Blessings

The Sunday NYTimes doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to read in it this summer. But maybe it’s the summer and I’m just not into reading the paper with the same intensity of interest. Too many distractions, most especially an amazing run of beautiful sunny days that call for getting up and moving around, not sitting and reading.

But…this past Sunday I did read the article about actress Laura Linney since she is one my favorite actresses and “Lean on Me” one of my favorite movies. (Maybe because it’s about a brother and sister which is why I remember sobbing at the end of “The Mill on the Floss” by George Eliot which has its emotional center another brother/sister relationship.)

Linney will be starring in a new TV show, “The Big C” on Showtime which sounds incredible even though the odds of my watching it are pretty slim. (Given a choice between TV and a good book, the good book almost always wins. The one exception in recent memory besides watching President Barack Obama, of course, was "The Sopranos.”)

Something she said in the interview really struck me and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. She noted how she has come to realize that “growing old is the greatest of blessings.” That was a blessing my brother and, to some degree, my mother were both denied. My mother got a little crotchety but then who isn’t past 60 and then all of a sudden she was sick and then she was dead. She never really looked or acted old as in wrinkled, decrepit, tremulous, senile old. And, Max, well what can you say about someone who dies at the ridiculous age of 51.

Which is why when I sit on the deck and look out the acres of diamonds dancing on the lake I feel incredibly grateful to have this blessing of growing old. Okay, it takes me longer to do the Saturday crossword puzzle in the NYTimes; I run a lot slower but I’m still out on the road three times a week; and this summer, I did a headstand in yoga, a major achievement for me. (Against the wall for sure but my goal is to be able to do a headstand in the middle of the room by the time I go back to Philly.)

Maybe this is a transitional moment for me—the end of obsessing about getting old, losing the fear and instead embracing the blessing. As my mother said, always be open to new things.