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It Started as a Chat Between Friends…..

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Two years ago, Dan and I took a grandparent trip to Paris and Normandy organized by Road Scholar. Aside from the pleasure of experiencing the world through 14-year old eyes, I became curious about the origins of Road Scholar, a non-profit organization committed to “knowledge seekers and explorers, united in the belief that lifelong learning is a vital part of overall well being..” Clicking on the Our Story tab in their website reveals that it started with a random conversation when two people at the University of New Hampshire were musing about the Scandinavian folketshusen that provide community-based adult learning and the value-for-money of youth hostels. Although it has evolved from its bare bones, learning-focused approach to travel for older people, it is still a non-profit that incorporates scholarships for those whose finances don’t accommodate much travel. 

This got me thinking about social entrepreneurs, or people who come up with new ideas whose purpose is making a difference rather than making money.

Last year I had the chance to catch up with my old friend Jan Hively, as she reappeared in Minnesota after giving a workshop at the Saging International Conference.  We were at a reception in a restaurant where I knew almost no one, although I felt as if I ought to know almost everyone because they were all roughly my age, long-time residents of the Twin Cities, and were in education or the helping professions.  Hmm…. Is this more evidence that my life is littered with missed opportunities for networking with interesting people?  Almost everyone that I talked to (once I managed to scrape myself out of my modest introversion) were (1) semi-retired or retired from a first career and (2) starting something new – often with others in the room – where doing good rather than making money was the goal.  In other words, I was in a crowd of what I could only call social entrepreneurs.

When you google social entrepreneur, however, you get a different view….the first links are degree programs in business schools and lists of successful social entrepreneurs who are also making money.  Now I have nothing against making money while doing good, but when you click on Forbes articles, you get a prominent definition that adds something new:  someone who uses business skills to solve social problems.  Those were not the people I met, few of whom had a background in business or were particularly interested in commodifying social good. 

It was not hard to find nuance when I probed my Google search more deeply.  The deep thinkers at Stanford University have come up with the insight that entrepreneurship “connotes a special, innate ability to sense and act on opportunity, combining out-of-the-box thinking with a unique brand of determination to create or bring about something new to the world.”   They go on, noting that entrepreneurs attempt to ““shift economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.”  What comes to mind are, of course, microloans to women starting small businesses in developing countries (which have proven remarkably effective in promoting gender equity)l  or the Global Soap Project that recycles semi-used bars of hotel soap to improve health in underdeveloped areas.

But what are economic resources?  Like most people, my first thought goes to money.  Then I quickly channeled Jan Hively again…

I have known Jan, an exuberant role model for successful aging, since the 1990s, when we worked together on programming and outreach for the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. At that time, Jan, who was in her late-60s, was completing a doctorate looking at the contribution of older people to the well-being of rural communities.  Her work, which demonstrated that the unreimbursed labor of older people was critical to maintaining villages and small towns, whether as volunteers in school or at the library or babysitting for grandchildren so that their parents could hold down several jobs.  Jan drew on her work to create a Minnesota Vital Aging Network – which is now an international movement dedicated to grassroots engagement of older people in their communities.  Almost as if she were addicted to staring new initiatives, Jan went on to found SHIFT! , (an organization that provides support to boomers who are seeking employment, looking at retirement, or finding community), the Pass It On network, which is focused on peer learning for older people, and the Life Planning Network, which links professionals who support vital aging and provides professional learning opportunities to them.

Each of these organizations is non-profit, most operating on volunteers; none seem to genuinely meet Stanford’s definition because there is no significant monetary financial “yield”.  They are grassroots, locally organized and maintained, and are committed to growing interpersonal community as well as “doing good” and measurable economic value.  They are distinct from the business skills driven model and “yield” because they are, at their core, part of a challenge to redefine aging from inevitable but increasing diminishment (the current dominant and ageist perspective).  She, and other social entrepreneur “of a certain age” focus on how shared wisdom promotes a common good. 

Not everyone can be an older social entrepreneur with global impact (like Jan) but everyone can find a way to contribute to grassroots social cohesion. The premise – than small local actions can lead to large consequences – is particularly relevant for people who have more time than money.  People like me. Who knows how many new initiatives began at that reception, where everyone these was drawn to the vision of being part of that entrepreneurial social movement? 

A Cabin In My Life

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I consider myself reasonably tech savvy. I had a smart phone before my kids did—a Palm Pilot. I still remember my son saying, “There’s nothing we can give mom for Xmas that will make her as happy as that Palm Pilot has.”  And how right he was! I loved my Palm and my heart was broken when it was replaced with the androids and iphones. 

I’m the grandma who hides her phone under the table when my grandchildren are told, “No phones at the table.” I lease a car so I can have the latest technology—who wants to drive without it? I prefer texting to a phone call—why waste time on all that chit chat.

Savvy about using technology, I may be, but for the nitty gritty stuff, like malware, I’m not so informed. For starters, I was not aware of how easily it slithers onto your computer when you’re trying to download a video game for your step-grandchildren, unabashedly trying to win their favor but instead wreaking havoc with your files.  I took my laptop to my son, thinking he could fix it. After he clicked a bunch of screens I didn’t know existed (younger people don’t use the mouse; they prefer the keypad), he declared it beyond his scope of expertise. Then I took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy. That’s when I found out that I had a virus/malware (they are not the same thing)—or my computer had it, and for $149, they could fix it—the catch was that they’d need to keep it three days, until Saturday afternoon.  And for $199 I could get protection. I, who thought protection was something men wore, signed up for the whole shebang.

I went home, immediately bereft, what would I do without my laptop? After a period of mourning, watching Home and Garden TV to distract myself, I decided that I could read a book —which I haven’t completely given up on. And as much as I like technology, I don’t have a Kindle or iPad—I like turning the pages, smelling the ink, or that little hint of mildew on older library books. I read through the afternoon, and then I decided to make a lovely dinner.  After dinner, I cleaned the closet with my tablecloths—decluttering, who needs all those now that my children are grown with children of their own. Then back to reading—I finished When We Were Orphans and started The Dutch House—all on the same day, no dragging out the process over a couple of weeks. 

Thursday was troublesome.  An entire day to entertain myself without a laptop.  Tutoring in the morning and time for a real workout and sauna afterwards—and I wasn’t looking at my watch the entire time, rushing to finish. More reading in the afternoon, and then a cleaning of my desk area—this no laptop stuff had potential.  

On Friday I realized just how much time I spend on email, Facebook, Instagram, karensdescant, news sites, etc., with not much to show for it. My shoulders started to unkink, with the help of the PowerPlate at the gym. Meanwhile, the Geek Squad called to say my computer was ready for pick-up, but with the catch that I’d need to schedule a new time if I wanted it sooner than Saturday.  But there were no new times that fit my schedule, so I’d have to wait for my appointment on Saturday. Gee, too bad, but I realized, I didn’t want to pick it up. I wanted another half day of freedom from my laptop addiction. 

In what felt like borrowed time, I observed that tasks that I delay day after day—like cleaning closets—don’t look so bad when the attraction of mindless roaming is removed. Time also seemed more expansive, and best of all, I rediscovered reading until my eyes give out—like I used to do under the blankets with a flashlight as a kid. I also wonder what would happen if I abandoned the computer for—dare I suggest—over a week—including the phone, which is really a tiny computer.  

Much has been written about declining attention span as we age. Quoting from the literature (as we academics are inclined to do) Subjects over 60 years of age show progressive slowing in processing of complex tasks and a reduced capacity to inhibit irrelevant stimuli (Commodari, Guarnera, 2008), what intrigues me is not so much the slowing—after all, our brains have much to sift through—but the “reduced capacity to inhibit irrelevant stimuli.”  If there was ever anything perfectly designed to generate “irrelevant stimuli” it has to be the computer!

My son has banned TV at his cabin, and his internet is terribly slow. One needs to be quite patient to read email or surf, and patience is not something I equate with technology. The result is that when the family visits, we hike outdoors, play games, listen to his LPs (he is a bit of a Luddite) or read. It’s not uncommon to see every chair or davenport occupied by someone snuggled under a comforter, book in hand. 

So where does that leave me? Definitely respectful of the power that innocent-looking, laptop has over me. Power always suggests to me getting out from under it. Two weeks later after the incident, I am more mindful of monitoring when and how I use my computer and phone. It’s supposed to serve me. . . not me, it.

That said, the first Monday after bringing my heart throb home, I was at my desk, typing on it, checking email, taking a minute to peek at Facebook. . . .  All of which reminded me that I need to keep the cabin in my life.

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Resolved. . . to Be Kinder to Myself

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Sunset at Round Lake, Nisswa, MN

“What convictions survive into dotage?” asks the main character in Jane Gardam’s book, Old Filth, surely a question worthy of a blog devoted to retirement and aging. When I ask myself this question, I hear my stepfather expounding on one of his own favorite convictions—that most people are afraid and lack the courage to look hard at themselves, to admit their failures. On the face of it, this appears a wise and reasonable caution, and as a young idealistic girl who wanted to be a person of courage, I grabbed on and internalized this notion, not realizing how harmful constant self-criticism would be.

