Good-bye, WordPress

I learned about blogs back in 2008. I’ve always enjoyed writing so I decided I wanted to give that a go. It took me awhile to get the hang of it but by late 2009 I had a blog on Google’s Blogspot platform and I was writing/publishing several blog posts a month.  Sometimes the pieces would be autobiographical, sometimes opinion pieces tied to politics and culture, occasionally poetry, and often my own voice just wanting to be heard. I became part of a small group of bloggers who supported and encouraged each other and I enjoyed the camaraderie. But some odd snafu happened in mid 2013. To this day I still do not understand what happened but my access to my blog was cut off. I could view old posts but I could not publish anything new. I think there was some Google deadline that I didn’t understand and likely ignored and so my blog disappeared.

I have always had issues with technology. The ins and outs of the tech world do not come naturally to me but I refuse to fight with the behemoth. It saddened and angered me when the blog was cut off but I was also dealing with a lot of other things in my life and a blog was at the bottom of my list of priorities.  

In 2017, I found myself wanting to write again and wishing for that blogging community again. I didn’t want to go back to Blogspot because I didn’t want to have the whole thing fall apart. I did some research and was wooed by Wordpress. They claimed to be user friendly and that was my biggest concern.  Yes, it was not free but I decided to leap into it. I dropped $300 for a five year contract and started writing again. 

Ha! That sounds so smooth, doesn’t it? User friendly? What a joke.  Wordpress turned out to be complex tool and one not easily accessed by a person with little time or tech experience. I worked hard to figure it out (mostly via YouTube videos) and set up a basic format . It was enough for me to post an piece and then have a place where previous posts could be accessed. I did not find the writing community on Wordpress that I had found on Blogspot but, to be fair, I didn’t really have the time or inclination to investigate that much. I just wanted a place to bank my writing. 

Recently I was informed by Wordpress that my renewal fees were coming due in November. I was astounded to see that it was going to cost me close to $1,300 to renew for another five years. Say, WHAT?  Given that I have been sorely disappointed in Wordpress all the way around, there is no way that I will continue on with this platform. As a matter of fact, I spent some time in October transferring almost all my previous posts to a new spot on Google’s Blogger platform. This is not the same as the old Blogspot but it does give me a place to publish words. I don’t get the sense that a writing immunity is part of this but , at least, I can post my writing and I have a link if I want to send it to someone. I am also investigating Medium as a true writing community. I have opened an account (to the tune of $50/year) there but have not really developed it yet.  As my time becomes more available, I hope to plug into that collection of writers. We’ll see. 

So this is my last post on Wordpress. My account expires mid November but there was something in the fine print that suggested I would not be able to post after October 31? I don’t know. None of it is clear to me. 

This is the link to the Google blog:

https://graciewildeart.blogspot.com

Since I moved all the Wordpress posts to this account over the month of October, all 117 titles are listed on the right side. It’s cumbersome but at least they are there. Once we get a few months down the road and there are new posts, those Wordpress ones will fade into history as they do. 

So good-bye to Wordpress. You gave me a place to put my writing and for that I am grateful. I figured you out enough to get by but not enough to pay that money for. Hello , Google Blogger and/or Medium 

Damn.

 

When my mother died in 2014, my siblings and I were tasked with sifting through and disposing of all her possessions.  I was a regular visitor at my mother’s home in her final years but mostly stayed in the public rooms and didn’t open drawers or closets that were private. So I was surprised at how much stuff she had accumulated and how many decisions we had to make regarding where these possessions were going to go. It was overwhelming.

My mother grew up during the Great Depression and World War 2. These years of scarcity left a forever impact on her. She was constantly acquiring things (often at garage sales or thrift stores) “just in case”.   She also lived in a remote location and didn’t have a supermarket or Target anywhere close by. Going to the grocery was, at best, an hour proposition and, in that scenario, you would be lucky if the small grocery had what you needed. Consequently, she also got into the habit of buying large quantities so as to have a back up (for herself and for neighbors who might be in need).  All this is to say, it made sense that her closets, cupboards, drawers, and shelves were jam packed with stuff.

I am sad to acknowledge now that I was judgmental when we were cleaning out the house. As we emptied cabinet after cabinet, drawer after drawer, box after box, I remember thinking, “What the heck? Did she not know she was going to die? She was 92 years old at the time of her death. Did she not think that this stuff was going to need to be dealt with after her death?” 

