The Gero-Punk Project

The early bird catches the worm!

I was up this morning at 5:30. Isobel has a big debate tournament today and I had to get her going and drop her off at the car-pool location by 6:45 a.m.  I’m coming off of several days in a row of intense work, so you can imagine the difficultly I experienced facing my week-day wake up call on a Saturday. But I figured I would come home and crawl back in to bed for awhile and hold off until later to go for a run.  As I was driving back home after dropping Izzy, dawn was breaking. I could see the waning but still robust moon in the western sky and though there wasn’t any indication of impending sun rise in the east, the surrounding darkness seemed less thick than it had only minutes before. At that moment I decided that rather than crawl back into bed I’d go for my run with Happy.

For me there are few things as sublime as witnessing chrono-liminality – day winding down into night, night slowly waking into day, creatures settling in or stirring. And there are few things as glorious as being able to experience my body in motion.

Here is who we saw and what happened on our run in our park:

Mile one—I didn’t stop to count, but there were at least thirty widgeons tromping around looking for worms in the soggy grass alongside the casting pond. (I heard them before I saw them, as usual.)  The ubiquitous Canada geese and mallards but also some little buffleheads were floating on the pond. I heard a few cars in the distance, some song birds waking up, and, though I wasn’t yet certain, kingfisher. I kept my eyes open for blue heron, who Simeon and I spied last Sunday perching on one leg at the very top of a tree. I was surprised by a nutria standing on the shore of the stream; nutria looked upon us calmly, Happy chomped at the bit.

Mile two—During mile one, the sun crested the eastern horizon, so on mile two I was better able to see the creatures out and about. Happy was more interested in stopping to sniff the invisible secret messages left behind by other dogs than he was in running, so I ran in place periodically, which gave me a great opportunity to suss how my body was feeling and also see what was what with the feathered creatures. I looked for the swan couple but I didn’t see them, but I did see the wood duck couple, and I confirmed that kingfisher was indeed somewhere in the vicinity. Oh, and look, there’s nutria again! Still as calm and composed as ever.

(If you don’t mind, let me take a moment to offer a brief aside about my embodiment.  When I am grumpy with my body I say that it is problematic and unreliable; most of the time I just say that my embodiment is challenging.  On a run recently, at the end of a two week period of a flare up of my intestinal condition, I had to stop to use the park restroom three times – one time per mile.  On some of my scheduled running days I can’t run because my intestines aren’t settled enough to do so. When that’s the case, I walk instead of run.  Sometimes – but very rarely — I can’t even walk without pain. I also need to monitor the various locations of my body where I’ve had injuries which have left me with particular vulnerabilities. Almost all of the spots happen to be on the left side, so that simplifies my body scan: left Achilles tendon (ruptured in a skateboarding accident); left knee (broken twice); left hip (bursitis).  When I am running, at the end of each mile I place my awareness on three things: How’s my heart rate and breathing? How are my vulnerable locations feeling? And how are my guts doing? I always want to be able to go father and faster than my body will allow; it is an ongoing struggle for me to accept and even rejoice in what my body is able to do at any given time, a really intense struggle which can sometimes be overwhelming. But here’s where perspective saves me: Two weeks ago, I couldn’t even eat; today I ran four miles. Hooray!)

Mile three—To keep things interesting, on each mile I changed up which bridge we crossed or which direction we took around each pond. As Happy and I made our way around the duck pond starting from the west side, I caught sight of the juvenile swan pair, who I had thought ditched us for good. I also saw a male coot, a common merganser pair, and witnessed kingfisher’s latest performance. For such a little being he sure has a big attitude! Dig kingfisher!

Mile four—Lately I’ve been stopping my run after three miles, to be on the safe side of my body, but today I was feeling warm and loose and my pace was good. Though I was starting to feel a little pull in my left Achilles tendon, I decided to at least start a fourth mile, knowing I could stop and walk if I needed to.  Nutria was nowhere to be seen this time; I heard sweet hummingbird twittering in the distance, and rowdy kingfisher yelling.  This time Happy and I traveled up the east side of the duck pond, and I saw wood duck hiding under the cover of shoreline bushes.  A short while later as we ran south on the west side of the pond my attention was arrested suddenly by a Canada goose with seriously messed up wings. Goose’s left wing was leaning too far to the right side of its body, and the right wing was bent in such a way that the tip was pointed up and there was an odd angle to it. I stopped running and watched goose, wondering what to do and worrying that it won’t be flying anytime soon.  I felt the pull to help goose and I wondered if its wings throbbed in pain the way my left leg sometimes does.

After that, I decided Happy and I should walk the rest of the way home.

Several times today I’ve commenced a new gero-punk essay only to abandon each attempt. (Perhaps I should have saved each of the fragments for future use. Oh, well.)

When I (may) have something to write about my body announces it—the notion starts in my gut or chest, where it feels warm, then intensifies in the vicinity of my heart, where it begins its low-level vibration, and then somehow makes its way up my spine and into my brain, until the point at which energy has built up so intensely that my brain can’t contain it and it bursts into what I’ve come to refer to as my mind, which suffuses my entire body and even escapes my body’s edges (Hey, promise sometime soon we can have a discussion about how the brain/mind/and consciousness are interconnected and nested but different phenomena.).

But today, perhaps because I have a lot of projects and responsibilities competing in my mind for space right now (and probably because I am getting, as one of my colleagues admitted today, “an ass kicking” because of all of the end-of-term work that’s piling up) each notion that has announced itself as potentially worthy of being written about has gotten stuck somewhere between my chest or heart and the spinal-chord pathway into my mind (and beyond).

Here are some of the notions that haven’t yet come to fuller fruition:

• Gero-punk echoes: I sometimes see my Gramma’s hands when I look at my own hands. I sometimes hear my mommy’s laughter when I hear myself laugh. I sometimes glimpse my father’s countenance when I view my own face from a certain angle. I sometimes witness my daughter embody my gestures. Likewise, I sometimes feel myself embody my daughter’s gestures.

• Gero-punk serendipity: There are opportunities I thought I wanted, that I did want, but that I didn’t get (and that I was pretty crushed about not getting.). Upon reflection, tracing the steps in my journey from there to here, I understand that the not-getting meant that I was able to create or accept new and largely unforeseen opportunities, opportunities which I now understand to be better aligned with my gero-punk purpose (see below).
• Gero-punk purpose: What elements of my life now and as I travel into the future are negotiable, non-negotiable, or undecided?  In other words, what situations and conditions must I have in my life, which situations and conditions can I live without, and which situations and conditions can I absolutely not live with, won’t live with?  What are the true causes and conditions of meaning in my life?  What are the indicators that I am living my precious human life meaningfully?
• Gero-punk service: What does the world and its creatures need and how can I best be of use?  And what do I need in order to best serve the world and its creatures?

Once some mind-space clears, I’ll see what’s what and what might happen next with all of this and the other stuff that’s bound to emerge, too.  I may also discover that this – what I’ve written here – doesn’t need to be anything beyond what it already is.

How’s it going for all of you out there? What notions have been chasing you, trying to capture your attention? What new insights are making their winding travels from wherever it is they originate into your gorgeous minds (and beyond!)?

Calling all Gero-punks!  If you’ve got the head-space and time, I’d love to have you join me and my colleague (and dear mentor) Dr. Harry “Rick” Moody, director of academic affairs for the American Association of Retired Persons, as we engage in some real-time critical gerontology.  We’ll be co-facilitating two free, national webinars (see the information below) — My man Moody will be the gero-policy wonk, and I’ll be serving as gero-punk interlocutor.

Here’s the info.:

The Future of Medicare:
Understanding the Issues and Implications

Thursday, November 29, 2012 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. PST
Register online

This webinar promises a thoughtful, informed discussion of the difficult challenges we face as a country in reforming Medicare, with particular emphasis on issues and implications that will be important to professionals in the aging service and senior care network and to the clients and families they serve.

The New Aging Marketplace and Its Impact on Older Americans

Thursday, December 13, 2012 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. PST
Register online 

Americans over the age of 50 already control most of the financial assets of America and command an enormous share of consumer spending. In the next two decades, that proportion of older consumers will grow dramatically. Yet business organizations, inspired by “youth culture,” have been slow to recognize this marketplace in all its complexity. In this webinar, we look at the marketplace in terms of distinctive “silver industries” that will grow in years to come: health care, financial services, retirement housing, and travel and hospitality.  We look at opportunities and also at pitfalls, both for business and for older Americans themselves, as we move into this new aging marketplace.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope you can play with us!  It should be mildly hair-raising, fun and informative!