The Gero-Punk Project

Thinking together about our ends

No commentary, no explanation, and certainly don’t over-think it. Just notice.

When you hear the word “dying,” what short phrase or word comes to your mind?

For the past few months I’ve had the honor of being part of the Oregon Humanities statewide program Talking About Dying.

Between September 2015 and January 2016, I facilitated conversations in eight different communities, from Newberg, to The Dalles, to Baker City. No matter where I was, no matter how many folks showed up (anywhere from 8 to 40), our warm-up to talking about dying was the same. Assembled in a circle, I’d invite each participant to state their first name and the word or short phrase that came to mind upon hearing the word “dying.” I offered that this exercise was voluntary and that at any time one could opt out of participating. No one ever opted out of the warm-up.

I’d always go first, to demonstrate.

My name is Jenny. And the word that comes to my mind when I hear the word “dying” is “Yikes!”

Here are some of the other words and phrases participants shared:

Pain; peace; the inevitable; the great equalizer; long and short; release; sadness; fear; hope; reality; the end; the beginning; home; questions; curious; the unknown; mystery; transformation.

At the end of each program, as a closing ritual, I would recite Stanley Kunitz’s poem  The Long Boat.

As for what happened in between how we began and how we ended our conversations about our hopes for our own ends, take a listen: Think Out Loud.

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Well, it’s a new year! And an auspicious time to get the Gero-Punk Salon series up-and-running once again, don’t you think?

Please join me and my co-host Dana-Rae Parker for the first Gero-Punk Salon of 2016!

Sunday, February 21^st, 2:30-4:30 p.m.

Sellwood-Moreland Library

Our theme: Gero-Punk Self-Care.

What is “gero-punk self-care”? Well, one hint is that it focuses on walks, naps, and baths, in any order that suits you. It also involves beautiful food. And sometimes hula-hooping and jumping rope. And deep belly laughs.

What else?

Will you join us?

(For more information, contact me: littlecoracle@gmail.com)

Except for a quick trip to the post office at lunchtime, I’ve been cooped up inside all day, waking up to a big writing project that has been mostly slumbering the past few months. But around 4:00 or so this afternoon Happy-dog decided it was time for our walk, so I put on my green rain boots, red raincoat, and gray stocking cap. At the last minute, as Happy was yanking me out the front door, I decided to grab my binoculars just in case any special birds whom I might want to spy on were out splashing in the rain.

We had just crossed the street at the end of the block, making our way toward the park, when Happy decided to stop and sniff one of his favorite trees. I was in a relaxed state, waiting for him.  I was looking around out from under my green umbrella. Right then, a red truck drove by and I noticed the person in the passenger seat and they noticed me. I suck at the age guessing game, but I’d say she was probably in middle school, maybe 13 years of age or so? She had light brown braids and an open, curious face. She looked right at me, turning her head as the truck drove away so she could continue to look at me. I stood planted under the tree, rotating my head so I could continue to look at her.

I wondered about her, and who the driver of the truck might be. Her father picking her up from an after-school activity? Her grandfather? I thought of the many rides I took in my father’s truck when I was her age, sitting next to him and staring out the window, hoping to see something interesting, to make a connection to the outside world. I remembered how desperately I wished to escape, to be a girl of the world, how as a girl this lonely longing  often left me feeling a confusing mixture of fear and wonderment.

I wondered if perhaps the unapologetic intensity of her gaze upon me was because of my rainy walking outfit, my bright boots and jacket and hat and umbrella. Or maybe she spotted my binoculars, perhaps she’s secretly a birdwatcher and recognized me as a fellow bird-girl. I wondered what she’d think of the owl tattoo on the inside of my right wrist (I wonder what she’d say if I told her about how I recently got it, right after my 49^th birthday, to commemorate my Gramma Jewell’s death and celebrate the start of my 50^th year.).

I wondered if she, like me, had heard the news of the British actor Alan Rickman’s death and was missing him and Severus Snape.  I wondered if she, like me, might make a nest on the couch tonight from which to watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in tribute to both the real and imagined man.

