How Old Do You Feel?

During a recent discussion, some friends around the age of eighty aired the dismay they feel when they glance in the mirror or at recent photos. “Who is that white-haired person staring back at me with all those wrinkles? That can't be me!” They all concur with the general report that people their age still feel young and vigorous inside. Their sense of self has not kept pace with their bodies. They still feel inwardly as if they are in their twenties or early thirties.

“How old do you feel?” they asked me, as the youngest person in the room by far.

I have a hard time answering that question. I certainly remember being much younger, but those memories are like looking back at discarded clothing that no longer fits. Many elements remain: I still have a keen sense of curiosity and a desire to understand how things work. I still love explaining things to people. I still love being out in the woods, warm sunny days, and eating Mexican food. I still love to go exploring and to read.

Other things have changed: The way I understand things, express myself, and react to circumstances continues to evolve. With more experience to draw on, my understanding and insight have deepened. In general, I am much happier and more relaxed than I was in my younger years. So no, I do not feel “younger” than my years, but neither do I feel old. I just feel like me, and age is part of who I am. I actually celebrate my age, and look forward to each approaching year. I'm not in a hurry to get there, but I even look forward to standing on the threshold of the next level of existence, being firmly convinced there will be one, and that it will be thrilling.

My self concept is that I am in a continual state of becoming, and that sense transcends age. I'm exactly as old as I should be today.

If I choose to continue exploring and writing about my feelings about age and my sense of connectedness with age (or lack of same), I'll have to include a discussion of my beliefs and understanding of the afterlife. That would take considerably more time and space than a blog post allows, but it's a fascinating question, and one I shall continue to pursue privately.

I'd be fascinated to know how my great-grandmothers felt about their old ages — most lived long lives. I'd be fascinated to know how my great-grandchildren will feel about the same matter, and how closely the generations’ attitudes align. I can't know about the others, because it's too late, or too early, to ask. But I can record my own thoughts as a legacy so those great-grandchildren will have a basis of comparison for their own perceptions.

What about you? How old do you feel? What thoughts do you have as you gaze into the mirror?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

A Family Saga

How long would you be willing to spend to write a history of your family? Victor Victor Villaseñor spent twenty-five years writing Rain of Gold, a five-hundred-fifty page saga of his own family over the course of four generations, beginning in northwest Mexico through their migrations into the United States during the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910. He taped over one hundred hours of interviews with various relatives as he struggled to make sense of bizarre, unbelievable sounding stories like skinning a bull before running it a few miles into an Indian camp.

This gripping tale is fascinating on several levels. No fictitious piece could have more twists and turns, near escapes, suffering, or overcoming obstacles of every sort leading to the anticipated climax. Beyond the gripping plot, readers gain insight into the geography of rural Mexico in that area, Rural Mexican customs and of the era, and a graphic description of relations between mejicanos and gringos in the early part of the twentieth century. The powerful example of the two family matriarchs is both amazing and inspiring—almost mystical. His portrayal of the gradually developing insight into human nature is profound.

In his forward, Villaseñor explains how his appreciation for various forms of reality grew as he struggled to make sense of and accept the “truth” in the stories he'd grown up hearing. As a young man, he had lost interest in the stories of his elders, because he was no longer able to believe them. During the course of his research, which included trips to interview natives of the areas his ancestors had lived in, he learned that the bull story was indeed feasible, and quit doubting that earlier generations had deeply personal relationships and direct communication with Mary, Jesus and God.

He wrote the work to document his heritage for his own children, and the rest of us are fortunate that it was published widely. Villaseñor's story ends with the marriage of his parents, so there is no way of knowing precisely just how his family heritage influenced his own life, but the fact that he wrote of it demonstrates its importance to him.

Part of the power of Villaseñor's story is the account of how the two families survived the grinding poverty of the migration years. The stories are testaments to human ingenuity and resilience. Perhaps your own family has similar accounts. His family faced racial barriers that were not unique to mejicanos. Dozens of ethnic groups migrating to the United States faced similar persecution.

