O snail

Climb Mount Fuji

But slowly, slowly!

Kobayashi Issa

Growing older is weird. Weird in ways that are perfectly normal…but I mean weird in the ways in which they actually come about. All of the behaviors that I once found difficult to empathize with have gradually become acceptable and actually most welcome. As a kid, I spent loads of times at the frog pond looking for snapper turtles—and now, when I return, I don’t care so much about the turtles but more I’m curious to see if I can stumble across a rare lady slipper growing amidst the sticky brush.

As an adult you’ll nod your head when I tell you that I now experience all kinds of new body aches that arrive after what used to be unremarkable toil. My lower back now chronically complains—“Well, you’re tall,” a British Orthopaedic surgeon advised me when I went to see him about it last year. Ah, I thought as I reflected on the doctor’s bill for such a diagnosis. I now see why adults view going to the doctor as overrated. Gone are the days of climbing trees near the frog pond. Now, with each arriving morning, I rise and conduct an automated scan of my body. I’m no longer climbing trees, but gauging the materiel readiness of functioning parts is of increased interest.

This week I went to the hospital for a checkup. As soon as I entered, I joined the crosstown traffic of bewildered patients. COVID-19 meant that they’d removed the human interface of a concierge and replaced it with a ticket machine complete with zero signs directing a person on where to go. I heard the loudspeaker mention that there is a “Codice 444 all’ingresso”—I wonder what a Code 444 means. The hallway suddenly clears and a tech goes running past me with a go-bag. Seconds later, a man is wheeled who is clearly having a hard time breathing. He is gone through a door and the hallway resumes its low-grade general confusion. We stand in our face masks looking at each other and at the deli counter tickets we clutch in our hands.

While at this Rome hospital, I am also trading texts with my older sister who is an Atlantic Ocean away in Boston. She is waiting to have some medical results evaluated by a doctor. We trade stories of our experiences (because this is what older people do), and express our mutual wishes for a good result. With the passage of time, we also both agree that we are all just pieces of meat being shuttled through these halls. But it has to be that way. It’s okay and it has to be; it’s just a part of the larger game.

It is now first thing on a weekend morning and I’m singularly focused on sloughing off the layer that came with this past week of whatever it was that I did. Thankfully, I’ve booked an escape outside of the city—away from the life admin, the housekeeping and of course the Rome in July heat. There’s a quiet terrace and I have sitting before me a breakfast that was delivered to my door (COVID-19 protocols). As I sit on a wicker chair, I savor some slow-mo adult activities that little Megan would have found of second-tier importance. Like listening to the birds sing in Italian as I read a book penned by a friend recently returned from the Middle East. He’s my age, and is at present recounting the gastro-intestinal perils that wrought havoc on him and his people through countless improperly-prepared meals. I’m old, so I get it. I appreciate a body that operates as it should. You’ll no longer find me signing up for those kinds of adventures. From where I sit now, I will opt for the second cup of coffee when it comes to coaxing the day along.

I will say that as a child, I did find plenty of attraction in the quieter activities like those of this Saturday morning in the countryside. But the growth process was far different back then, and the neighborhood with all of its creatures and pond life awaited. As such, I had no clue that at some point I’d discover that each day really does have a finite supply of energy. This is why getting older is weird. There is no tipping point to be noticed. At some point you realize that your brain is not firing the way it used to, and there is a pattern to this slowdown. Ultimately, at some point every day (for me this is at around noontime), your brainpower starts to diminish and a recharge is needed. 

It’s normal that as we age, your energy reserves become more precious. And while I can’t see or even reach out to touch the four walls of my limitations, I know that they’re there. To feel them, in truth, is actually not a good thing—because this usually means that you’ve pushed yourself too far and have hit that proverbial wall. It smacks in a way that is not childlike. Now you tend to smart for a bit longer. Maybe this is because we spend our childhoods running on empty and now the body is finally showing us the bill. It’s not because I’m tall. 

I’d like to think that life is more a process of constantly rediscovering our boundaries. In doing so, it does require a never-ending battery of courageous testing and yes still learning about our bodies the hard way. Last December I was unpacking my suitcase after a long travel day, hurrying to find something when suddenly someone called to me from the next room. Without thinking, I zipped my head up from what I was doing and walked forehead-first into the skinny edge of the bedroom door. It hurt. And to this day, I’ve got a permanent bump on my forehead that now reminds me of the value in being a bit more methodical about things. In slowing down so that I can minimize the effects of an aging body. 

But all of this is okay—the getting old and body breaking down stuff. Like I said, it’s weird that I now look at these realities and accept them in a way that I never would have done so as a kid. Perhaps it’s because we all have no say in the matter. The “stand up/sit down” process that occurs each day will at some stage become a “lay down” event only. Fine. So long as I have some simple things, like quiet mornings, coffee, and a cohort with which to share all of this creaky ridiculousness, I think that there can be worse things to savor.