Tag Archives: bicycling

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

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.