One way or another, we are all shaped by our roots, and exploring those roots can provide a keen sense of insight into some of the factors that shaped us into the people we have become. It may be a challenge to learn much about your family going back much further than your grandparents, if you are fortunate enough to have some family legends, get them written down before they fade away.

Not every family has such dramatic stories to tell. On one side of my family we have colorful characters, but the other side seems rather ordinary. Perhaps that's because I know fewer details of their lives. But if I don't pass along what little I do know, within another generation or two, it will all be lost and those people will be nothing but names on a family tree.

How about adding a few family facts to your own account?

Take Care of Your Heart First

To my own amazement, I just noticed that the first anniversary of this blog flew by unnoticed by Yours Truly a week ago today. In 53 weeks, I've produced 117 posts. When you consider that for various reasons, there were six weeks when I didn't post at all, that's an average of about two-and-a-half per week, which is right on target for the two-to-three per week I aimed for.

If you've been following the blog for awhile, you may have noticed gaps. There was a gap of nearly a month last summer while I was on vacation. A more recent gap and general slow down has been due to the event generating “The story that must not be written.” The unfolding story remains intense and stressful for all concerned.

In such stressful times, it's difficult to garner creative energies. It's not so much a matter of writer's block as preoccupation and lower energy levels. I can still sit down and write about other things, but it takes more energy, and my endurance is definitely affected. I can't concentrate for hours at a time as I generally do.

My situation is only unique in specific content. No matter how organized they are, anyone working on a longterm life story writing project is going to hit similar times. Perhaps it's a personal illness. Perhaps someone in the family has a health crisis requiring lots of time and attention. Perhaps things at work hit panic levels, or a love affair heads south.

During these times you are likely to have days when sitting down to write is simply more than you can face. What should you do? Back off! Be kind to yourself. Don't quit entirely, but keep your efforts simple. Jot a few notes. Go through your story ideas. Spend a few minutes editing an old story.

Make yourself a promise to get back to your schedule by a certain date. Write that date on your calendar. If the time comes and the situation hasn't eased, renegotiate. Yes, you'll lose momentum and fall behind schedule, but worse things have happened. Your stories come from your heart, and when your heart is elsewhere, your stories won't flow well. Take care of your heart first, and the stories will return.

Having written that, I've discovered anew that as long as I was thinking of you and writing this message for you, I have remained focused, and the words have flowed. Perhaps that's the key: My love and concern for you, my readers, is strong enough to overcome my preoccupation and restores my sense of joy in writing. My heart has reengaged with writing.

Give it a try. Think of those you love and focus on giving them the joy of reading your story. That joy will flow forth from some eternal well and uplift your spirit as well as theirs.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! Even after all these years, when I think of Valentine’s Day, two childhood memories come to mind, one happy and one less so.

First the happy memory: My father always bought three boxes of candy for Valentine’s Day. The big red heart full of chocolates was for Mother. My sister and I got our own heart-shaped boxes, but they were considerably smaller than Mother’s, and had only a dozen pieces or so. I was a skinny kid, and ate a lot of candy in an effort to remedy that situation, so the contents of mine quickly disappeared. Fortunately Mother was more restrained, and willing to share — but only one piece a day.

The less happy memory shifts to school. In grade school we generally took shoe boxes to class and personalized them with seasonal decorations and our names a few days before February 14. As classmates brought in assorted valentines, generally selected from inexpensive collections purchased at Dragon Drug, they were dropped into the various boxes. Only a select few, all girls, received valentines from everyone. The rest of us cringed, hoping not to be terribly embarrassed at having too few. I was not one of the few who received a full box. I was never humiliated by this experience, but neither was it uplifting. The candy hearts, cupcakes or cookies and punch provided by the Room Mother’s volunteers for the class party saved the day.

Like most holidays recently, Valentine’s Day is being subjected to commercialism, with CNN reporting that average spending on this year will be around $120 per person, most of that spent on a significant other. What about you? Will you spend that much? How will you spend whatever you dig out of your pocket? How does this compare with Valentines past? What memories and stories do you have of Valentine’s Day? Did you take sappy cards to class? Does a dance, dinner or date stand out? How about writing some valentine memories down for posterity?

Perhaps rather than writing for a general audience, you’d enjoy writing a valentine story for that special person, sharing endearing memories.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Saving works

Don't forget to save your work.
Save early and often.

Earlier today I wrote an involved piece about political correctness and lifestory writing that I intended to post. Especially on controversial topics, I like to let a post age for at least a couple of hours, so I clicked over to work on another document.

Half an hour later, I clicked in an Explorer window to open my book manuscript. That was a mistake. I forgot to specify that it open in Microsoft Word. I began the new year by switching to OpenOffice (OO), the full-featured, free, open-source office suite, and I set my computer to open all Microsoft Office documents in OO. Most Word documents open flawlessly in OO, but high end formatting is dicey.

My Microsoft Word book manuscript includes over twenty style definitions, dozens of tables, columns, a long list of graphics, cross-reference codes, Table of Contents codes, Index codes, headers, footers, and section breaks all over the place. OO gasped and died. Normally, even this would not be a problem. Normally, I would have saved that document with a title. Even if I didn't do that, OO creates back-up files every ten minutes that should save the day in the event of a program crash. This function worked a couple of times earlier when I closed the program abruptly.

Not this time! For reasons beyond my comprehension, the restored document was an empty page. I'll have to start from scratch to recreate it.

Perhaps this was just as well. After a couple of hours of thought, I realize the post was going off in an extraneous direction. I would have rewritten most of it anyway. Who knows? Perhaps this was a sign. Stranger things have happened. Many stories are much the better for starting over from scratch, and that post will be one of them. Watch for it in a couple of days.

I won't forget this saving lesson any time soon. My momentary lapse was costly. I'm back to my long-standing habit of giving a new document a title and saving it when I begin writing. Every few minutes as I write, I hit Crtl-S and make sure the latest words are safe on disk. Saving works!

Don't forget to save your work.
Save early and often.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Some stories must not be written

I serve as a Director on our local library Board, and the Board has recently become embroiled in a serious personnel matter that we had to deal with in a decisive and surprising way. Public and staff reaction is intense: “Inquiring minds want to know!”

How I would love to tell the full story, in person and on paper. My heart cries out to explain, to justify, to set minds at ease. This cannot be. Legally and ethically, we cannot divulge a thing about any personnel matter. I can only write around the edges, now or later.

I can't write or speak about the nature of the evidence we used to make our decision. I can't disclose the reasoning and interpretation we put on that evidence. What I can do is write about the process, and about my own experience as events unfolded. I did not sleep for several nights. Gale-force storms of conflicting emotions churned my mind as I weighed the implications of various matters, then fought and finally came to grips with the ultimate conclusion.

When the Board met and we each added pieces to the puzzle, a bigger picture gradually emerged. Our minds flip-flopped all over the map as we explored every apparent option, until we unanimously agreed on a course of action that we are convinced is in the long-term best interests of the library and community we all love.

Carrying out this decision has been intensely repugnant, as it should be. We knew this would be so. Rumors abound in the aftermath, and we are hammered with questions. Public desire to understand this decision is intense.

The irony is that having the facts would not quiet the controversy. Each Board member spent dozens of sleepless and obsessed hours coming to grips with this issue, and we had the background. Of course the public will fret as they grapple with a shapeless lump in the middle of a plump pillow.

As a Board, we can only trust our decision and remain focused on its long-term benefits. We must remember the advantages of discovering problems early and feel proud that we were able to deal with them decisively, forming a plan to continue our long tradition of service and progress. We must maintain faith that this storm will also pass.

Although the unfolding story has all the twists and turns of a fine mystery, it's a story that can never be publicly shared.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal