The Morgantowner: Morgantown Interfaith Association

Monday, October 21, 2019

High Holidays 5780: How Terribly Strange To be Seventy

"How terribly strange to be seventy" is a lyric from Paul Simon, who turned seventy-eight last week. I wonder what he thinks about that now. I can tell you, it's not strange at all. It's just what happens when you just get up every morning, as I did this morning, on your seventieth birthday. I didn't just sit on a park bench, with nothing left but my memories. I ran/walked (ran downhill, walked uphill) through my neighborhood in beautiful, slightly-warmer-than-average fall weather.

The past month of Jewish holidays has taken a toll on both me and Joe. I chanted haftarah (prophets) the first day of Rosh Hashana, and Torah the second day, and Torah the morning and afternoon of Yom Kippur. In the Reform movement, today is Atzeret-Simchat Torah, the last day of the holiday period. In between everything else, Joe and I are teaching classes at Osher Life-Long Learning through West Virginia University. He is teaching "Old Testament Rituals-Don't Try These At Home," and I'm teaching "The Great Hits and Albums of 1967," fun for me, but a lot of work. We attended a wedding on the Saturday between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in Alpine Lake, 40 miles east of here, near the Maryland line, and a bat mitzvah in Pittsburgh two days ago. Yesterday, we combined Simchat Torah with the Sunday school, then Joe had an unveiling near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and spoke on a panel later in the afternoon, followed by a dinner, through Greater Morgantown Interfaith Association. I spoke on a panel at WVU for counseling students Thursday morning, with a priest, a Dakota elder and our local Imam, then grabbed lunch before my own class. We attended a mourning prayer service Thursday night, for the mother and grandmother of congregants. This is in addition to Joe's regular services and my City Council responsibilities. I didn't expect to be so busy in retirement, and I'm sure it's not what Paul Simon envisioned oldness would be.

The kids at WVU asked about my history, and how I came to be religious and believe in God. I told them my story of coincidences in my favor piling up over time, and how I thought Someone had a plan for me of which I was not aware. I got kind of emotional about it all. At the evening service for Rosh Hashana, my attention wandered, and I saw myself as a child with my parents and at Passover seders with my grandparents, aunts and uncles, in Hebrew School and at high school dances, with my first boyfriend in New Orleans, and that time there was snow on the palm trees. I thought about how my grandmother loved me and worried about me when I lived in Miami, and the times I was sick there, about how I came to Los Angeles, my job issues and many career changes. I remembered again all the friends I helped bury during the worst years of the AIDS crisis: Fred and Art, Hal and the others whose names I can't bring up now, all these years later. I remembered how I wanted to meet someone and leave Los Angeles after I suffered a heart attack and my mother died a few weeks later. And then I saw Joe on the bimah leading services and said a quiet "Thank you, God." No one could have predicted fifty years ago that my life would be what it is now.

I still worry plenty about the climate, refugees, Israel, the United States, Morgantown, how long I'm going to live. I don't have any big, immediate worries. Physically, I'm as healthy as can be expected. I've started running, slowly and not far, after thirty-five years of not running. It's a testament to the heart and asthma medication I'm on every day. Still, there are times when I am just exhausted, and no matter the time of day, I need to stop and go to bed. That happened Saturday, when we came back from the bat mitzvah in Pittsburgh, with a stop at Apple Butter Day at friends' farm in Mt. Morris, near here in Pennsylvania.

When the kids asked me Thursday about my spiritual practice I told them the main thing is to say "Thank you, God." I do that when I wake up and when I start a meal, and at random times during the day. I extend that practice to being kind and compassionate to people around me (still working on that), charitable and generous in spirit.

Joe bought me two t-shirts with funny things about cats for my birthday, and we'll have dinner out tonight. I'm speaking to another panel Thursday morning and my class continues in the afternoon. At seventy, having lived longer than my father, grandfather and great-grandfather in my paternal line, I give thanks for my life today.

