Author Archives: Karen Martha

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About Karen Martha

I am a searcher and not always sure about what I’m looking for. I’ve lived in thirty-nine houses in four states and changed my name five times. One would think I embrace change, yet I find it discombobulating. My unrest is part of what inspires this blog on retirement. It’s like a last chance to live reflectively, instead of wandering helter-skelter into whatever shows up to keep me occupied. I’m interested in the soul work that presents itself at various times in our lives and in how that changes us. In past lives I taught middle school math and science, raised two children and helped with four grandchildren, finished four degrees, worked as a professor and researcher, and married three times—whew. In my present, retired life, I’m tutoring 4th graders, learning rosemaling, and when I’m not working out—writing—writing about this wonderful, often painful, and fascinating journey.

Dear Old Age

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Savador Dali: Alice in Wonderland

April 20, 2025

Re: Old Age

Dear Old Age,

You snuck up on me. One day I was going to the gym three times a week, and the next I was shaky in the knees standing up in the morning. I give you credit—you attacked me in a vulnerable spot—the family weak knees. I can almost hear you gloating. “Those Evans/Jacobson women, they’re weak in knees. That’s where I’ll come for her.”

I recognize that weakness in the knees doesn’t always imply old. Plenty of younger people get knee replacements. But it’s a symptom, and if I could only fix the symptom, everything else would be fine. I wouldn’t be getting older, and worried that I won’t get to do all those things I still want to do.

I want move to Norway and live there. Go to the family farm, Vaagenes, and rent a cabin, long term. I’d even settle for that second home on Lake Michigan . Sadly, I’m not going to do that. Darn, Old Age, you stink. . . . . . . Heh, wait, I got to live in Salzburg for three months just a few years ago. I stayed in a Zimmer with a tiny kitchen, bath, puffy duvet, and a big window with no screens and tiny, biting mosquitos. I ate boiled eggs every morning, a gift from the chickens cackling below that window. I do know what it is to live somewhere completely alone and in a foreign place! I do know that I can adjust to the new and learn about different cultures. Ha Ha – fooled you Old Age!

What about that dream of bicycling the North Shore, carrying camping gear, finding a secluded spot and setting up a tent in the evening? Of course, I still want to do that. I’ve never camped. We’d (notice I’m not alone—there must be another lover in here somewhere) sleep under the stars, fish for our dinner, and make love in a sleeping bag. Okay, it’s not going to happen for so many reasons, but don’t forget the Parkway and Lake Nokomis, my happy places where I biked with abandon. Been there, and almost done that, Old Age!

I’ve always wanted to turn a manicured, pesticide polluted lawn into a habitat for pollinators. I’d thumb my nose at my neighbors letting that residue drain into the beautiful lakes and streams we have in Minnesota. Old Age, gotcha again—I turned our lawn into a field of clover, seeding it summer after summer until the plants matured and bloomed into a home for the birds and the bees. I once saw a flock of flickers land and pillage the soil for healthy worms.

Another thing, I could get married—again—have the storybook ending this time. We’d meet, fall in love quickly, never argue, and agree on the same TV shows. As we near death, we’ll hold hands, serene as we fade away. Okay, three’s supposed to be the charm, but I might need four tries at marriage. I know, it’s a silly idea, but nothing was silly about being married the first three times. I had children, grandchildren. I held hands in movies, cuddled before falling asleep, wrestled over bills and where to live and how to live. I comforted lovers, and they comforted me. So, Old Age, look at all the love I’ve had along the way.

There are so many different lives I could have had in this amazing world –become a Buddhist, live off the grid, move to DC and protest. I want to try them all, but I’m running out of time.

Okay, Old Age.  I concede. I’m probably not going to live in Norway, or bicycle and camp under the stars. I never was a gardener—I detest getting my hands dirty. As for a fourth marriage, not sure I have the energy. I’m not interested in fighting, Old Age. Truce. . .     I actually like the life that I have, even if I want all the other experiences too.  I can even accept getting old, if you help me use it to build something different, something equally new, even if it doesn’t look flashy from the outside. I’m still here. Include me, inspire me, and I’ll always show up.

Love, Karen

Loneliness

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Loneliness. . . that feeling of isolation you don’t know how to change. Advice abounds: join a group, call a friend for coffee, get a hobby, and of course, find a purpose. . . but you can’t seem to make yourself do those things. It’s your own fault you feel lonely. You need to shut off the TV, get off the couch, and stare down loneliness. You stay stuck in feelings, not the solution. Solutions are for math class. You long for the ideas of others, their insights about the world. You wish someone would call, but they don’t. You’re so tired of hearing nothing but your own mental chatter.