In retrospect, I now think that, of course, she knew that. It must have been painful at times to know that everything she owned would one day be dismissed by someone else. Sure, there are pieces of memorabilia that we all chose to keep but, for the most part, her possessions were given to family members, friends, Goodwill, or, yes, the trash can. That was hard. Very hard. For me, it felt as if her hopes and plans and days were being discarded. I wondered why she hadn’t done much of this herself?

Well, who wants to do that? How painful is it to give away your life? But maybe even more than that was the notion that to give away, to dispose of, all of these things must have seemed like an overwhelming job. My father died in 1996 and my mother continued to live in their home until close to her death. She wanted very much to remain independent and she had her daily routines. She had always been a strong, vibrant woman but the years took their toll. I know she was physically tired. I know she hurt every single day. She had severe arthritis and she was old. How was she supposed to dispose of possessions even if she wanted to? I know she would give things away but there was so much there that when giving someone a favorite mug or some books, it barely made a scratch. And she was still in scarcity mode. She still gathered even as she was getting closer to leaving the planet.

I find it all so poignant now. I ache for her. I am older now. I hurt more too. I look around and wonder about the stuff that I have accumulated. I am determined that my children will not have to sift through my things, making decisions, wondering if they are doing it right. I am not my mother. Growing up as a grandchild of the Great Depression, I have a small piece of that scarcity mindset but at least I know it. I also live with easy access to a grocery and general goods store. I don’t have to stash things. But I still have stuff. 

I think about going through and getting rid of things now but, guess what? I find it overwhelming.  I think of all the other things I want to do. The last thing on my “to do” list is to thoroughly clean out that closet. I don’t want to be bothered right now when, instead, I want to read, to write, to paint, to go to the beach, to spend time with family. I tell myself there will be time later to go through accumulated possessions. Is that true? I don’t know.  

What I know now is that it is fine that my mother left her home the way she did. It was fine that she surrounded herself with things that somehow soothed her or made her feel good in some way. I have no business being judgmental. Walk in an old person’s shoes and you know lots that you couldn’t see when you were an arrogant younger person.  In my case, that arrogant younger person is only eight years younger.  A lot has happened even in eight years to humble me. I know that part to be true.  

As far as my stuff is concerned? I am focusing now mostly on not acquiring anything else. Yes, I can buy consumable things - art supplies, fresh flowers, gifts for friends/family, toys for the children who visit, an occasional article of clothing just for fun - but I don’t want or need any jewelry, knick knacks, kitchen tools, bed or bath items, seasonal decorations, none of it. My goal is to avoid bringing more into the house. I want to look for ways to let go of things, bit by bit. When the opportunity arises to give away, I plan to do just that. Coat drive this winter? Book drive at the library? Is someone I know excited about certain author and I own books they might like? Here you go! And when I die there will still be things to dispose of. I know that. But I hope I will have had some say over time in the disposal of much of my stuff. And I hope my children will not have odd judgmental feelings in my absence.  I’m doing the best that I can. But so was my mother. I know that now. Damn. 

Hello, Anger. Let's Chat.

Anger and I have always had a challenging relationship. Let’s start with my two childhood introductions to anger. The most powerful introduction to anger came from the Catholic Church: “Hello, I’m anger. I’m a sin.” Yup. That was the message strongly delivered. To feel anger was to be sinful. No, I am not confusing that with acting on or with anger. I was taught that to experience the emotion of anger was to commit a sin. Go figure. But that was my truth. In a way, it was handy for me because, as a Catholic school kid, I was trotted off to Confession every other Friday afternoon. I needed something to tell the priest and, trust me, I was angry a lot. I could always confess to being angry with my mom four times, being angry with my brother five times, and so on. It was a good “go to” sin but it also made me worry that I was going to end up in Purgatory (if not Hell) for a very long time.

The second introduction came from my parents. My father scared me with his displays of anger. He had times when something was gnawing at him and his response was to be silent, except for angry outbursts. He would raise his voice and say things that scared me. He would occasionally throw things across the room or lash out at one of the kids in anger. I know now that there were many reasons for his fury and that he didn’t have the tools to deal with that emotion. Nevertheless, his rage scared me and made me stay far away from him. My mother’s anger was less thundering but still obvious to me. Again, there were reasons for her storms and she had few tools in her toolbox to take care of things. Her anger was much more controlled. I was an observant child. I watched her face for the clenched jaw, her body for the stilted movement. Her words would become clipped and sharp. She would cut to the chase and deliver orders. She would pull back and leave me wondering if she was going to go away. My response was always to up my game, do more chores, write more little love notes, do what kids do when they are scared.

