same corner, penned in by his illness and the multi-runged side rails.  So there I was, lying in a bed purchased hastily to be able to stay on the main floor. I spent the first night in anxiety, sleepless and drained. How would I, could I stay in this state, using a knee-propelled scooter to get from bed to bathroom to kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, maneuvering to reach in for basic foods like milk and bread without tipping the scooter over, took time, patience and care. 
 Friends, family, neighbors quickly filled in the gaps for me, visiting regularly, acting as my legs to move things closer, put in a wash or empty the dishwasher, bring in the mail Mostly they came to visit, bring food and talk, share stories and life histories.  Such quiet, intimate times might not have happened in our ordinary, busy, complex lives. I am grateful for that opportunity. 
And yes, I also needed to sort through all the stuff in my house, my life; 2 five drawer metal filing cabinets; 5 book shelves filled with an enormous variety of books and reports read and written by Ben and I, preserved and available but rarely visited anymore.  How much easier it is now to google Shakespeare’s plays, or Cummings poetry; Jewish history, a compendium of all the major world religions, Art books by artist, or genre, or both, even the Diaries of Anais Nin. (Yes, crossword puzzle addicts, we know this book probably without reading it, because it’s so often used  in clue construction.) The most incredible find was a book written in the 1950’s, a mock chronicle of a broadsheet newspaper of the days and events in 1200 BCE through to 500BCE,  complete with OpEd columns, travel specials, caravan sales, and gossip.
The most memorable finds have been old photographs, letters and poems written I’ve written throughout my life.  The earliest find was a poem my sister and I wrote to our parents on their Anniversary in 1955 when I was 14 and she 11, and an A+ paper I wrote in creative writing class in high school, adding a chapter to a Jane Austen novel.  I found a poem I wrote the night before my son was born, in early labor, welcoming him into the world. I found sweet notes written by my daughter, who was then nicknamed the Kleinberg Turtle, for her propensity of slipping into our bed from the footboard, slowly creeping upwards to our pillows. I even found a photograph of my grandfather, as a young man with a beret, standing in a field somewhere in Poland.  Context and content make this available to my children and their children. 
I am sorting, scanning, saving and sending much of these finds to my children and my sister.  I know the stories behind these memories, the context and meaning of a place or experience captured in film or journal entry. If I had left the task of sorting out my life for my children to manage after I passed away, I’m not sure if their import, their context would be apparent.  I sit now, again able to walk through the house “un-casted” among boxes of books, bags of recycled papers and pamphlets, old tax returns to be shredded. 
I am ready for the move, ready to keep treasures with me for now, knowing I can explain their context and meaning to my children now, hoping they will share them with their own children.