Friends and Furrows

I have sleep apnea. That’s not unusual. As I know from my last job (National Transportation SafetyBoard), where fatigue figured into so many deadly crashes and collisions, about 12 percent of Americans have sleep disorders. The disorders are more prevalent among older people.

I have that, too. 

According to the sleep doctor at my last appointment, if I were to lose 10 percent of my body weight I would have an 80 percent chance of saying, “Farewell apnea.” That’s a lot of math, but I’m working on it. Six percent and counting.

Meanwhile, I sleep tethered to a CPAP machine on my nightstand. I’m used to it, but it’s damned inconvenient when traveling – schlepping it, of course – and the machines are so commonplace (we, the  disordered can spot the other CPAP bags on airport security conveyor belts) that the Transportation Security Administration seems convinced our machines are the next new thing in hiding explosives. Yes, it is embarrassing when an agent removes the machine from its case and plugs it in to make sure it works. 

Another thing about machine-assisted slumber is that the CPAP nosepiece straps leave grooves, like furrows in a field, across my face. I look scary enough in the morning. Now I am groovy as well.

When I worked I was self-conscious about my grooves, but the time between awaking, getting ready for work (remember work attire?), and commuting (often a bike ride across the National Mall – glorious!) gave time for the moisture cream to kick in and the cheek furrows to fade. If I drove and my commute was faster, strategically lowered reading glasses worked as well as any concealer.

As I retiree, I can be a recluse until the fullness of time returns my cheeks to normal. But, there’s a big exception, especially with the Carolina springtime when our friends are becoming like swallows returning to Capistrano.

Which is great. I love all the swallows arriving from Maryland and Miami and Michigan.

Houseguests are a joy of retirement. When you work, friendship, if maintained, might be a quick lunch, a phone call (often while driving, shopping, cooking, or folding laundry), hasty emails, “likes” on Facebook, or, when you really plan, a night out.

All good. And, all help maintain vital connections. But, in retirement you have more time and, if you’re lucky, more energy. You can focus on friends. Best yet, you can host them. Then you can be with them and not try to cram all the updates into one exchange.  With houseguests, it’s a conversation, not a quiz.

We’ve got a vegetable garden now. Just as there was a marriage analogy in assembling our IKEA furniture, I’m sure there’s an analogy in our garden for friendship, like paying attention, providing nourishment, and taking time.

It’s more than time with houseguests. It's recapturing the friendship you had when you were young -- before careers and children and responsibilities. You can play. Really play. With many friends that means word games. In my life, I have not played as many games of Bananagrams as I did last weekend.

With visiting friends it’s can be almost like being a child again.  Games. Giggles. Gossip.

Except you have some aches and pains and issues and in the morning it's a furrowed hostess who is making the coffee. That’s right. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. In the bright light of our sunroom, the reading glasses trick is transparent. 

But, it’s okay. Somehow in retirement I seem to be becoming more of the person I really am and not just the young one I frequently tried to project to be world. I am old. And, maybe, just maybe, I am groovy, too.

                                            Simon and Garfunkel, 59th Street Bridge Song

It's Not Easy Being Blue

I am frantic. I have been searching everywhere for one of my most prized possessions. I’m sure it survived the move. After all, it has accompanied me from California to Maryland, to Washington, DC, and then back to Maryland and DC and then to Virginia.

It must be here. Somewhere.

“It” is a letter my grandfather – Daddy Bob, we called him – wrote to me in 1969. I was a college freshman, and yes, likely full of myself. My father had sent his father a paper I’d written for a political science class. As I recall, I was a budding socialist.

The 90-year-old patriarch jumped into action and wrote a long handwritten letter chiding me, pointing out the errors of my arguments, and defending, no, extolling the accomplishments of FDR, the New Deal and government programs that helped those unable to help themselves.

Daddy Bob was more than an observer; he had been a Texas delegate to the Democratic National Convention that first nominated FDR in 1932.

I swear the third man from the left is Daddy Bob.

Yet, I’m a mixed breed, as other Lone Star relatives have been quick to point out. My mother’s grandfather ran for Congress in Texas as a Republican. But, the women in her family were all Democrats.

For me, it’s long been easy to be a Democrat once I left California’s Orange County and went to college (ah, the ‘60s). From there it was – with my grandfather’s letter in tow – to Maryland (blue state), DC (very blue), and then to Virginia’s Arlington County (deep blue).