Focusing on my failures assumed the negative, that I had failed in some way, even when a different perspective might have pointed out that I had also succeeded in another way, thereby polarizing the outcome. It was either a success or a failure; there was nothing in between or a mix of results.

Casting a critical eye, which I took to be a brave me facing my deficiencies, led to many dark nights of looking back with regrets. But Parker Palmer points out “the past isn’t fixed and frozen the way we think it is. Its meaning can change as time unfolds, if we pay attention.”

My second husband, Gary Stout, loved to go to the burning bowl service at Unity church on New Year’s Eve. If you are not familiar with a burning bowl ceremony, what happens is that you write something that you want to let go of on a piece of paper and put it into a bowl where it gets burned—presto, you are done with it, ready to move on and stop fretting—notice how fretting rhymes with regretting? Gary and I also freely told each other what we thought the other person ought to let go of—ouch! It made for a lively New Year’s Eve.

So, should we face our regrets about our failures and flagellate ourselves endlessly, as my step-father maintained; let go and burn them away in a burning bowl ceremony; or, as Palmer suggests—reframe them? In the spirit of growing older and wiser, as a start, I suggest we reframe them.

My choice to reframe leads me to a highly personal story, one that I hesitate to share, but acknowledging that one way to reframe regrets is to take their power away by telling their story.

A regret I’ve struggled with for years is that I was a failure in my professorial career. I started out, as a new professor at age 50 at the University of Utah, filled with ambition, ready to set the world on fire. Instead, about a year after I arrived, my world was set on fire when my new husband, Gary Stout, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given about a year to live. I supported him, loved him with all I had, and watched him die over the next year.

His death flattened me, crushed me, rendered my ambition lifeless. The belief that I could do work that would improve schooling for the children I so had wanted to serve decayed into a hopeless cynicism. Except for a couple of bright moments, I never really got going in the traditional professor role.

In addition to being flattened, I had my stepfather’s voice, my “conviction” that I had to tell myself the truth, that I was a big fat failure. As you can guess, this truth did not have the effect of lifting me out of my despair, it only deepened it.

Then one day, another voice clamored to be heard, asking me what else I had done in my twenty years of failure. I believe I was reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic, when I had this breakthrough. I made a list of all the other things I had done in the twenty years, deciding I would subtract my failures from this list. It was a long list—I now have it posted near my desk. It includes such things as reading great books, hanging out with loved friends, seeing my children grow into fine adults, grandchildren, a couple of flings, travel, commitment to teaching, helping students achieve their dreams. . . and so on.

Not a bad way to spend twenty years, I realized. Better yet, I had told myself the truth, looked hard at myself. Palmer says, “regret shuts life down.” I would add that it also shuts memory down, freezes it on what didn’t work instead of opening us to what did.

Ocean Vuong, in his magnificent book, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, says:

History moves in a spiral, not the line we’ve come to expect. . . the past never a fixed and dormant landscape but one that is reseen. Whether we want to or not, we are traveling in a spiral, we are creating something new from what is gone (pgs. 27-28).

I’ve come to believe that to make sense of my life and my past I need to ignore the harsh voice I adopted from my stepfather and instead to not only reframe but to look again with new eyes, eyes that refuse to label good or bad, success or failure, eyes that are willing to “create something new from what is gone” by seeing the nuance and looking anew over and over.  I don’t mean the cliched “Everything happens for a reason,” but rather a willingness to be kind to myself and my past.

Which brings me to New Year’s resolutions, which I love—and I’m not talking about diet and exercise. I’m talking about resolutions that open life up, refresh it, if you will. This year I’m resolving to get passionate about making time to be at peace—maybe twenty minutes a day of meditating, doing a full body scan, deep breathing, or something like that.  All this, of course, is about living in gentle kindness with myself, seeing those spiraling memories that can dominate growing older with kind and gentle eyes. So, be it resolved—Karen Storm will make time for peace and be kinder to herself in 2020. May such kindness last forever. Happy New Year!

‘Tis the Season

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For some reason, I feel surrounded by people who love Christmas and revel in cookie exchanges, lights, and special dinnerware with seasonal themes.  They might as well have “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” tattooed on their foreheads.  I have a more ambivalent relationship with everything that commences after Thanksgiving and lasts until the holiday ornaments are stowed away in their special boxes…..

