Verandah Magazine publisher Candida Baker looks at the trials, tribulations and jubilations of turning 60, the tantrums of teenagers, and the power of love…
You have to stay in shape. My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s 97 today and we don’t know where the hell she is. Ellen DeGeneres
Ummm. Excuse me, but how did this exactly happen? It appears I’m turning sixty next week and a third of my life is practically over. (Actually I stole that line from Woody Allen – but you do that sort of thing when you’re turning 60.)
I’ve been having all sorts of random thoughts over the past few weeks, and if I could remember them I’d tell you, but since I can’t, I’ll have to make a few up on the spot.
There is for instance, the fact that because I had my second child, my beautiful Princess Anna, at the age of 45, at the age of 60, I now have a 15-year-old, who is blossoming into beautiful young womanhood just at the same time as my body seems to be giving me warning signals on a daily basis. (I’m increasingly like one of those roads in Queensland where they have signs that say ‘the surface noise is due to the joints in the road.’)
I knew we were back in the land of the Teenager a few months ago when, as I was innocently driving along, absent-mindedly twiddling with the seat with one hand, a sharp voice said. “What are you doing?” I snapped to attention. “What do you mean?” I asked, a slight note of anxiety in my voice – what had I been doing? Talking out loud, spitting, groaning…”You’re….fiddling,” she said in a tone of deep disgust.
And that was it really, that one tiny comment, and I knew that my life was about to irrevocably change. I’ve got more used to it, this being the second time around. I know this time, that I know nothing, that I’m completely out of touch, that I mustn’t sing or dance in public (damn), or preferably talk at all. I certainly mustn’t pretend that I know or understand any teenage language at all. I’m to provide hot food, a comfortable bed, a taxi service, and the occasional cuddle when required, and on the odd occasion some motherly advice. (Actually strike that last bit, I made it up.) And that’s it.
One good thing about being 60 is you argue less. It’s not so much that you’re nicer. It’s that you can’t hear each other. Anonymous.
There’s nothing like turning a decade to cause a bit of soul-searching, and for me I’ve found this last decade a tad mystifying I have to say. Just for instance – I managed to walk away from a successful career, a marriage, real-estate ownership and an income all at once and to replace those things with a never-ending supply of rescue horses, bills, and anxiety. Trying to come up with a good reason as to why anybody would do this to themselves, I came up with the fairly surprising answer that it was to learn emotional lessons. I think, or hope, that in the past ten years I’ve learned to be much more compassionate, empathetic and non-judgmental. I’ve also learned, because I’ve had to, to live in the present moment, to take comfort from the tiny moments of life – the sunrises and sunsets, my animals, and the life, love and laughter which I must say fills my life on a daily basis. I have also been blessed to receive a depth of love and support from my partner, family and friends that is simply – and often – beyond comprehension. It makes me think that perhaps I’m not too bad after all.
Life can be – and is – full of surprises. Last year my beautiful son introduced me to his wonderful partner, Brendon, who quickly became a part of our family. They moved back home recently along with Brendon’s two part-time children, two rabbits, a guinea-pig and 20 budgerigars to join our menagerie of four humans, horses, two dogs and a cat. At an age when most people are turning toward Grey Nomading as a lifestyle, I’m kept firmly ‘en place’ by Dance Mom schedules, animal care, and no cash. Oh well, I never really wanted to travel anyway.
God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.
I had to get new glasses the other day. It was a mixed experience. The optometrist told me that my skin looked: ‘good…for your age’. She also told me that if I’d been contemplating laser surgery for my eyes (I hadn’t) it was too late now, due to: ‘your age’. She also said I had some mild infection on the eyelids, which is quite common: ‘in people of your age’, that I had developed, as well as my short-sight and long-sight, slight astigmatism: ‘not uncommon in people of your age’, and suggested that I make sure my vision didn’t get blurry because that could be a sign of cataracts, which are apparently – yes, you guessed it, one of the dangers of being ‘your age’.
One starts to get young at the age of sixty and then it is too late. Pablo Picasso
One thing I know – well at least a little bit – is who I am, and curiously, or perhaps rather stupidly it’s taken me 50 years to work out that I still love exactly the same things I loved as a ten-year old: Family, horses, dogs, nature, photography, books, writing and art. I still have so many creative ambitions it’s a bit scary, but at least it’s better than wanting to retire, a concept with which I am completely unfamiliar, since I truly can’t imagine not producing words and images in some form or other. (Which is a good thing given the state of my bank balance.)
For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one
And bring some peace into your
Beautiful eyes.” Hafiz
Love. Now there’s a thing I’ve discovered over the past ten years – the extraordinary capacity of the heart to love, even the infinite capacity of the heart to love, or as Woody Allen also said, ‘the heart is a resilient little muscle’. It can ache, it can break, but it can mend – and perhaps, as I head towards Mother’s Day and turning 60, and all the richness of a life in all its ups and downs, that is the thing I carry forward most strongly, the knowledge love is truly, all there is.