I wondered if I was attracted to her because she was an echo of my far away past girlhood self. I wondered if she was attracted to me because I was an echo of her far away future woman self.

As the pickup rounded right at the corner, she was still watching me and I was still watching her. Neither of us smiled nor waved but our connection was strong and I felt like something warm and sweet was happening. And then, as quickly as our relationship started, it came to an end. If the entire relationship lasted for more than 15 seconds, I’d be surprised.

For the past several days I’ve had this strange feeling, an internal itch, a sense of tension or pressure. It’s this feeling that there’s something important and time-sensitive that I should be doing. I don’t mean taking down the Christmas tree and putting away the holiday decorations and writing thank you notes. (I do still have all of these tasks ahead of me). I also don’t mean the annual project of offering my aspirations for the new year. (Already aspired—check!).

What’s interesting is that my recurring feeling is accompanied by the thought that by not doing whatever it is that I’m not doing, I’m also not fulfilling my responsibilities – and my deepest longings — in some consequential and profound way.

Today is Thursday, and as I write this, it is 2:00 p.m. I’ve had a low-key, slow day. My gut is off and I feel “puny,” as we say in my family when we aren’t feeling our best physically. I just finished washing the dishes. Before washing the dishes, I took a nap. Before I took a nap, I wrote some emails—mostly professional, some personal. Before that, I did a market and collected the mail and made my daughter breakfast (she heads back to college early Saturday morning). After I write this post, I’ll take Happy-the-dog for a walk. And after that, who knows? Perhaps I’ll read. (I have a pile of books given to me as holiday gifts.) Or watch something? I just cancelled some much anticipated plans for later, so the late afternoon and evening are open and full of possibilities.

Feeling puny or not, usually on a Thursday afternoon, I’d be preparing to teach my afternoon class at 3:15. On this particular Thursday afternoon – the first Thursday afternoon of winter term 2016 – I should be preparing for and anticipating teaching the first session of one of my gerontology seminars. Last winter it was Theorizing and Researching in Gerontology. This winter term, I was scheduled to teach Women’s Issues in Aging.

As I write this, I am realizing that I have fulfilled one of my usual pre-class preparatory rituals; I took a nap. (Naps for me are a central practice for restoring and focusing my energy, as well as managing anxiety and nervousness.) And I’ve been thinking and reading about the kinds of things I have always – for more than half of my life! — thought about and read in preparation for a new term of teaching.

But unlike every winter term since 1997, I won’t be stepping into a Marylhurst University classroom at 3:15 today. I wonder if part of my puniness today is a result of the uncertainty I feel, not knowing if ever again I’ll have the honor of creating and nurturing a learning community, of engaging in deep collaborative inquiry as a teacher-learner? (In response to this question, my heart jumps up-and-down in affirmation. And suggests that, perhaps, I am also feeling some grief.)

This past December 23^rd, I celebrated my 49^th birthday and ushered in my 50^th year on the planet. Two days before my birthday I celebrated the end of my long career as a member of the Marylhurst faculty.

I made the decision to leave a place, its people, and a calling to which I have devoted myself for almost two decades.

What I had to do began to become real to me on August 28^th, 2015. It was one of those decisions, like leaving any significant long term relationship, that only now I am beginning to realize I’d actually begun preparing myself to make well before I was able to consciously contemplate making it. Quite possibly I stayed in my relationship with Marylhurst for longer than was good for either of us, but you know how love can be, yes? But by walking away, quite possibly I’m giving up something that I’ll never be able to find again.

And yet, and yet.

As brutal as the experience was of getting to the point of this irreversible and life-altering decision, as much as it hurt (for me and for others), once I was on the edge of the decision, it felt inevitable and transgressive and emancipatory and – strange word, I know – graceful.

Sometimes when we love someone or something, we stay. Sometimes we stay for a very long time (almost 19 years!). And sometimes when we love someone or something, we leave.

And leap off the edge of the known universe.