Age

Almost 20 years ago, back when I was a mere forty-something, I remember listening to William Maxwell (a writer way older) and Terry Tempest Williams (a writer a bit younger than I) talking about the power of being an elder in the world.

I was at the Broad Loaf Writing Conference in Vermont at the time, feeling old and young, alternately, just as I do today.  I admired, still do, true elders--the wise people, the ones with a broader perspective.  I loved hearing these writers talk about eldership, as they called it, in such a positive light.

On the other hand, there are daily reminders that our American culture as a whole does not regard "old" in that light.  There's a vast difference between "elder" and "elderly."  I bristle when I hear a young newscaster say, "An elderly woman of sixty died in the crash...."

Elderly suggests frailty; Elder suggests strength and wisdom.  The idea that we who are past a certain age are Has-Beens floats its own boat--and those of us over fifty (or is it sixty now?)  contribute to that point of view by passing on jokey emails about the woes of aging.  We make fun of ourselves, we add fuel to the notion that age is a chronological embarrassment.

Yesterday I was talking to a vivacious young woman whose parents are younger than I am.  She had changed careers, from a fairly lucrative one to something she loved--and her parents are not happy about it.  They want her to be secure; she wants to follow her heart.  They want her to live a certain kind of life and she wants something else entirely.  "I'm worried that when they come to Texas they aren't going to like my new apartment," she said, "But I'm also excited that they are going to get to see me as I am now, a grown up."

I told her about a brilliant article I read in this month's Sun Magazine by Natalia Ginzburg, "The Little Virtues."   It's all about the dance between parents and children that every generation knows so well.  The push and pull.  The wanting approval, the rebellion, the conflicting agendas....

Ginzburg says:

"I think [children] should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones.  Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know."

She goes on to say that parents should stand by and encourage their children, but not to over-value their successes in school.  After all, scholastic success is one of the "little virtues," not one of the great ones.

If you like, you can read the entire article next month online: http://thesunmagazine.org

As I talked to this young woman whose parents are younger than I am, I felt like an elder passing on the wisdom of another elder.  I felt, well, grandmotherly toward her.

For the rest of the day, I kept hearing echoes of her words: "I just want them to see me as I am."  Isn't that what we all want--to be seen and known, as we are, and not clumped into a category based on the number of years we've lived?