The surgeon general says we have an epidemic of loneliness, defined as an objective state “of having no one around or of being by oneself for protracted periods of time.” That’s you. In the UK, 49.63% of adults and in the US, one out of two adults report feeling lonely. You’re not alone after all. Half of the world is with you. You tell yourself, “Humans are inherently alone. Everyone knows that.”

 “Maybe I’ll go to the grocery store,” you think—there’s no one to say this aloud to. You don’t need groceries. You don’t really care about cooking and eating except as appeasements to hunger. Regardless of what the Mayo Clinic says about not watching TV when you eat, you do like to sit in front of it and have dinner. Antiques Roadshow, people like you, many are antiques themselves, rooting around in attics hoping for a windfall.

And they talk. “Maybe you should go to the grocery store and get yourself something special for dinner,” that blabbermouth in your head does tend to repeat herself.

You’re a tad ashamed of your self-absorbed loneliness. Look at Helen Mirren. She’s alone and she’s not lonely. She takes responsibility for herself—like you should. She reframes being alone as solitude, and it’s her choice. “Does having a choice make a difference?” you wonder. Mirren notes:

One of the great gifts of growing older is to discover the exquisite art of being alone. What used to be an uncomfortable silence, is now a luxury. The house is peaceful, and I can dance in the kitchen without being judged or just doing nothing. My best company is myself, with a coffee, a good movie and the freedom to be, because solitude is not absence, it is fullness and peace of mind.

You resolve to reframe your loneliness as solitude.

Maybe you could write a journal, like Amy Tan’s The Backyard Bird Chronicles. People would flock to your door. “That probably won’t happen,” your inner voice tells you. “You no longer have a bird feeder.” Sometimes that voice does say something worth listening to.

A few days later it rains. Streaks of water coat the windows, making everything outside blurry. It’s one of those 48° chilling rains. No grocery store visit today. You’re still on a Helen Mirren kick, so you make some tea (which you don’t really like but it works for the Brits), and you decide to reread May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude. Maybe it has some hints for reframing.

Sarton describes solitude as a retreat from the demands of others, a way to find the “rocky depths” of her personality, a chance to do inward work to understand herself.  She argues that we have to make myths of our lives. . . to yield further insight into what it is to be alive, to be a human being. “Maybe I’ll be Emily Dickenson,” you think. Sarton explains:

My experience of great solitude is that its character is unstable—at times exalts and fortifies then soon beats down, and throws one into a starving and thirsty state. (Does that mean you should go to the grocery store?)

You’re more drawn to Sarton’s solitude than Mirren’s, who makes it sound like tea and a biscuit. Sarton sees personal growth in solitude and she doesn’t sugar coat it. Knowing ourselves can be painful, but you’ve always been willing.

That said, you’ve read all of May Sarton’s journals, and you know the truth about her. She maintained a huge correspondence with admirers and entertained a stream of visitors—friends, hired help, and readers—such that she lamented about how tired they made her. Is that really solitude?

The days roll on. You fill out questionnaires in self-help books, hoping to find your purpose. You grocery shop, watching people. You eat dinner and guess the answers for Jeopardy, although you’re not as quick as you used to be—but what 80-year-old knows the names of rap artists anyhow? Finally, it’s bedtime. Two cats vie for a spot on the bed—see, you do have company. You read a self-help book with another one of those questionnaires and then settle in with something entertaining. A whiff of Pranarōm’s Sleep Aid and you’re off to dreamland, full of people and adventures, wild car rides, trips with significant others, not being able to run when you need to, flying (that’s my favorite—wouldn’t you love to fly?). Dreamland. It’s a place where you are never lonely.

Dear Readers.

I am not lonely. I have a passionate engagement with a rosemaling group, volunteer work I love, two writers’ groups, church, friends, and an attentive family. I have, however, had lonely times in my life, so I know what it is like. I worry that our society blames the lonely person, puts it on them to find a way out. So, if you know someone that you suspect is lonely, offer a hand up from that swamp. Call them up. Share your thoughts about something of interest. Connect.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from…

 (Paul McCartney)

What’s It All About: Just in Time for 2025

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I walk down the hall of my new apartment building. Every doorway looks the same, gray, an apartment number, and a light to the side. Gray stretches indefinitely, soulless. I wonder if someday I’ll get lost in the sameness. I am a small, insignificant, older woman, putting one foot in front of the other in my daily trek to get my mail and newspaper, small things tethering me to the outside world.