The parties haven’t always been so rigidly color-coded. The blue and red shorthand came in 2000 while chads hung in Florida and our nation’s future hung in the Supreme Court’s scales of justice. [For a great article on red, blue, G.O.P. and Democrats, see Smithsonian Magazine.]

Last August, before we left blue Arlington for NC’s Catawba County, good Re(d)publican friends took us to dinner. The wife said, “Now you’ll be able to understand how it is for us living in Arlington.”

Those words echo.

To paraphrase Kermit, “It’s not easy being blue.”

At least it’s not here, where signs sprouting alongside the daffodils boast about being the conservative candidate.  There are no signs for Democrats; there are not enough candidates to require a primary.

You can’t watch television with being swamped by political ads. For one, the Koch brothers have poured some $7 million into North Carolina to defeat Sen. Kay Hagan.

Of my new state, Jeffrey Toobin wrote in a recent issue (Feb. 17 & 24, 2014) of The New Yorker, “Few states have undergone as profound a political transformation as North Carolina has in recent years. In the 2010 midterm elections, the North Carolina Senate and its House of Representatives went from Democratic to Republican control.”

In 2012, Pat McCrory, a Republican, won the governorship, the G.O.P. won more seats in both houses, and, Toobin continued, “the Republicans went on a legislative tear, ending benefits for the long-term unemployed, declining the expansion of Medicaid offered by the Affordable Care Act, and cutting taxes and government spending, especially for education.” (The state now spends $475 less per student than just a few years ago.)

And, that was followed by numerous changes, or “reforms,” to voting, including reduced early voting and strict voter-I.D. requirements, which is why the U.S. Department of Justice filed its lawsuit last September.

With my minority status, I find myself thinking more about what it means to be a Democrat. Like Daddy Bob, I was raised left-handed and left leaning. But, it’s more about the values my parents instilled. I was brought up to believe in equality and fair treatment, to value everyone, and to help others who are in need.

I like how Doug Wilson, political director for North Carolina's State Democratic Party, puts it, “Democrats don’t believe in handouts. We believe in a helping hand.”

What I don’t like is what I see happening in my new home state:  the cuts to education, one in five women living in poverty, and that our county is #1 in losing young people since there’s so little opportunity here.

We – and that we means government – must invest in our people and their stronger futures.

That’s why I started going to Catawba County Democratic Party meetings. It’s why I signed up as a charter member of the newly formed women’s auxiliary and it’s why, when no one else stepped forward, I agreed to be the group’s president.

My desire to contribute and give back is also why I put on a white wig and called on my Texas heritage to portray the late great Ann Richards in our group’s inaugural “Lunch With Legends” fundraiser. I stood tall with some remarkable women and I’m not just talking about Barbara Jordan, Rosa Parks, Jacqueline Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm, Susan B. Anthony, and Sojourner Truth. I’m talking about the charter members of the Democratic Women of Catawba County.

With company like this, it’s not as hard to be blue.

Left to right: Ola Greenard, Lynn Dorfman, Lois Daniel, Carol Hanes,
10th District Congressional candidate Tate MacQueen, Denise Lineberger, Fran Syptak, and Toni Woods

Some Assembly Required

We have two adult unmarried daughters. I used to think good advice for picking a spouse/mate/BFF was to travel with him/her.  Whether a road trip or using other forms of transportation you could get a sense of spending that much time together and agreeing on destinations, dealing with inconveniences, both big and small, and sharing the joy of discovering new places, people, and things.

Now, with my husband, after my retirement and our move, life is like traveling together. While it’s not a different bed every night, this newfound time and proximity is unfamiliar territory. As newcomers to North Carolina, our social resources are largely each other.  We have great friends as neighbors, but there’s no job or long-established patterns and activities that call to us.

We have to find them.

It’s only now – more than seven months into retirement – that I’m reading the many screeds – and screed may just be the perfect word here – counseling and cautioning, no, warning, about the stresses of too much togetherness.  These articles offer much advice about retirement and the importance of planning for yourself, not just yourselves, planning that is as crucial as all the financial worries that go into retiring.

As the Huffington Post reported, “some couples are not prepared for the realities of being around their spouse more often.”

Author and psychologist Robert Bornstein says, “The resulting stress can easily be avoided if people retire with a plan, retirement experts say. And foremost in that plan, set a schedule and make plans to do something ... anything.”

With my half-year of experience, I beg to differ with the good Dr. Bornstein.  I agree about plans and schedules and doing things separately and things both spouses enjoy.

But, I draw the line at “anything.”

Anything includes items that involve some assembly required.

The Waterloo in our marriage just might trace its source to Sweden:  IKEA and its pictogram-guided furniture kits. And, China, too, with its parts and pieces and scant guidance.

Since we moved into our new home last August, my husband and I have assembled more pieces of furniture than I want to remember. 

He is the brains (as he has long been in our union) and I, of sound back and growing strength (as I wrote about personal training last fall), am the brawn.

Okay, I'm a glass half-full kind of gal. I try to view these assembly projects as team building, you know like the companies that pay for off-site meetings, facilitators, and obstacle races. (Here's an idea:  Why pay for a Mud Run and t-shirts when you could give your employees cartons of furniture and personalized Allen wrenches? Maybe your office needs a new conference table.)

The team building is working. Team Dorfman is stronger and smarter about deciphering Swedish hieroglyphs.

  

But, the last "requiere de algún ensamblaje" project from China with instructions in Spanish was especially difficult. So, it got my writer’s mind thinking. Amongst all the packing materials, the Styrofoam shreds, and our umpteenth Allen wrench there must be a metaphor in there. 

Somewhere.

Could the teamwork we need – and the complementary skills – to successfully assemble a table be a metaphor for the work required to maintain a healthy marriage, especially into retirement?  We bring different strengths, viewpoints, and needs to the table, as it were, and sometimes it seems the parts just won’t fit together. And, while we cannot and should not be everything for each other, like our new tables and chairs, we can be a functioning unit.

But, just like putting together an IKEA table, it takes focus and effort.

That’s my metaphor and I’m sticking to it. I am, also, not engaging in another SAR project, at least for a few weeks. I’m looking forward to a vacation, even a honeymoon, from Allen wrenches.

Taking Care

Husband hospitalized. His prospects appear good. Dog needs surgery. Her prospects should be good, too. One daughter has flu and the other is in the midst of taking a new job and moving across country.

Several balls are in the air.

I have been remiss in my postings. Yet, I enjoy this blog, and have ideas for future postings. I enjoy writing in my own voice and sharing observations on relocated and retired life from a sexagenarian perspective.

The good news:  Google Blogger does not chide you or send overdue notices.

But, with my recent tribulations, as Gen. MacArthur said, "I came through and I shall return."

Okay, that may be over the top, but I want to help take care of the important figures in my life.

Thanks for understanding and, thanks, for what each of you do for the important people in your lives.

Talk with you soon.

Will She or Won't She?

Performance anxiety takes on new meaning in your sixties. It’s not necessarily about being on the stage, a playing field, or even, shall we say, doing something in the dark.  

It’s much more straightforward.

Here’s the scenario:  I’ve been seated at a meeting with strangers for more than an hour. I believe my contributions provided some value to the discussion. I even volunteered to take on some tasks. Who knows, maybe the group is beginning to think I’m a useful addition. But, how will it look when I stand up? The knees don’t work like they used to. When I get up from a chair it looks as awkward and uncomfortable as it feels.

I’m working on this -- my knees and my health. My goal is not to age gracefully. I’m past that, as is clear when I see my reflection in the yoga studio’s floor-to-ceiling mirror.  My goal is to age actively. I enjoy exercise and the outdoors. And, it’s hard to beat the boost endorphins deliver for mood and sleep.

As I wrote last October (A Tale of Two Body Shops), I go to a personal trainer. I’m Mike’s oldest client. Not his longest client, but his sole senior citizen so far. I like to think I’m training him, too, about older people – their bodies, worries, and abilities.  I’ve told him this; now he praises me when my process for getting up from the floor gets more streamlined.

When I started working with Mike, he asked about my training goals. They were simple:  Extend the useful life of my knees and to be able to get in and out of a kayak.  We are in terrific kayak territory; I want to get eye to eye with a great blue heron again.

Bless his heart (as we say in the South), Mike has been working to strengthen the necessary muscles. He even assembles a simulated kayak on the gym floor for practice. After I’m successfully seated, there’s a weight bar to mimic paddling with water resistance.

Kayaking on the gym floor is work. What will it be like on a lake after several years’ absence?

The true test is Friday:  my new kayak on the nearby lake.

Every other time I have gone kayaking it’s been with friends, notably my friends’ husbands, who are stronger, patient, and helpful.

With my own kayak I want the freedom to take it out whenever and wherever I want.  Herons and more adventures await.

So, the question is:  Will she or won’t she be able to get in and out of her Hurricane Santee 116?

Let me channel my late mother-in-law.  I can almost hear her.

“You should be so lucky this is the most suspenseful thing in your life.”

Point taken.