So no wonder I am f**ked when it comes to anger. I have spent most of my life sidestepping my own anger while, at the same time, dodging any situation that might lead to someone being angry with me. It’s as if I have to moderate all activities that involve me and make sure that all participants are happy.  I cannot allow anyone to be angry with me. There are currently two people (that I know of) who are angry with me. In both situations, I have looked carefully at my own behaviors. Did I do something wrong? Was any part of my behavior offensive? What I did, in both situations, was that I did not live up to someone else’s expectations.  In one case, the other person had planning assumptions that didn’t work with my plans. Am I obligated to change my agenda because they are unhappy with my arrangement?  In another situation, the person would like a different kind of relationship than I am interested in having.  Should I give up what I want to please the other person?  In both cases, the people involved are unhappy because I am not behaving as they want me to behave.  It’s hard for me not to just throw up my hands and change things and make it right for them in order to avoid their anger. But is that really the best alternative? In some ways it is the easier but it leaves ME feeling angry and annoyed. I understand  that compromise is important in life and I do have a pattern of looking for compromise whenever anger shows up in the room. I am beginning to think that sometimes anger just has to be. It isn’t necessarily good or bad. It’s a common human emotion and it gets more complex when communication shuts down.

Both of these people matter to me. I know they are hurting and I don’t want to exacerbate that pain. I also have justifications for the decisions that I have made and I owe it to myself to honor those justifications. Maybe my task is to learn to live with anger.  I have spent years learning to repair the damage done to me by the Catholic Church (and, yes, to also appreciate what there was of value there). In the same way, I  have spent time and thought sorting out what was healthy about my family of origin and what was unhealthy. Anger is in this big mix. I am learning now that anger is not the evil it was made out to be. Anger deserves my attention. That doesn’t mean I have to comply with its demands, only that I can be open to what it is asking of me. I want to learn how to sit and have a conversation with anger and maybe have a conversation about anger. I wonder if there is always hurt under the anger?  I wonder if anger is often suggesting different ways to be in the world?  Is there a healthy and connecting way to experience anger? Maybe sometimes anger is a reminder of the value of keeping things in perspective?  I’m willing to experiment with all of this, both when it comes to the anger that I feel and the anger that is directed towards me.  It’s new-ish territory for me. It’s going to take awhile. Be patient with me, World. Please. 

Premonitions and Their Ghosts

*Originally posted on my Wordpress blog 09.27.2022

Warning: This post contains a graphic discussion of death. If you are not in a space to be reading about death, just close it and go on to something else.

For most of my adult life, I have been curious about my night time dreams. I have kept a notebook on the bedside table and, if a dream shakes me awake or remains vividly in my consciousness upon awakening, I write it down. If I don’t write it down right at the point of waking up, it will most likely fade away and I will lose any chance I had of learning something from it. About three weeks ago, I had a short but very startling dream. In the dream, I had a premonition that I was going to be run over by a truck and I was going to die instantly. Here’s the rest of what I wrote in the night:

“Literally, here now, and then dead. I would disappear. I would be gone. I would not matter anymore. I would be gone. I need to go through my stuff. I will disappear. None of this will matter. I will cease to exist. It was going to be night time and the truck will be following me. At one point it will literally drive over me in my small VW bug, crushing me and I will die instantly. I will disappear. I will become nothing.”

So it’s a premonition within a dream. Does that mean it’s a premonition IRL? Is this dream letting me know that I will die instantly? Crushed in some way? It might not be by a truck and I might not be in my car, but will the life be crushed out of me?  One can be on a bike and be crushed (not uncommon around here) and one can be crushed and die from a medical diagnosis . Is this my fate? And when?  

I am intrigued because the dream tells me it is a premonition. But is it?

From the text of what I wrote in the night, I would say I was feeling the dream’s power. Death does mean disappearance in that you are no longer physically available to people you know on the planet. Death does mean that you become nothing in this material world. You cease to exist in your familiar form.  What happens next? No one knows. Scary, I suppose, but the truth is we don’t really know what’s going to happen next while we’re alive so there’s that.  Death isn’t really all that different from life. We just think it is. 