          Here it is 2025, and I’m still asking myself what it’s all about. When I was seven or eight, I’d scare myself by worrying that I was an actor in someone else’s dream. I didn’t exist. How could I be sure I existed, that I was real? And if I was real, why did I exist? I had no answer other than to immediately divert my mind and think about the next day when I’d call a friend to play with me.

Then college. I registered for a humanities course, with no idea of what humanities was except a requirement to graduate. In a crowded room in Ford Hall, I learned I wasn’t alone in doubting my existence. A French guy named Descartes asked himself the same question about his dreams and concluded “I think, therefore I am.” Had it been that simple all along, and I was just too young to see it?

Once I established my existence—after all a famous philosopher had confirmed it—I started to focus on why I existed—what was human existence all about?

Next was the 1966 movie, Alfie. I was 23 and about to marry. If you saw the movie, you know that Alfie, played by Michael Caine, is a handsome womanizer, oblivious to the pain he causes the women he “loves” and leaves. One lover has a son, and Alfie becomes a father. Alfie begins to attach emotionally, but then the mother takes the boy away. Alfie denies his loss by finding another woman, who’s married, and he gets her pregnant. She has an illegal abortion with Alfie present. There’s an incredible scene when he views the aborted fetus, and for the first time, Alfie faces his life.

The movie and the finality of the abortion has stuck in my head since 1966. It wasn’t the procedure itself that impressed upon my mind; I understood the woman’s reasons, Rather, it was the contrast between the hedonism that looked so attractive when Alfie lived it, and the woman’s dilemma, a life growing in her, but having that baby meant the possible loss of a husband and family, which, for all its problems was a life of meaning. The theme song still lives in my head, “What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? . . .” And here I am, 81 years old. I haven’t lived a life of hedonism, that’s probably why I made it to 81. But still I wonder what it is all about, especially as I look back, and realize my moment went by so quickly.

I’m guessing we all wonder what life is about. Having a purpose is touted as one route to an answer—of sorts. I recently heard about a program to inspire disengaged youth by helping them find a purpose. At the other end of the age continuum, we retirees are told that we’ll live longer and be happier if we find a purpose. Maybe we can all hide in our purpose and avoid the deeper question.

Then there’s the path of hedonism. I vividly remember my 50th high school reunion when we went around the room telling each other what we were doing with our lives fifty years after graduation. I was shocked by how many people bragged about their good lives of boating, dining, cocktails, and relaxing in Florida in the winter and Door County during summer (I grew up in Wisconsin). When it was my turn, there I stood, thinking life was about more than that. I stuttered that I was still working (my way of escaping the larger question).

Turning eighty pushed me to answer what it’s all about. It’s scary to me—I want to feel okay with my life because I don’t know what’s coming. I will always hear my mother, dying at 74, saying, “I’m not ready. There are things I need to do.”

A few Christmases ago my children gave me an Aura frame. It’s a tablet that flashes pictures at 15-second intervals. You load the pictures from your phone and other devices onto the tablet. At the time I was disappointed. “What am I going to do with this?” I thought.

Nevertheless, I placed the frame in a central spot, plugged it in, and synched with the Internet. There was my family. They had already loaded their favorite pictures of a growing, changing family of the past 25 years and even pictures from my and their childhoods. Gradually, I added some of my own and Jim’s family added pictures, too. I came to love my Aura. Jim and I would eat dinner at the dining room table and watch the screen, telling stories about the memories triggered by the pictures

Some days life reads like a fine novel. It’s all there: a great plot—my life; characters—family and friends I’ve loved; a climax—the 50’s and 60’s when family and work came to fruition; and now the denouement—old age and me asking once again, What is it all about, after all? It feels pressing, the need to know.

I walk into my apartment from my soulless hall, and there’s the Aura streaming my story line. I pause and watch: Jim, my sisters as children, our dog Eddie, Lake Michigan, my bicycles, our grandchildren, friend and fellow blogger, Karen, vacations, a big snapping turtle, a pileated woodpecker—you get the picture, family, friends, pets, this amazing planet, eighty remarkable years and memories, most everything I’ve loved and love. Aha, this is what it’s all about, I think.

The answer has been there all along, and I can give it to you in one word— love. It’s about love.

. . . for one human being to love another… is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. Rilke

Use It or Lose It?

