Anisette Studio

Muddy Brook Studio  Pejj Nunes 2/13/2024

It’s a snowy day today! A good day to be home, snug and cozy in a home. I was able to find a spot where the snow would not cover the birds seed, so they are happily eating their seed. Coffee is at the right, all is well!

It will be a day of writing, research and art, I think. Dave, my daughter’s husband has gone to work. Kids are home from school, and Mom’s home. Glad for the next three days off.

It is uncanny how when I open Joyce Hifler’s books that they come open to a perinate paragraph about something I have been thinking about. The following is worth sharing.

“We seem to treasure everything old except people. Shakespeare wrote in Passionate Pilgrim, “Age, I do abhor thee, youth I do adore thee.” We don’t think about aging so much when younger, we are navigating life. We are still trying to navigate life later on down the line. “And it all boils down to the wisdom of long ago, Pretty is as Pretty does.” Whether we are young or old it all depends on how we handle it. Some things are beautifully, ivory, laces and silks, but even they have to be of good quality to begin with. And so it is with people, and whether we abhor or adore at any age, it all depends on the individual who wants to learn, to love, to communicate, to give as he would get. There was never a time when every age needed each other more. There is a need and a place for everyone.”

Hifler’s book was published in 1975. People have a tendency, do they not, to hang onto a habit___ a way of being or thinking one way or another, or perhaps it’s not thinking at all about aging, so it seems.

In one place you will find older folk treated as less than who they have been by some. We hear of age discrimination and see it happening. In another pocket of life, you will find older folk doing great things, as they have always done. These people are admired. They stand out as examples of how you can be as an older person.

I think self-talk is involved in the matter. It depends on how life is for the individual. Where you are physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally do matter. It depends on one’s own mindset. You do need to be all you can be for yourself. No one has a right to make less of you! I think talking about aging helps yet this needs receptivity, and there are people raising the topic, so it is thought about. This I feel is a good thing.

In today’s world it seems we are digging ourselves deeper into the ways of the past, by going backwards. Not everyone but ___and here is the catch! The media implies we are. Are we? Are we not smarter than before. I don’t have anything to base what I know but what is my immediate world, and that too is a second problem.

How do you learn the truth about such a huge complex world. When it is millions of realities, that may be the similar to you. Yet everyone has all these experiences that have been full of anger and pain. How do you heal the hurt and pain? How do you live with togetherness? Where age and other things do not divide people.

Pejj Nunes