Boomer's Angst

It’s been a long time coming, but the day of reckoning arrived today for my friend. My dear and different friend and neighbor, Leslie, who sells residential real estate and began to struggle financially about 5 years ago. First she lost her car, the silver BMW, then her sweet cottage-like house on my street in the Grove in a short sale. She was lucky enough to rent the house, her home of more than ten years, from the new owners. But these days, the rent is too high and she’s moving into a much smaller place close by.

In order to fit her things into that much smaller place, she had an estate sale today. Heirlooms selling for $50, make that $30, ok $10. Her large glass table, the scene of so many outdoor dinner parties, six chairs went for $300. People came and wanted something marked $3 for less. That’s why they come, for the bargains.

Leslie’s father was a doctor. Her mother was the wife of a doctor, a pretty woman and socialite. The families on both sides founders of Coconut Grove. Leslie came from money, grew up with servants, earned a lot of money herself as a successful real estate broker and lived the good life most of it. Her struggles had to do with other things, not money.

She loves beautiful things: art, china, glassware, clothes, shoes and did I mention, shoes, purses, hats, gloves, lingerie, books, music and held extravagant, unforgettable dinner parties. A great chef, Leslie can whip up a 5 course meal for 8 in her sleep. And what seems like chaos to everyone around her –her methods of preparing food and entertaining are far from linear– results in a magical evening and lasting memories of some of the most delicious food ever cooked, served and tasted. The beautiful things, the heirlooms coming into place with pressed linen napkins for the lap, each course served on fine china, silverware, always the soft and gentle candlelight coming from multitudes of votives, candlesticks, elaborate candelabras.

I helped her pack up the place last night and went early this morning to help out at the garage sale. I am one of those people who show up when a friend’s in need. I wouldn’t feel good about sharing good times with someone if I wasn’t prepared to help them in bad. Life throws both your way and it seems ridiculous dumping friends as soon as things go south for them. Besides, lately, there’s a lot of bad things happening to lots of good people, friends and people I know who’ve had financial security their whole lives until now. Boomers, in case you haven’t heard, we’re fucked!

I’m so sad for Leslie even though she appears to have “blown it out,” “let it go.” There’s a dream lost. Her dream of living on this pleasant and peaceful street, a cul de sac of 40 homes where everyone knows you, knows your dog, greets you, watches your kids, slows down for your pets. We are a close and fun-loving bunch who share Thanksgiving in the park and have progressive dinner parties. Always ready to have a bon fire in the park in colder weather or a pot luck on warm summer nights, we are loving and generous, tolerant and protective of each other. Now we’ve lost our Leslie, our beautiful, high spirited and talented Leslie and she’s lost us and her precious little cottage home under the beautiful oak on Irvington. It’s sad.

And it’s frightening. After almost three years of little work, my husband is no closer to landing that client to replace the one steady one he had for 30 years. I hang on by a thread by working for my young friend on an account that could be lost any day for any reason.

One false move, an illness, even just a continuation of what we’re doing, will put us right where Leslie is today, losing our house and our life on Irvington.

I want this dark wave of sorrow to wash over me, fall away. I need a rush of energy and hope. I want to help Leslie. I want to help my husband. I want to find a way to make money, enough of it to get ahead, to replenish depleted savings and to help the people I love who need help with money. I’m smart. I’m able. But am I smart and able enough to survive this long, stubborn recession intact? I look up and around my house and think of giving it all up, “letting it go.”

My very first college class was a class on Sylvia Plath. I don’t even remember how I was able to take this upper level class with no credits, but I had a way of working the system in those days. I was working at the University of Miami and slipped this intriguing class into my first semester as a student.

I haven’t thought about Sylvia Plath for many years. She’s not a poet you go back to often. She’s not where you turn for fortitude. But I saw a movie on HBO the other night called Sylvia starring Gwyneth Paltrow and tonight I dug out my annotated copy of Ariel with the Robert Lowell introduction which my highly organized husband placed in the poetry section of our ‘first’ shared bookcase.

When I signed up for the class I was a 20 year mother who never completed the 11th grade but who applied and was accepted into the University of Miami on a full scholarship because of my high GED scores and nearly zero income. Uneducated and broke, I left my young daughter with her architectural student father and crossed campus on foot from married student housing on one side to the Memorial classroom building on the other, up the stairwell to the second floor — to meet Sylvia.

Sylvia Plath was an upper class, highly educated young American woman, celebrated poet and a mother. Despite our vastly different lives, there was an instant connection, the feeling of a shared language –her clear, visceral account of all the emotions common of a woman and a mother. What a knack for describing pain.

Inextricable from my memory of exploring Sylvia and her work is the way the class was taught. As you know, at the time, I was no expert on the abilities of college professors, but looking back I have never known a better teacher or forgotten the importance of passion when it comes to teaching or sharing.

When I walked into this small class of 6 or 7 students, I was scared to death. I hadn’t been in a college classroom ever. I didn’t attend class in the 11th grade. Teachers came to my house. I was pregnant with my daughter and the state of Connecticut took pity on me and paid to send teachers. Most likely the wise educators and administrators didn’t want me leading other 16 year old girls by example. At any rate, it worked to my advantage. The last thing I wanted was to attend high school pregnant.

That means the last time I’d been in a class room before this was when I was 15. I don’t remember what propelled me to take this junior level class as my first foray into a college education, but a trigger was set and I walked through the door on the first night. I remember the smell of the room, the windows opened to a beautiful January night in Coral Gables. The feeling of expectation and excitement.

I knew the minute class started my life had changed forever. That sitting in a room with a teacher, someone who shares more than knowledge, but passion, was something I’d want to do a lot. I was hooked from the moment Gary Lane began to speak about this tortured woman poet, her life and her work. Learning it all from someone who loved the subject was ecstasy.

To better understand Plath’s world, we read other poets, her husband, Ted Hughes– we read a lot of his poetry. The two of them were considered rivals, but he had no gift. I think. He had skill and drive and the ability to promote his work, but he had nothing on her –she had genius.

Her incredible, remarkable, undeniable ability to speak for women for all ages. I’ll share this one poem about motherhood with you, just one, I promise …

Morning Song
Love set you going like a fat gold watch
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum your nakedness shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
#

As a mother, you feel every word of that poem from the cow-heaviness of your body after child birth to the wonder of giving new life, a part of you, yes, but much more, part of the universe, “I am no more your mother than the cloud that distills a mirror…” The knowing, really knowing that life will not end with you.

I am glad I watched this movie on HBO and brought down my long ago annotated book of Sylvia Plath’s best poems. It has helped to remind me that there’s still so much to learn and a lot to revisit. That there are artists who speak to us in unforgettable ways just waiting to be discovered. It’s been my gift to myself this crazy, holiday time of year.

Sunday is a day of dread. Always has been. When I was a child, it was the day we’d have to go to church, if we went to church, which wasn’t often, but still, I hated going. Sunday is the day you have to, finally, face your homework. As an adult, it doesn’t get much better. It’s the day you really, really have to wash clothes, iron a few things, wash the dog, get the car cleaned. Sunday is always the day you head back from vacation. The day you need to split in half to prepare for the week ahead.

If you’re working a full time job, it’s the day you use to prepare for your Monday morning staff meeting, or build your lesson plan. It’s the day you hop your flight out to begin your week on the road. It’s the day you wade through webmail so you’re not swamped by the stuff when you hit the office.

Even if you’re out of work and looking for a job, you feel that Sunday dread of what’s to come, not working like everyone else you know and the continued battle of job searching. Sunday is that day off that really isn’t a day off. It’s more like a half day off. It’s a phony day off, actually, and if anything, should be called Sun-half-a-day.

Sunday is a bit like boomer’s angst for people of all ages. A sense of dread for what’s to come.

All the other days, a young person eats up time without much notice or care. As a full time college student and single parent, I’d somehow find time to stroll Fairchild Tropical Gardens on a beautiful day with my friend Emilio or take an afternoon with Polly and sit out on the seawall behind Scotty’s (when it was a shack that sold soft drinks and hamburgers) and drink the beer we brought and let time drift. Unmeasured. Unproductive. Uncaring.

There’s a lot less meandering as you get older. It’s more about getting to the point. There’s less passion or discovery left to steer you off course. I can remember the first time I heard Miles Davis and fell in love with his music. How did I find the hours it took to go to the UM music library, search out every recording and listen over and over again to the amazing range of sounds emanating from the man’s music. How did that happen then when life was much busier and everything was much less convenient.

These days, I try to account for every minute. I am either productive and doing something, some work or some chore, exercising or I’m social, but I seldom just hang out — go with the flow. (‘m doing it right now, actually, talking to you about Sundays and dread while I’m sure you’re watching football. I best get back to work, so I’ll wrap things up.)

Sunday. For me, it’s right up there with Monday. Not as bad, of course, but not good. It’s a day for packing it up. Work, laundry, email checking, meeting prep — all and more. At least I’m not alone. I’m sure many of you, like me, feel the same way about Sundays. The one day of the week when boomer’s angst –knowing time is short and what comes next won’t be nearly as good as yesterday–is true for all ages.

My daughter and I would tease my husband for making a certain face each time he looked in a mirror. His mirror face, always the same, followed by a slight turn of the head and finished with rapid-fire finger combing.

All of us have a mirror face, of course. That certain look we prefer to present. A look in the mirror and what is reflected back varies by moment, alters with everything from the previous night’s sleep to the color of our shirt. In my case, it changes when my hair is down, or pulled back. In the morning, before makeup it’s different –clean, scrubbed, fragile. These differences give us back slightly altered images, variations often only visible to us. Some we like, others we don’t. It depends on the day.

But these small variations in our look do little to impact perception — what others think of us and what we think of ourselves. A much truer reflection, this thing called self perception. Ourselves in the big picture, much more interesting and satisfying.

Self perception can’t be changed by lipstick color, hairstyle even expensive plastic surgery. What we see when we look at ourselves and imagine ourselves in the world has so much to do with what’s inside looking back at us.

Do we feel affection for the face in the mirror? Are we able to accept our flaws and shortcomings without defining ourselves by them? I worry more and more about American women and how we’ve become obsessed with one look. Women, like cars, have walked away from a search for individual beauty, character and self expression and toward one ideal. Same small nose. Same big boobs. Same painfully thin frame. Same pouty lips. There’s the look. Do you have it? How close are you to it?

How damaging to ego and perception. Women both young and not so much are increasingly lost and without a sense of self. Beauty is everything, yet it’s ideal is unobtainable to all but the very few. Women aging naturally and moving through life feeling beautiful, acting beautiful is a thing of old novels, another era. What’s within being denied it’s power to alter what we see in our reflection.

Acceptance of ourselves, despite our time and the society in which we live, is our opt out. Putting aside all desire for the look, regrets about age. Making no comparisons to anyone, especially our younger selves. Smiling at what we see as we would smile at any good friend. Imagine the liberation of it, the empowerment of it. Free to reflect more on what’s inside than what meets the eye. We all know someone who attracts others easily, pulling us toward them like a magnet. Often it’s not their looks, but a quality. Character? Confidence? All of that and more. Self acceptance certainly.

Like other changes of late, I’m working on my reflection. I’ve started by eliminating labels. No preconceived notions. I am increasingly undefined. I have no one look. No idols. I make no comparisons, especially to my younger self. I smile at the person in the mirror, familiar to me yet unknown. Still capable of surprises.

Maybe I can find a way to grow old gracefully with a sense of power and purpose even in today’s world. Maybe if I keep looking inward and smiling at what I see.

Ah, I’ve been so busy, I’ve neglected my blog. I am sorry. I’ve been so crazy busy, I’ve not only neglected to write, I temporarily forgot why I started this blog in the first place. Angst, of course, but the real impetus for the blog has more to do with my first entry and my close encounter with my mortality.

I mean we all know we’re going to die. According to the experts, the realization comes to us at about the age of 21. That’s when we intellectually comprehend there will be an end. But it’s so far off at 21. We know it’s coming, but death is for other people — old people. Now, we’re the old people and at this age, death is not so far away. For those who read the obituaries, you know what I’m saying is true. It’s not so far off.

There’s only one thing to do about it that makes sense and that’s live. Live it up! And I don’t mean blow money and party. I mean wring all you can out of each day. Because the time we have left can be measured in days. Don’t think of life in terms of weeks and months, but think of each day. Don’t hesitate to tell someone you love them. Don’t hesitate to love. I’m reading this and thinking I sound like a nutcase –like some religious fanatic or something. No. It’s difficult to get across this idea of making the most of life without taking the risk of appearing a bit off. Well, maybe if I share a condensed, personal story, I’ll sound a little less crazy.

Pat and Adrienne were our friends. They lived a few doors down on Irvington, loved to party and stayed busy with work and raising two kids. Rick and I came to know them because of our proximity and their overwhelming friendliness. After a while of being friends, good friends, we joined Adrienne and Pat and two other couples, mutual friends, for a sailing adventure on a catamaran. Adrienne knew the boat’s owner and the 42 foot boat comfortably accommodated the four couples.

Right after that trip –a wonderful, lazy trip through the British Virgin Islands — Pat became sick. Actually, there were signs of his illness on the trip. A few short weeks after we were back, he ended up in the emergency room. They did tests and discovered 4th stage esophageal cancer. I called him on his cell at the hospital when I heard from Adrienne and he said, “Yes, my friend, I’m one sick puppy.” He was a strong and smart man and didn’t fight. It was over quickly. Adrienne lost her life partner and we lost a dear friend. The kids lost their biggest fan. How Pat loved and doted on his kids.

The loss of a friend is different from the loss of a parent. And a sudden loss is different from watching someone go slowly. It’s a lesson: Death can come early and can happen suddenly. You can go from a lovely vacation sailing the BVIs to a hospital bed where despite how many people visit, you are alone with your pain and your suffering.

Pretty scary and depressing for the survivors, but after a time, there’s a lesson here that’s liberating. Because if you — or me, all of us, is waiting to do something or be something or have something — the message from Pat is, don’t. Don’t wait. Seize the day. Take action. Write the blog. Send the note. Take the class. Call an old friend. Say, “I love you.” Do the things that make you happy and do them today.

Something I heard a lot when I started Nancy Cooper & Associates, Inc.: when you’re on your own, it’s feast or famine. And from their mouths to God’s ears…I’ve always hated that expression, but it works here. It’s always been true for me. It’s one: exhilarating, rewarding — the feast. The other is frightful and humiliating –the famine. For me and for what seems like a very long time now, it’s been famine. Bleak, cold, heartless and seemingly endless, famine. The kind where you begin to wonder what will life be like when it’s nothing like it is now.

Faced with the prospect of ‘changing it up’ for the unknown, but certainly worse, I chose to execute on the “shot gun,” defense. Simply put: Try everything –all you can think of and even more things other people have thought of — try it all. And try it all at the same time.

Get in touch with old contacts and make new contacts. Sell current skills and soon to be skills and ‘you know you may never master’ skills. Broaden the definition of yourself. Name it. Sell it. And you know what? I got hits. Now I’m busier than it’s possible to be effective. I can’t possibly do all I need to do in one day, so things wait. I make lists and move things from day to next day, but I chip away at it. I learn to prioritize.

I also give into myself when it’s time to stop. I don’t know what this has to do with the boomer generation, but I think it’s a worthwhile life lesson. Maybe it takes longer to accept for some. Still, it might help the budding entrepreneur to hear it and listen. When you get to the bottom, you have to believe it’s going up. And when you get all the way to the top, you have to know it will go down –so prepare. If you can’t accept those two simple truths, you may want to look again at that job offer.

And after you’ve been on this roller coaster for a while, you get it. You can enjoy the ride knowing it will all stop one day. Everything ends after all.

It’s true what they say, the old adage, it’s a pattern of ups and downs. You have to have the guts for it. Or you simply have to be unemployable, like me. Necessity is surely the mother of invention.

The start of fall is such bliss. Change is coming. It’s in the air. It takes me back to the place I grew up and being a child and playing outside. Me and my 2 brothers and 2 sisters grew up on 24 acre farm by a lake in Connecticut. My dad built the house we lived in, he and his mom with just a little help from a carpenter when it came time for framing.

We had a huge vegetable garden every summer, lots of chickens, fields where horses grazed. It was paradise for children. After school and the long bus ride home, we changed our clothes and were let out. I don’t remember being shut up too much for homework, that came later, after dinner. The precious hours of the afternoon from about 3 to 6 were all ours and we could do what we wanted. Unstructured time to imagine, wander and play.

We rode bikes or roller skated down our quiet street. Friends walked over and we drew hopscotch on the empty foundation we had on the back of the property. Or we skipped rope or made mud pies, gathered earthworms, went fishing, watched ants at war, played on the swing set, captured butterflies, picked berries, played with the dog.

In the fall, we gathered leaves and made huge piles under the slide ladder then we’d walk or run up the slide and jump off into the leaves, again and again somehow thinking it would be even more fun if we did it one more time.

Inevitably, the sky would darken and the air would chill and we would become that much more frantic in our play. We’d stray farther from the back door where we knew the call would come. We’d move into the wooded area way in the back where the trail was dark and we could hide from her. And she would call, “Time to come in. Dinner!” and we would move farther down the path away from the end of another day.

Once you were inside, it was over. The imagining, the play, the delight in the world around you, the earth and the sky, the wind and the sun. All would be replaced by a bright light and a seat at the table facing food you were not hungry to eat and questions you were not prepared to answer. “How was school?” and “What did you learn.” What I learned outside was what I wanted to talk about. Not what I learned at school –that kids could be cruel and often were and teachers could be insensitive and ignorant. What I wanted to tell my inquisitive parents is I learned you can cut earthworms into pieces and and each fall leaf had its own unique pattern of colors and hues. I learned there’s a dreaded end to each glorious day, and to time for play and exploration.

I learned I don’t want it to end and I don’t want to come in.

I miss being enthusiastic. I used to be incredibly so about so many things: people, books, movies, politics, my work, advertising in general — who had what accounts, whether the work was original and had any merit. Did campaigns succeed or fail? I cared and I was passionate about things. I would and could get myself worked up about a whole lot of things, expounding on this and that and always with an opinion.

But age has a way of dulling one’s fire. You fight against it, but you don’t win the war only some battles here and there. I am still very enthusiastic when it comes to the people I love. But, people like me, a little older and I like to think, a little wiser, can find themselves resenting the unbridled enthusiasm of others, especially young people. It just seems like wasted energy. Advertising is really not important. It’s a living, nothing more.

This tendency to be anti-enthusiastic is truly not a good thing, though. It is not one of the many great benefits of getting older. (I’m kidding, there’s only one advantage to aging and that’s not giving a shit what other’s think).

I have been doing pro-bono work for the sailing club I belong to for months now. First it was an email blast, now I’m working on a direct mail campaign. I went to one of the board meetings and made a pitch to expand their marketing budget –and low and behold, they took my advice. Now I have to do the work.

There are people involved in the process like the commodore, the marketing committee chairman, the treasurer, the club manager. They need to be consulted and informed. There are opinions and approvals and the work takes time and it takes time to coordinate and do the communicating back and forth. Lately, because I’m so busy chasing money, it’s been difficult to get it all done in a timely fashion.

The other night while at the club, I was introduced to a young guy who runs his own marketing company. Brian is his name. He is really young, well under 30 and really, REALLY eager to help the club with marketing. He is so eager, in fact, I immediately disliked him. I couldn’t wait to get away from the guy and back to grousing with old friends at the bar.

Shame on me, but true. After my long blank stare at his beaming face, I turned back to my friends. He handed me his card, nicely designed I noted before shoving it deep into my pocket, and urged me to call him. “I want to get involved, to help out,” he said in bubbles of happiness before heading outside to drink more beer and listen to the bad country band that was playing that night.

My friend Adrienne, who is also a member of the club and on the social committee, immediately drafted him and put him to work creating a poster for the club’s Oktoberfest. I saw the poster. It was good. “You should call Brian,” she said. “He really wants to get involved in the club.”

Yes. I should call Brian. I should get him involved with the direct mail campaign. I should let him take it on, go for it! I should mentor him and involve him and cultivate enthusiasm where and whenever I encounter it. And I would have just a short while ago. I have a reputation as a mentor and leader of marketing’s next gen.

I can only blame it on aging. It changes things, one’s perspective and the way you feel about youthful exuberance. My husband is a bit older than I am. He always comes to these things first. I give him a hard time about his curmudgeonly ways, resent him for them just before I follow him down the same path. The one reserved for most of us.

Peace and love — the mantra of my generation when we were young. Our music. Our thinking. Our gestures. Our intentions. Now, our mantra’s something different. I don’t think we have any, really. I still believe peace and love are most powerful –more so than war and hate. They are the only tools we have to fight living hell on earth.

One summer when I was about 13, I went with my family to my dad’s company picnic. We went every year. My cousin, Barbara, a year older, my sidekick. We’d swim in the giant pool with portholes, pressing our faces up against the glass. We’d play tether ball, badminton, horse shoes. This resort was (I think it still exists and my niece who lives nearby walks her dogs there) in Moodus, Connecticut, on a beautiful piece of property with great open spaces, majestic oaks and elms and miles of walking trails. It’s the kind of place that’s perfect for big picnics — kids can get lost and have fun and parents can do what they do. Unlike other family obligations, I loved those picnics each year.

This particular year, when I was 13, it was 1967, and there was a war and a draft.

Unless you lived in that time, you can’t fathom the difference in television news coverage back then. The Vietnam war came into every American home on the television, every night on the evening news. The boys, the blood, the helicopters, the Vietnamese, the horror of war right there in your living room night after night. Although I was young, I was living in a time of rebellion and freedom and (I’m sorry mom) I made my way to anti-war demonstrations when I could –carrying paper flowers, my Jimi Hendrix 8-track –just in case someone had a car with a player, and smelling strongly of patchouli.

This summer day at the Monsanto picnic in Connecticut was a world away from Vietnam or it was until I met Mark. Mark and his buddy were in the Army. They were home on leave and came with family to the picnic seemingly to chain smoke cigarettes. We somehow met and became a group of kids, all much younger than Mark and his friend, and we got to talking that day. Mark’s friend was very shy and hardly spoke, I only remember him being there, smoking constantly. Mark, however, couldn’t talk enough. It was his therapy. He had been wounded twice and he showed us the many scars from shrapnel that he had on his torso. He laughed when I asked if I could touch one and said yes. They were thick and angry red and purple. I showed him my scar, the one from my spleenectomy.

None of this was sexual. It was a young man talking to a group of enthralled younger kids. We asked him a thousand questions and he answered them all. Had he killed many people? Yes. Had he killed civilians? No. What did he eat? You name it, we asked. What did he miss most?

We lay around on the grass in the sun and listened to him rather than eat hamburgers or take part in the pre-requisite three-legged race. At one point, Mark started to cry and told us he couldn’t take going back to Vietnam. He had decided not show up, to go AWOL and the hell with it. That’s what he was thinking about. That’s why the need to talk. “How lucky can I be?” he said. “I’ve been wounded twice. What will happen next time?”

We all cried with him. It was so sad. Who were we to advise him. We could only listen. But somehow the listening seemed to help. He was so eager to talk and maybe 13-year old listeners who knew they had no answers, but were willing to listen and to feel were just what he needed.

Eventually my brother came looking for me. It was time to go. Mark and his buddy hit the road to do whatever 19 year old guys on leave do. Barbara split off with her family and I with mine and the day was over.

I hitch-hiked to a lot of demonstrations after that or I found someone who had a car and would take me. I knew more about who and what was being lost, just a glimmer of the pain and suffering. The songs from then were about peace and love and ending the war. And there’s no doubt in my mind the young people of this country helped to end that war — a war started in 1955. The sheer numbers of angry youth, the ceaseless demonstrations –it made for more bad TV. Those were the days when people made news and the media covered it.

Peace and love. Love and peace. Even now, something to believe in.

I have always embraced change. Long before someone wrote a book about moving cheese, I advocated flexibility – in life and certainly when it comes to the workplace. I remember in college listening to the song Everything Must Change over and over again. It is one of those songs that teaches. “The young become the old. And mysteries do unfold.” And while I change, embrace new technology, expand my knowledge to accommodate it, move forward and march along, still, there are some things I can not make myself let go of like turning pages in a book. I do not want to go to the Kindle, to iBooks. I love to curl up with a book and measure my progress with a bookmark. Reread what I need to. Regret getting close to the end if I’ve fallen in love with it. I will read tonight as I have countless nights. The feel of a book, the smell, the texture of the pages too dear and familiar to give up.

I feel the same way about newspapers which is unfortunate since I publish an online community blog. I write my blog, but I can not give up my paper newspaper. Not until I must. I love the ritual of it: the sound of it thudding on my driveway at dawn, when the weather is good and the windows are open. I like to be the one to get it, releasing it from it’s plastic as I walk through the door, eager to read the headlines. I listen to all the arguments for reducing carbon, but I am unmoved when it comes to books and newspapers. I cling to them. They’ll have to pry my old school book from my old fool hands one day.

My father had things he wouldn’t part with no matter how the world changed around him. Socks with shoes. Belts with pants. Ties with jackets. He was always a gentleman, always courteous and kind. Refusing to change despite the lack of manners in modern life. My mother would get so mad at him when they joined a line or entered a building and he stepped aside for others. She would push her way to the front and coax him forward. He’d hang back and be true to himself. He liked many of the same things I do: books and newspapers, jazz and poetry, meeting challenges and romance.

As we get older how do we boomers handle sifting through it all. What to keep. What to throw. How do we hold onto what’s dear and assimilate with the tidal wave of humanity behind us. What matters to our generation? What defines us? It may be harder for our generation than our parents to draw a line in the sand. The changes are so rapid, so phenomenal. Technology pushes us along like hurricane force winds. There’s no looking back, no recognizing yesterday except that “rain falls from the clouds. Sun lights up the sky. And hummingbirds do fly.”