{"id":3090,"date":"2025-11-17T10:13:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=3090"},"modified":"2025-11-17T10:46:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:46:21","slug":"thoughts-while-daily-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=3090","title":{"rendered":"THOUGHTS WHILE DAILY LIVING"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

THOUGHTS WHILE DAILY\u00a0 LIVING<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

I sit, VERY CAREFULLY, in my wheelchair 24\/7, with a busy mind; my body, not so much. I mostly think about adapting, which I believe is the key to living longer and well, even though details change as I keep thinking about them.<\/span>\u00a0 And I think about Charlie, who makes it all possible.\u00a0 I have a good time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Charlie is a godsend.\u00a0 And, no, he is not available for adoption.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

Adapting is making do with what you have.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

I have 50 years and counting of adapting to become an able, if increasingly immobile, lefty.\u00a0 I\u00a0 won’t ever be entirely the same as I was, but then none of us ever is.\u00a0 If, and with Charlie\u2019s help, I figure out how to change my ways to still be able do the things I think are important, I will have adapted and be called resilient.\u00a0 But adapting comes before, and leads to, resilience.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

I have finally found an ally in Dr. Bruce Leff<\/a>, a gerontologist, who says:
“Resilience is a popular term among doctors, who urge their patients to stay tough through discomfort or unpleasantness until things return to normal. Now [that he\u2019s getting older] he\u2019s come to see adaptation \u2014 adjusting and accepting what life throws your way \u2014 as equally important[as resilience].\u201d<\/p>\r\n

O HAPPY DAY! A like mind! This is a little exciting. Charlie says I shouldn’t break my arm patting myself on my back. \u201cTsk,\u201d I say.<\/p>\r\n

The struggles of adapting can be a plus.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

Maybe equally exciting in our daily struggles is finding mathematician Eugenia Chen<\/a>, who uses metrics to conclude:<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\u201c<\/span>Math teaches us\u2026[to carefully define] the metrics we use to measure how far people have come, [the support they had or the obstructions they faced], and thus how far they have the potential to go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Clearly, the struggles of successfully adapting make us potentially prime prospects for whatever comes next, including, but not limited to, our place in line at the golden gates.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

‘Adapters’ are a coming attraction.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

The widely-worked<\/span> NYTimes crossword puzzle <\/b>sought the answer \u201cautodidact\u201d (self-taught learner), to the clue \u201ca library regular, perhaps\u201d.\u00a0 And, perhaps, we adapters and advantaged lot of life-long library users have also become\u00a0 autodidacts, who, with more options, are better able to adapt to today\u2019s world of lies, deep fakes, and disinformation. [I got the crossword answer.\u00a0 Whew!]\u00a0 Clearly, ‘adapters’ may soon be an answer.\u00a0 Maybe the clue will be, \u201cMake best use of the library to make changing situations better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

PRIDE is adapting\u2019s foe and should goeth before the fall, <\/b>she said biblically and knowingly.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

For 40+ years I walked increasingly awkwardly with a cane.\u00a0 Friends were taking bets on how many steps I would take before I fell.\u00a0 (I can distinctly hear Charlie saying this; he says I made it up.) I may have been a hazard, but I was going to walk, by God, or fall trying, which I often did. \u201cOut, out, damn pride,\u201d I finally decided.\u00a0 Looking like the old lady I was becoming at 78, I agreed to get a\u00a0 power wheel chair to be able to go rogue, take on the world, and drive Charlie nuts.\u00a0 I’m having a very good time.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Tactics for managing pride vary.\u00a0 As I became mostly bald, I thought about job possibilities and wrote a short (50-word max) poem.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

BALDLY BLESSED\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\r\n

The top of my head is round and bald, like tonsured monks of old.
<\/b>Theirs were perfect, mine is not, with\u00a0 wiggles and bumps, I\u2019m told.
<\/b>I’ll learn from the monks, who with the nuns, will one day coed-mix,
<\/b>And I’ll be ever ready, as their new-day ABBETRIX.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\r\n

Then I took a short nap and considered my options.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\"\"

Comb-back flies in wind?\u00a0 Charlie ordered the headband.\u00a0 I found the flower.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

PRIDE may be Adapters\u2019 foe ; but PITH is their friend.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

As I get older, I choose more carefully how I spend my lessening time and agility. My attention span isn\u2019t shorter; I am just fussier about what to do with my time-eating awkwardnesses and my always growing list of things I want to do.\u00a0 Naps, wonky fingers, and a computer that exists to create glitches are the latest time eaters.\u00a0 What to do?<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0<\/span>Embrace pith, the essence of things<\/b>, <\/span>the \u201cThere, there,\u201d<\/b> (of Gertrude Stein fame)<\/span><\/p>\r\n

I stumbled onto the importance of pith while zooming with Kathy.\u00a0 We are a sample of two, both reading shorter works, about 125 pages for novels and memoirs, less for essays.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

SOME PITHY EXAMPLES<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

I finished and loved <\/span>Fredrick Sjoberg\u2019s The Art of Flight,<\/b> the first essay (130 p.) in a book of 3 essays.. It\u2019s my current favorite search book, this one about the author\u2019s efforts to find out about Swedish artist, Gunnar Widfross, who worked out west, especially<\/span> in Yellowstone. I first read<\/span> entomologist Sjoberg\u2019s memoir, The Fly Trap, <\/b>and had a good time learning about hoverflies.\u00a0 Yes, hoverflies.\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0 I am a Sjoberg fan.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