This dream has been in the back of my mind since it woke me that night. Comically, I am uber aware nowadays while driving or riding my bicycle. Not that I wasn’t before but I’m looking for that truck in my rear view mirror all the time now.  But I think the dream is really saying, yes. Pay attention. Death is coming. Death will take you whenever it wants to so, I don’t know? Be prepared? What does that even mean when you are talking about death?

I think immediately that being prepared for death means making sure that all is right in my world, making sure that I have fixed any hurt that I might have caused.  Check. (at least to my knowledge). Then I think of my legacy, what is it that I leave for the world. I don’t know. It feels as if, for the most part, that has already been established. My legacy includes my children and my influence on them. My legacy includes my impact on my larger family and my community. It includes my influence on the people that I have known. It includes the way I treated people in my life. I can say that I have always attempted to be the best I could be, to be as tuned in to others as I have been to self. You can only ask that a person do the best they can do with the tools that they have. So, yeah. Legacy? Check.  Of course, as of this moment, life isn’t over for me yet so both of these checked items require monitoring.

I wonder if another part of being prepared for death includes living life now. If death is coming, have I done what I want to do in this life? Again, it’s an “I don’t know” kind of answer. That bucket list thing that people talk about? I don’t have that. I enjoy traveling and would be delighted to do more but there is no travel adventure that is a MUST do kind of thing. There are people with whom I would like to visit but it’s not imperative. There are books to read, movies to see, classes to take, adventures to be had but they are all attractive and not essential. So, living life now? Check. 

It seems kind of funny but the one thing that I do think I could do to prepare for death is not so much for me but for those I leave behind. I own a home and a moderate amount of possessions. My home is not stuffed with possessions but I do have a basis of comparison. When my mother died, my siblings and I cleaned out her house. The cupboards and shelves were jammed - and over-jammed - with things. It was both poignant and a big job to clean out her house.  I find myself now looking critically at the things that occupy my closets and cupboards. I am starting  to divest myself of possessions. I am dropping a book a day  off at one of the local “little libraries”. I’m not giving up my best book friends but there are plenty of book acquaintances that can go to new homes.  I could do that with clothing too. I have things I used to wear to work but never wear now. Let them go to new homes. Ditto some kitchen items that I maybe used when the kids were here but not now. Let them go. In fact, it feels good to let things go. It makes the house feel more expansive. When I die, there will still be stuff to go through but it will be manageable. And, possibly, between now and the time that I die, I will move away from this house. If so, then my culling now makes that job easier for myself. 

All this thinking about death. Again, I don’t know. I need a way to fully grasp death. Yes, I have lost loved ones and I know how it feels to be left behind but I don’t know how it feels to be the one going. Can I compare it to moments in life when I have taken leaps into the unknown? How’d that work out for me? Usually, in the end, it all worked out just fine. If that’s the example I have to go by, then maybe I can practice simple curiosity. I can think of death as transformation of a sort. We human beings are made of energy.  The laws of energy say it can be neither created nor destroyed. So that leaves transformation. I can stay open to a transformation of some kind. I can pay attention to the things I wrote about here and just wait? I don’t know.  

Living "In Joy"

*Originally published 09.25.2022

Recently someone remarked that he had a strong ability to enjoy life. Hmmmm, I thought to myself. Enjoy life?  Really? Is that the point of it all?  The comment truly caught me by surprise.  I mean, sure, there are moments that I enjoy life, moments of joy and delight, but those moments just sort of happen. They aren’t something I necessarily orchestrate. They happen and I notice. My associate was suggesting that he intentionally enjoyed life. What a revelation!

It seems to me that my life has mostly been about getting things done. The “things” included school, chores, school, family obligations, work, family obligations, body maintenance for good health, work, family obligations , work,  repeat. Forever. If some of that stuff turned out to be enjoyable, well, then all the better. But enjoyment was not the point. The point was to get the stuff done. 

And here I am. I’ve gotten most of the stuff done.  I did the work, I raised the family, I made responsible health choices, I achieved “the good life”. What’s left to do? My associate was suggesting that enjoying life was what was left to do.   

I’ve been thinking about the one person I know currently who seems to live a life of joy. She almost always wakes up with sparkly eyes and a crib full of giggles. And why not? She has an open day in front of her with no responsibilities. Someone prepares her breakfast, someone provides warm, clean and often cute clothes for her to wear and someone lifts her out of her safe crib so that she can truly get into motion.  She seems to move “in joy” throughout her day, big smiles as she looks at books, pats the dog, and pushes her pink shopping cart around the house, dropping into it whatever treasures she finds along the way (mom’s slipper, the little Elmo toy, dad’s toothpaste, her favorite colors book). She is willing to eat whatever the trusted one puts in front of her and often giggles her way through a very messy lunch. She does the nap time routine with joy - cuddling for a couple of books, singing a couple of songs, snuggling down for a 90 minute nap. Everything in this child’s day seems to be done “in joy”. She enjoys life. 