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Amsterdam 1991

If you’ve followed this blog, you know that bike riding is my happy place. I’ve even posted a collage of some of my bicycles through the years. So, when I moved this summer, I, of course, took my latest bike—a step-through to accommodate my stiffening hip, no more throwing that leg over the seat, or standing on a curb to get on the bike. This new bike was a year old, gave a nice ride, but lacked the cachet of my Bianchi. I locked the it in the parking garage in my new apartment. As I wrapped the kryptonite lock around the bike, I promised it, “Don’t worry, we’ll go out for a spin as soon as I get settled.”

Two weeks later, mid-summer, I went to my parking spot and no bike. Someone had cut the lock and taken it! They also cut off the handlebar bag and threw it on the floor. DARN! That’s not exactly what I said. . . I felt violated. I examined the bikes locked by other parking stalls. Some had three locks, while others had wimpy locks. I had a kryptonite one! It wasn’t fair.

July came and went. I took a wonderful vacation and went to a retreat. In August I started the real work of moving into a new apartment, unpacking boxes and finding places for ten years of stuff.

Meanwhile, the cut cable from my bike lock hung in the garage. Every time I went to drive my car, there it was, a reminder that I had no bike, that I hadn’t been on a bike all summer, and someone had stolen from me. At the same time, I struggled with heavy boxes filled with books, slid furniture into place, and often waited for help. I just wasn’t as strong as I’d been ten years ago, when Jim and I had moved into our house.

That worried me. Would I be as strong on my bike as I’ve been in the past? “Use it or lose it,” came to mind – a saying that any older person can, perhaps reluctantly, recognize as true. I asked myself, “Karen, remember when you dropped cross-legged to the floor to sit? Or lifted that leg over the seat of the bicycle? Remember when you were more powerful than a locomotive and could leap tall buildings in a single bound?” 

“Karen, if you don’t get on a bicycle SOON, you’ll lose that, too—balance, proprioception, agility, quickness.” I set a goal of getting back in that saddle VERY SOON.

But I needed a bicycle.

Then my son-in-law showed up with one, a step through, designed to cruise the neighborhood. He’d bought it to lure my daughter into biking with him— but she detests bicycling, and this bike hung in their garage with the other four that he’s given her through the years. It’s a Townie, made by Electra, with nothing electric about it. Big and bulky, with an ample seat, and high handlebars. This bike was clearly for an older person. A grandma bike. Was he trying to tell me something?

I moved it into my apartment. I wasn’t taking any chances of having it stolen again. There it sits, an old lady bike taunting me. “Slow down, Karen, you can’t get on or off easily. You could fall.”

I wonder just how wise that goal of getting back to riding is. “Practice makes perfect,” I told myself last year when I had a hard time stopping and putting that leg down without pain in my knee and a sense that I might pitch forward. One friend said, “Karen, it’s not if you fall, it’s when you fall.”  Sobering words. But then I heard Karen Rose’s voice: “In the Netherlands, people ride until they die.” So why not me?  And this bike looks a lot like the one I rode in Amsterdam in 1983 (except for the basket…which has negative pizazz). 

Complicating everything is the advice about transitions. “When you leave something behind, that makes space for something new to come in.” Like what? A scooter? Nah, too fast. Tricycle? Heaven forbid, a wheelchair?  And I wonder “Is this true at age 80?” There are lots of losses, family homes, meaningful work, work friends, lifelong friends, spouses, grandchildren who grow up and fly the nest, stuff you treasured but no longer have room for, lifestyles. . . not to mention sitting cross-legged. Or riding a bicycle.

Lots of us are waiting for something new to come in — and getting older in the meantime. And there’s an increasing bond with others who are navigating the territory of aging. At a recent outdoor concert, I sat in a row of six women my age who’d either lost their spouse or were living with one who was ailing. Our conversations reflected our age: “Don’t put your chair there, it’ll tip and you don’t want to fall;” “I brought some grapes so we don’t have to eat that salty fatty food they’re selling;” “I have to leave by nine, I don’t like to drive when it gets dark.” That’s bonding—we’re in the same tippy boat, waiting for something new to flow in on the next tide.

Where does that leave me? I haven’t given up the dream—another happy place has to be out there. I could always buy a new bicycle, maybe an electric one or definitely one with some zip.  Or maybe I could learn to accept a free granny bicycle.  For the time being, though, I’ve found another happy place, my new deck and coffee with a piece of almond bread from the Black Walnut Bakery. For now, happy is right here.