On Kathy\u2019s mention, I read <\/span>Glaciers by Alexis Smith<\/b> (112 p.), but still am not sure what it\u2019s about.\u00a0 She works in a basement, albeit in the public library, so that’s a plus right there.\u00a0 I was interested in how she chose the details she did to tell her story. It reminded me of<\/span> Maira Kalman’s <\/b>recent book, Still Life with Remorse,<\/b> a picture book for adults, in which she used brief family stories to bring\u00a0 her still-life paintings to real-life.\u00a0 She found the \u201cthere there\u201d.\u00a0 Her family is not my family, but I love the idea of the book. I have been a <\/span>Maira Kalman fan since I read her earlier book, Principles of Uncertainty, <\/b>a memoir-ish, filled with her pertinent observations and wonderful illustrations (or vice versa).<\/span><\/p>\r\n

I\u2019m currently reading and loving<\/span> Patrick Bringley\u2019s book, All the Beauty in the World, <\/b>about his years as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.\u00a0 I love to appreciate the Met\u2019s collections and inner workings with him, and like a lot that each chapter is a read-alone vignette, able to be picked up, then put down at will.\u00a0 A good read for early-retiree career-changers, too.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

MORE PITHY EXAMPLES<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Pith and poetry meet in\u00a0 Billy Collins\u2019 collection, Magical Tables,<\/strong> a whole book of short poems.\u00a0 He is one of my\u00a0 favs.\u00a0 \u201cWhy?\u201d you ask.\u00a0 Have a read.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

HEADSTONES<\/b><\/p>\r\n

If the dates show
<\/strong>the husband died
<\/strong>shortly after the wife \u2013
<\/strong>first Gladys then Harry,
<\/strong>Betty followed by Tom \u2013
<\/strong>the cause is often
<\/strong>gradual starvation
<\/strong>and not a broken heart.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

And here is a gift of hope for all who love someone in college majoring in philosophy:<\/p>\r\n

TEENAGER<\/b><\/p>\r\n

Even a branch on an
<\/strong>evergreen
<\/strong>may take an unexpected
<\/strong>turn
<\/strong>Up, down, or sideways
<\/strong>and grow substantial
<\/strong>in some weird direction.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Think aphorisms (<\/b>e.g. <\/span>Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays by John Richardson<\/b>, which is good example of aphorisms, but not available on Kindle, and I think my Uncle John\u2019s spontaneous aphorisms are better.), <\/span><\/p>\r\n

essays (<\/b>e.g. historian and 4th-generation Mainer<\/span> Heather Cox Richardson\u2019s daily \u201cLetters from an American\u201d<\/b> in which she puts current goings-on in perspective.\u00a0 <\/span>NYTimes<\/b> notes that she is \u2018astonishingly popular\u2019, or Zeynep Tufekel’s occasional essays,<\/strong> about which\u00a0 <\/span>NYTimes<\/b> notes, <\/span>\u201cNever miss what [she] has to say.\u201d\u00a0 With her background in technology and sociology and her intelligent curiosity, I read about information spread in what she writes.), <\/span><\/p>\r\n

or<\/span>\u00a0haiku<\/b>, maybe most of all, haiku, the pith extractor, the great summarizer (<\/span>e.g.<\/span> Thinking about \u2018adapting\u2019 leads to many ideas and long posts.).<\/b><\/p>\r\n

Pithy Puzzle<\/b>:\u00a0 Maybe this is a good place to remind you all that about 15 years ago, I added and noted that there was a mystery in each blog post with a picture.\u00a0 No one ever responded.\u00a0 Now a clue:\u00a0 Think pith and 17, and don\u2019t get caught up in niceties of form.\u00a0 Do you see what I did — and still do?<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Conversations are adapters\u2019 social lifeline, a necessary ‘super-aging’ trait.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

I haven\u2019t forgotten the importance of conversations to super-agers, which we all are, but conversations are hard to capture.\u00a0 I found three poems that are conversations, but then I just had a lot to type.\u00a0 So I’m trying to recite them. My problem is that I put myself to sleep on about word three.\u00a0 I tried again, stayed awake, and blinked less, but still a ho-hummer. I need an audience.\u00a0 I looked knowingly at Charlie.\u00a0 He looks away and says I need to imagine an audience.\u00a0 I suggest he mute the football game and, as I read, go \u201cmm-mm\u201d on occasion.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t say no.\u00a0 The Seahawks or Vikings play on Sunday.\u00a0 I\u2019m ready.\u00a0 <\/span>Coming Soon<\/b>:<\/span>\u00a0 Conversations \/ Poems<\/b> by John Kenney, Wislawa Szymborska, and anyone else I find.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

And (finally!) to conclude, DAY BRIGHTENERS:<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201cCryptographic science could not solve Kryptos \u2013 but library science could,\u201d<\/a><\/b> argued<\/span> \u201cnerdy\u201d journalist and puzzle-solver, Jarett Kobeck, about \u201dKryptos\u201d, the sculpture with a puzzle, outside CIA Headquarters in VA.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Let\u2019s hear it for librarians!\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\r\n

And for friends!<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\"\"

Winter may be drear, but never our thoughts of you.\u00a0 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!<\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THOUGHTS WHILE DAILY\u00a0 LIVING I sit, VERY CAREFULLY, in my wheelchair 24\/7, with a busy mind; my body, not so much. I mostly think about adapting, which I believe is the key to living longer and well, even though details … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3090"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3105,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090\/revisions\/3105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}