I wonder if it’s even possible for me to be like the 20 month old child and simply keep eyes open, see the play in everything, trust that “someone” will provide.  Can I go beyond enjoying life in those random moments when the stars align and happy events are giving to me? Can I take a lesson from the 20 month old happiness genius and simply life in joy?  Sure, she has no responsibilities except to grown and learn. Maybe all I have to do is be likewise? Maybe my job was always her job only I made it more complicated? 

I am ready to lift my nose from the grindstone. I am ready to sit on the beach and do nothing but feel the sand, hear the birds, let the sea breeze lift my hair, smell the ocean, and breathe. And then I can take that experience into the rest of my day. I can practice being mindful of this moment and all that is beautiful about it. I can practice taking on the responsibilities that I choose to take on with a joyful outlook. Or, at least, I can experiment with that. 

 

What I Know

*Originally published on my Wordpress blog 09.21.2022

What I know is that, despite the disappointments in life, despite the loss of what used to be, despite how achingly lonely life can be sometimes , despite the  grief and sadness inherent in the human condition, despite that, I am what? Smart enough? Old enough? Observant enough? Experienced enough? Open enough? Resilient enough? I don’t know. I am enough to stay curious. I am enough to see Beauty in life. Not just the obvious physical beauty of coral pink roses and deeply veined changing color leaves and toothless baby smiles and blue ocean fringed in white but I am enough to see Beauty in emotion, in fragility, in longing, in wonder, in loss, in connection, in hope. That's enough, isn't it?

The Chair Rocks: A Book Review

*Originally posted on my Wordpress blog 09.07.2022

I heard Ashton Applewhite, the author of This Chair Rocks, on some podcast a few weeks ago. The lively, enjoyable, and timely conversation prompted me to request the book from the library. It came at a good time for me as I find myself staring rather uncomfortably at an aging face in the mirror. But, then again, one is aging from the time they are born so there’s that…. 

This book has been heralded as a manifesto against ageism. It’s well researched, engaging, and is an important addition to the current literature on aging. Some of what is presented in the book  (maybe even most of it) is not new to me. Ms Applewhite chronicles the history of ageism and the social/media influences that make ageism  so powerful and so much a part of the current American culture. She shows how being over 60 (or some other arbitrary age over 50) is the kiss of death when it comes to  attraction, productivity, and value - at least as the youth culture promoters would have it. At one point she talks about how the number we are becomes glued to our identity (for that year and then moves on to the next) and, with it, all the negativity of that age.  

She makes a good point about how the media always includes a person’s age when featuring that person. No matter why - traffic accident, hero of fire, business promoter - no matter why the name is in the publication, the age is almost always part of the identifying facts. And why is that? It shouldn’t be unless it is directly related to the story. Including the age sets up expectations based mostly on the anti aging propaganda. There was a time when a person’s race or ethnicity was included but not any more. That’s how it should go with age as well. 

She nailed it as well when she wrote about how people ask you how old you are.  Why do they ask that? Because they want to match you to their expectations for a person of your age (whatever the age is).  People have ideas in their head about what it means to be different ages. There’s a standard profile for 20 and one for 50 and one for 75 and one for everything in between. Ms Applewhite clearly demonstrates how we shortchange ourselves and others when we ask another about age because we are taught by the culture to think of people in stereotypes, including age. If you are 60 years old, then this is what that means. If you are 80, then this. And, for the most part, the older you are the less attractive, positive, capable, endearing, lovable this youth centered culture would have you be. 

Ms Applewhite does a great job, in my opinion, of charting the values inherent in getting older. She reflects on how, as people in middle age, we make a mistake  when we think that successful aging means being just the same as we are at 50. That’s not true. “Successful” aging means also gaining social maturity and and growing in psychological and emotional realms. We can continue to expand as we get older and that only gives us more in life. We can notice less fear when it comes to death and illness, we can develop deeper relationships with fewer people, we can find joy and delight in the ordinary moments, maybe more so than we ever could in middle age when we were fighting career battles and building homes and families. We often have time, in later years, to be exactly who we are and to do our lives exactly the way we want to do them, one day at a time.  That doesn’t happen so much when we are 35 or 45. When we’re young we are constantly worrying about what lies ahead and if we are living our best lives. Later, though, our anxiety diminishes. Laura Carstensen , longevity researcher, made this observation: “In some ways - I think of this as the silver living of growing older - we’re relieved of the burden of the future the older we get.”  There’s something to be said for that acknowledgment. 