This is what 70 looks like

Sunday, December 31, 2017

2017

When people ask how everything's going, I usually say "My life is great, but the world is coming to an end." I have the usual complaints: ten prescriptions, twenty extra pounds, not as cute as I used to be, and a life expectancy of... better not go there.

But I have a solid marriage to a handsome and smart man who puts up with me, we own a house that will be paid for when I'm ninety-five, we own two cars and a cat who loves us. The cars are six and seventeen years old, but we have them. We traveled together to Canada this summer, visiting Montréal, Québec and Ottawa. We were able to attend a wedding of the son of Joe's best friend from high school in New York, and a few days later, we flew to Memphis to spend Thanksgiving with Joe's aunt and uncle, his sister and brother and lots of cousins. We didn't have political tensions with the relatives because we are all on the same page. I only embarrassed Joe's Aunt Natalie by pointing out that Joe and I are married when she called us "my nephews." We spent time with my sister, both here and at her home in Greenbelt, Maryland, and on one visit with her, I attended my high school class's fiftieth reunion. It was there that I saw commonalities with people whose lives and views are different from mine, but with whom I shared life in a different century, a different world.

As to the world, there is climate change, there is the current President of the Confederacy, I mean, the United States. It's easy to get confused that way.

In 2016, I ran for a seat in the West Virginia Legislature. I came in eighth of eight candidates in the Democratic primary. The first five candidates made it to the general election. This year, some political people asked me about running for City Council. I found that I had more friends than I knew in the city, and not just the people who helped with the campaign. The election was at the end of April, and we were installed in early July. I have become friends with all the other Councilors, and although we disagree about some specific things, we are generally in agreement about broad goals for Morgantown. We signed on to the Paris Climate Accords, and voted for a Human Rights Ordnance that includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

I was able to continue my goal of visiting one county per month, within three hundred miles of Morgantown in any state. The cities I visited were Lynchburg, Virginia, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, Denton, Maryland, Bowling Green, Virginia, Westminster, Maryland, Carrollton, Ohio, Galax, Virginia, Grayson, Kentucky, Olean, New York, State College, Pennsylvania and Urbana, Ohio. Although I was worried about visiting places that voted heavily Republican in 2016, I never had any problems. Part of that is that I traveled to these places alone, I'm older, I can pass for white, and can adjust my speech to a local accent. I do understand what "privilege" means.

Joe and I have both been teaching at OLLI, Osher Life-Long Learning, affiliated with WVU's School of Public Health. Joe's Bible classes are well-attended by an enthusiastic mix of seniors, as are my classes, which this year have covered pop music in 1962, 1963 and 1964. Last winter, I taught a four-week session called "Bruce Springsteen is 67." I've learned lots from my research, and my students, most of whom graduated high school in the 1960s, love going back in time.

Our life here is good. We can live comfortably on our income, Joe is healthy, I'm stable, and we are recognized in town, and respected by our constituencies, if not by everyone in Monongalia County.

Our challenge is to keep going. It's no secret that our Jewish community in Morgantown is aging, as are we, and our cars. The United States government has made itself the enemy of liberals generally, and of gay people in particular, and we must be vigilant and hopeful for the future. I make it a point to attend demonstrations about healthcare, about immigrant rights, including pro-Dreamer and anti-immigrant ban events. I spoke in Charleston last month against the EPA's proposal to scrap the
Clean Power Plan.

My usual resolutions are to lose twenty pounds, and to clean up and organize the house. I have lost a few pounds this year, very few, and I'm working on organizing paper at home. In light of the scandals this year around sexual harassment, I have promised to stop ogling HYMs (Handsome Young Men). I've been harmless for quite some time, but that doesn't stop me from checking out someone attractive from head-to-toe, or even flirting. I'm cutting that out. I can see that it is unwelcome, disrespectful to my husband, and makes me look foolish. If I can find a way, I will tell my age 70ish straight male friends to cut it out with young women as well.

I remain optimistic, at least for the short term. I might feel differently if I were twenty-eight instead of sixty-eight. We all need to work together for change.

Here are some pics: