The family calendar - redux

My niece's husband and my great-nephew get a month on the 2022 calendar 

I was ready to write a post about creating the family calendar. Then I discovered I had already done so:

I've spent some time this week putting together the family calendar - something I've done now since about 2004. Originally I created it in a calendar program and then printed it at a Kinkos on cardstock, but I now use Shutterfly. I've kept the same content formula - "scanned photos of long-gone relatives and baby pictures of my siblings and I are mixed with digital photos from family events from the past year.”

Creating a calendar is a powerful form of reflection for me. The end of the year, familiar gatherings, new children and friends, and the loss of people who may have been a long part of my life, all put me in a bittersweet mood. We cannot, of course, stop the world from turning and would not want it to stop revolving even if we could. As much as I loved my children and grandchildren as babies, I love them even more now as adults and fast growing children and adolescents. Some old and treasured traditions continued; some became impractical; and new ones were forged.

I expect Christmas 2016 will not be dissimilar because not only do those around us change, but we ourselves do as well: becoming wiser or more foolish, healthier or less abled, more giving or more selfish, and braver or more fearful. Opportunities will arise, as will disappointments. Most years I am lucky enough to find a book or take a trip that impacts my life and thinking in a very substantial, personal, permanent way. And I am happy for that. Calendar creation - a time for reflection, Blue Skunk, 12-19-15.

Perhaps the world of 2021 has not really been as different as I might have thought. Fewer family get-togethers, of course. Less travel than desired (but some still). More free time. But as I predicted back in 2015, there were both opportunities and disappointments; good books and good trips; continued relationships with friends and relatives; no deaths or serious illnesses in the family. Both my grandsons are now old enough to drive and are aging out of Scouting. My son and his wife are now home owners. My house has new siding and freshly painted woodwork and doors.

The family calendar this year, I hope, fills the same purpose that it always has - to give my family members pleasant reminders of the previous year. My niece's growing family, my grandson’s marching band experiences, and a “who’s who” of cats in the family are among this year’s monthl.

I suspect in a few years, I will dig this calendar out, take a look, and think, “Maybe 2021 wasn’t all that bad a year after all.” And helps me reflect on how truly blessed I am…

Searching for writing ideas

According to study results published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, an individual’s well-being increases in correlation with their free time — but only to a certain point. While having too little free time isn’t healthy, having too much also diminishes wellbeing. Angela Haupt, Washington Post.

I don’t know what to think until I see what I’ve said. E.M. Forster

There are some activities I do in retirement that I consider “just killing time until I die.“ Working online jigsaw puzzles, doom-scrolling news articles, watching reruns of old sitcoms, you know, ways to entertain oneself until starting something more productive.

Writing, however, is one activity I have always considered productive. I’ve cranked out a lot of articles, columns, and books over the years. I never seemed to have a problem finding something to write about while I was working. Like Forester quoted above, I found my own thinking clarified as a result of writing.

But now I often struggle to find a topic worthy of composition.

Two of my best friends are also retired and writers. They never seem to lack inspiration. One is a retired college professor who continues to produce articles on children’s books and children’s book illustrations. The other writes mystery novels and entertaining non-fiction books and articles on Minnesota history and science. Both genres require research and interviews with experts. I’d define this as formal or scholarly research, despite the final products being popular rather than purely academic .

I suspect my frustration with finding suitable topics on which to ponder through writing may be because I am too lazy to actually do formal research. My work with school libraries and educational technology gave me lots of problems, puzzles, and conflicts to study, solve, and resolve. Many, if not most, of the issues I faced were what Larry Cuban would have called dilemmas rather than problems, requiring management rather than solutions. (Getting teachers to use technology productively; raising awareness of ethical issues in technology; shaping the evolution of school libraries, etc.) “Action-based research” might be too formal a description of what I was doing (little data, no experiments, few interviews), but the topics on which I wrote were about what I dealt with everyday in my work as a technology director.

A mixed blessing of a financially comfortable retirement is that one has fewer problems for which solutions must be found. I don’t have a boss to please or staff to manage. Should I not enjoy my volunteer work, I can simply stop doing it. I have no required readings. 90% of the news involves issues over which I have little control. I’ve purposely stepped back from commenting on educational technology and school librarianship in the hope younger and brighter voices will be better heard. 

I feel good when writing about my travel adventures. I am engaged when writing about volunteering. My observations about the elderly I serve are difficult for me to write, but meaningful. I enjoy reflecting on life lessons learned. 

What a lack of writing topics tells me is that I need to get more serious about finding activities that are important enough to write about. 

After all, I may one day regret the hours spent just killing time. I may wish I had some of that time back...

The downside of independent living

Image source

Helping seniors and individuals with disabilities to maintain their independence and continue living in their homes.

The quote above is the mission of a nonprofit for which I regularly volunteer. And I am proud to do so. The services provided include giving rides, shopping for/delivering groceries, and doing minor home repairs. Our efforts make many, many people’s lives much easier. 

The work I do for them sometimes gives me a glimpse into older adults’ homes. These are usually modest stand-alone houses, condos, and apartments. Often, the resident’s tenure there has been very long - decades even - and the livingrooms are filled with mementos and photos of meaningful lives. While not fussy, the rooms I see, usually from the doorway, are clean, tidy, and well-maintained.

But now and then I find a truly horrific scene when asked to take groceries from the front door, through the house to the kitchen, past smoldering ashtrays and overflowing cat litter boxes. Or I need to come into the living room to assist the client in getting into or out of a wheelchair, glancing at piles of papers everywhere, overflowing garbage cans, and spotted carpets. Or, I need to remind my client to grab the house keys so I can lock the door and to have a mask since the clinic we will be visiting requires them and see around me all the symptoms of hoarding disorder. (In all fairness, I am an admitted neat-nik.)

The folks whose dwellings are the biggest mess are always single. Several, it seems, have recently lost spouses over the past year or so. Many seem to have no family, no family nearby, or no family with which they maintain a relationship. None can drive. Few seem to have a computer or smartphone. Even more than the hazards of filthy living conditions, I don’t know how they bear the isolation.

Our American culture (white, middle-class culture, anyway) celebrates independence. Personal independence especially. The iconic pioneer who goes it alone, needing no one or nothing to survive, is ingrained in many of us. We see single home ownership as a sign of success. We strive to save enough to be self-sufficient economically in retirement. To admit one needs assistance is a sign of weakness. This results in many older adults remaining in homes which they can no longer maintain, even at the risk of their health and safety.

Leaving a home filled with memory, downsizing, and subjecting oneself to new rules of “assisted living,” has to be one of life’s toughest decisions. But I wonder if our culture’s call for independence doesn’t too often drown out the many benefits of living in a more cooperative senior community. These senior apartment complexes offer a range of support and services. Common areas, meal service, wellness checks, and organized activities are among the amenities. The senior apartment my grandparents lived in was small, but had its own small kitchen where they would make their own breakfast and reheat leftovers from the community noon meal. Too many of us when we think of “senior living” only envision nursing homes filled with senile ancients, nodding off in wheelchaits, the odor of disinfectant permeating the hallways. 

Living in a senior community’s biggest benefit may come from the opportunity to increase human interaction. “Loneliness and social isolation can be as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, researchers warned in a recent webcast, and the problem is particularly acute among seniors, especially during holidays.” reports the HRSA. With forced isolation because of the pandemic, many of my clients seem terribly alone. One nervous woman to whom I give rides to doctor appointments once reported not being out of her small apartment for over a year! 

One fellow for whom I regularly provide rides was widowed a year or so ago. He and I often visit on the drive to and from different appointments about his luck with online dating. To put it mildly, he is frustrated. “All these women want is a free meal,” he complains. So the last time I saw him I related the true story of a personal experience I once had. Five years or so ago, when I was looking for a place to live in my current suburban community, I walked just down the street from my office to a “senior housing cooperative” - a large building of condos designed for the 55+ crowd. In walking into the commons area, I was surrounded by ladies who must have mistaken me for George Clooney or something and was enthusiastically bombarded with testimonials why I should move into their building - Bingo night! Chair aerobics! Pot luck dinners! It’s up to you, sir, I told my passenger, but you might have better luck finding a girlfriend in a place like that than on a dating website.

I appreciate and admire cultures who are more intergenerational in their approach to housing and activities. Parents care for children and their own parents; grandparents care for their grandchildren. Meals can be shared, as can household responsibilities. I’m guessing getting on each others’ nerves is more problematic than being lonely in such homes.

We as a society need to recognize and message that “independent living” comes with a price. Perhaps a higher one than many should be paying.