The author does address some of those issues around cognitive decline which is not as certain to happen as the media would suggest. She has some specific strategies for staving off cognitive decline which are valuable and not really new but worth the reminder. She addresses physical decline as well. Yes, she does say there is no way around physical decline. It’s going to happen but it could be a slow down as opposed to a falling apart. She talks about how, yes, you have to deal with chronic illness / pain - that’s the price you pay. But dealing with chronic illness/disability is doable. She does fault the current medical professionals for often not taking the complaints of the over 60 crowd seriously. Too often older people are not interesting patients or the physician’s attitude is , “Well, what did you expect? You are, after all, old.” 

I loved her chapter on sex and intimacy. It was so real, so down to earth, and so necessary. What Ms Applewhite emphasizes over anything else is that, in all things, and especially in the world of sex and intimacy, we are all different. There is no set description or expectation. I am appalled at how much the contemporary culture derides sex and intimacy in older people. There is this idea that once you reach what? 60 years old tops? You are done with the world of sex and intimacy. As she says, “We don’t ask when people age out of singing, or quite eating ice cream; why on earth would we stop making love?” I am angry that people laugh or say “ewwwww” when it comes to grandparents or people of a “certain age” being sexual. Why wouldn’t they be? They are human beings and human beings long for intimacy. As I read recently in another piece by the late New Yorker writer Roger Angell, “Getting old is the second-biggest surprise of my life, but the first, by a mile, is our unceasing need for deep attachment and intimate love.” That was from his article This Old Man (2/14/2014 edition of The New Yorker) and it is the Truth. 

There is a chapter devoted to the end of life and to the choices that can be tied to that. “The appearance of the bull changes when you enter the ring”. In other words, the matador’s point of view is different from the spectator’s . The end of life looks different when you are on the brink than when it is a future abstraction.  There is a thoughtful discussion about how olders view their lives as olders and the need for open dialogue about end of life choices. As the author noted, “the profit-driven, often legally mandated interventionist default of the medical - industrial complex is powerful.”  Modern medicine is all about fixing things and keeping people alive but that might not be what the older wants. Ms Applewhite offers some useful strategies that open the door to those kind of hard conversations. 

Ashton Applewhite concludes the book with strong words about the need to focus on ageism in the same way that we have taken on racism and sexism . She has a complete list of ways that will help individuals and the culture make this adjustment and I highly recommend looking them over.  This is a five star read and it’s time for people to dismantle the outgrown ideas about aging.  

“It’s not loving a man that makes life harder for gay guys; it’s homophobia. It’s not the color of their skin that makes life harder for people of color; it’s racism. It’s not having vaginas that makes life harder for women; it’s sexism. And it’s ageism  far more than the passage of time, that makes growing older far harder than it has to be.” 

Some quotes from the book:

“What’s the best answer to ‘How old are you?’ Tell the truth, then ask why it matters. Ask what shifted in the questioner’s mind once they had a number.” p. 52

“Aging is life itself, which is what makes it so damn interesting.” p. 202

“We see old age through the lens of loss. From the outside what people lose as they age is more obvious than what they gain. The losses are real and wrenching. But from the inside , the experience is different. Abandoning preconceptions takes open-,mindedness as well as imagination. Perspectives shift.” p. 220

“Since the only unobjectionable term used to describe older people is “older people,” I’ve shortened the term to “olders” and use it, along with “youngers,” as a noun. It’s clear and value-neutral, and it emphasizes that age is a continuum. There is no old/young divide. We’re always older than some people and younger than others. Since no one on the planet is getting any younger, let’s stop using “aging” as a pejorative—“aging Boomers,” for example, as though it were yet another bit of self-indulgence on the part of that pesky generation, or “aging entertainers,” as though their fans were cryogenically preserved.”

“…we’re brainwashed by a culture that reduces older people to the grotesque caricatures that birthday cards routinely offer up. Institutionalized ageism is responsible for producing those careers and internalized ageism for the fact that they sell.” p. 223