I should start at the beginning.  I grew up, as I noted in my decluttering blog, in a Swedish-American family where Christmas was elevated to the critical role of proving that the American had not crowded out the Swedish.  Unlike every other family that I knew growing up, Christmas Eve was the big event – the day when we brought in the tree and decorated it, where the “adult beverage” was glögg that my father made from a family tested (and highly alcoholic) recipe several weeks before. My mother worked all day to bake two kinds of Swedish bread (julekage and limpa), in addition to making a Julbord with Swedish cheese (no cheddar allowed!),  lutefisk (look it up – ugh), potatiskorv (a bland Swedish sausage), and a miscellany of other things to keep the traditions alive.  We made the four kinds of Swedish Christmas cookies (absolutely no red and green sprinkles) well ahead of time, of course, and served them up with a baked rice pudding.  NOTHING COULD EVER BE CHANGED or SUBSTITUTED – and as others have noted, all the foods seemed to have been subjected to a “whitening agent” so that no color deeper than beige was visible.  The American part was that Santa Claus came and the presents opened on Christmas Day. 

When I had my own family, my parents were always part of my holidays, and the Christmas Eve traditions continued unabated (much to my children’s dismay).  It was only after my mother died that, after a long consultation, we deleted the detested lutefisk and substituted fresh torsk (cod). I add, however, that because we lived in Minnesota we were able to get my father a takeout serving of lutefisk from a local restaurant…

Although I didn’t like the food very much, I always felt sorry for families who lacked the set-in-stone traditions that solidified their family identity. But life changes when the kids leave home, and they are able to make their own choices….And, with each year I “declutter” my holiday life by becoming temporarily willing to give up another tradition.  Try to buy potatiskorv in Boston or Boulder (although if we were genuinely serious, we could have made our own, Instead, my sister and brother-in-law created a kind of pork burger-with-potato that almost passed). 

Last week I was with a group of “women of a certain age” when the topic of “making it through the holidays” came up.  The person who raised it felt rather anxious, because she was traveling “home” to a family gathering that included both frail parents and alcoholic relatives who had, in the past, behaved badly.  She had already made a backup motel reservation…..

What an unexpected Pandora’s Box!  As each woman spoke about their upcoming holiday plans, there was a consistent theme:  Stress, low-level conflict, fatigue – and a sense that perhaps even the most vivid childhood memories of the perfect Christmas were less than truthful.  One chimed in that she had always disliked Christmas, but her husband loved it.  Recently married, they were traveling to another state to be with his parents in a retirement community.  She looked hesitant when she described the trip.  A third noted that, as an adult, she experienced Christmas as a time when people drank too much and were not always able to participate in the joyfulness that young children have when they see the lights and a stocking from Santa.  But it was Sue, whose quiet story put me into alert mode:  “My mother wanted everything to be perfect.  Our tree was decorated to the teeth, with every matching ornament perfectly placed.  The food was lovely, served on those special Christmas plates.  Her wrapped packages were works of art before we tore in to them.  And then, as soon as the packages were opened, she collapsed….”  What I recall from my later adolescence was the same:  My mother would go to bed starting around noon on Christmas Day, and we would not see her until late evening, as we munched on leftovers.  While I never went quite as far in trying to create the perfect Swedish-American Christmas, as she said that, I remember vividly how quickly my Christmas Eve fun melted into fatigue….

Sue has found a new approach:  Her husband makes a list of every Christmas light tour, pageant, special concert, etc. – and wants to do it all with her.  They experience joyfulness because they have removed the work to get ready, the travel, the strained family relationships – by sequencing experiences that are fun, but not exhausting—while staying home.  And whatever Christmas cookies they bake are ones that they like, and not those prescribed by tradition.

Part of my heart wants to cheer “Let’s try it – get rid of all of it except presents for the younger kids!  Eat Thai takeout on Christmas Eve if we want to!  Give the money we would spend on presents to the food shelf – or use it to take a real vacation!  Maybe if we did less we might even be awake enough to go to a midnight candlelight service (isn’t that what we should be thinking about?)”  But the other part (and I am split down the middle) screams “No!  Family is cemented when the holiday traditions are strong but a little flexible!  I really LOVE making stockings for everyone, and don’t want to stop!  We already have given up on making only Swedish cookies—isn’t that enough?” 

If I think Marie Kondo, I have to ask:  Which of the traditions makes me smile and brings me joy?  And, which could be adapted to a new generation – my grandchildren – for whom we all want to create a sense of being part of a special family time.  And who will tell the stories about the takeout lutefisk unless there is the smell of julekage to elicit it?