Thoughts on My 75th Birthday

I woke up yesterday morning feeling vaguely depressed, but until my husband, Nick, wished me “happy birthday”, I didn’t realize this was the day I turn 75 years old.   I think I was dreading this birthday partly because my mother died at 74.  ( Her birth day was Feb. 3, 1911, mine is Feb. 4,1941.)  My mother died of congestive heart failure and actually outlived her doctors’ predictions by about a year.

So I drank my morning coffee and tried to sort out the jumble of thoughts and emotions.  This 75th birthday, so close to the beginning of a new year, was definitely for me a liminal experience, as daughter Eleni would call it. (“Limen” means threshold in Latin.) Eleni studied anthropology in college and in her blog “The Liminal Stage”. she explains: “Liminal stages are psychological thresholds, times of transition when we stand ‘betwixt and between’ one state and another. The biggies are birth, marriage, death---cultures develop splashy rituals around these transitions to ease the anxiety they provoke.”

You can guess which liminal stage I was contemplating.  In fact, I’ve been talking so much about death in recent months that my kids and husband keep razzing me about it.  I’ve sent them memos about what I want and don’t want at my funeral.  (No open coffin, in fact no body or casket.  Funeral service for immediate family only.  Some time later a party/open house/memorial service with no eulogies, only extemporaneous anecdotes with lots of food, wine and music.  I’ve already worked out the entire mix of songs I want -–heavy on Led Zeppelin and Queen.)

Before her death, my mother, the world’s most organized person, had written down the hymns and scripture readings for her funeral, specified cremation, and purchased the mausoleum niche where her ashes, and my father’s, would be stowed in brass boxes that resemble books.  She chose a niche which had a view of the swans on the cemetery’s pond. She had all their financial affairs in order, filed neatly in her desk when she died.

My father, on the other hand, had dementia as well as Parkinson’s disease until he died at 80, so he didn’t even known when my mother died.  His dementia first became evident at our parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1982, when he was about 76.  Needless to say, I’ve been watching myself for signs of Alzheimer’s, and avidly doing Lumosity “brain games” every day.  (Daughter Marina kindly signed me up, knowing my worry about memory loss.)  I realize, as recent articles have pointed out, that Lumosity doesn’t really help you stave off dementia.  It just measures how you become better at the games with practice.  But nevertheless, it gave me comfort that yesterday’s workout results put me at 91.3% LPI --whatever that is-- as compared with my age group, and 97.3 % for “problem solving” (but only 81.9 % for memory.)  I was happy that my numbers had gone up, but then I realized that, overnight, the age group I was being compared to had changed from “age 70 to 74” to “over 75.”   Less competition!

For the past fifty years or so I’ve been making pretty much the same New Year’s resolutions as everyone else: Lose ten pounds, go to the gym (or Pilates) twice a week, publish a book with my own name on it, learn Spanish (so I can communicate better with my bilingual grandchildren.)

This year my New Year’s resolutions changed.  I’m no longer interested in improving my weight, career, or possessions (but still want to learn Spanish).  All my resolutions can be collected under the theme: GET RID OF STUFF.  I am a hoarder, as my family will attest.  I even bought the best seller “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo, but after reading several chapters I had to stop, because it was making me feel so guilty.  Now I’m going to target certain areas—my studio, my computer desk, my make-up area, the library and especially my closets—one at a time.  Tons of papers have to go. All those books I’ll never read again will be donated to the Grafton library for sale. All my office-appropriate clothes will go to “Dress for Success” so that other, younger women can find jobs. I’ve told the kids, whatever they want, take it now, (in hopes of avoiding, as among my mother’s nine siblings, bitter schisms between two children who want the same antique bureau.)

As the day of my 75th birthday moved from morose reflections over coffee to astonishment at the sight of over 200 birthday wishes on the internet, I alternated between tears (over the card my husband gave me) and laughter (for instance when daughter Eleni posted on Facebook: “Did you know that on her 60th birthday I witnessed this woman sip from a hash milkshake in Amsterdam? Trust me, she was in it for the milkshake. Happy Birthday, Party Girl!)  I was delighted to receive calls and gifts from son Chris and daughter Marina, both on the opposite side of the country, and chuckled at the books Marina sent: “The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program”, “Keep Your Brain Alive” and “41 Uses For a Grandma” among them.

At the end of the day, at dinner in the romantic restaurant Casa Tua in South Beach, FL, Nick and I told each other how lucky we are that we’ve made it through 45 years of marriage, that we have three great kids and two extraordinary grandchildren, and that when we get up in the morning, no parts of our bodies hurt.  That’s a rare blessing when your age group is “over 75.”  So by the time the waiter brought a birthday crème brulée with a candle in it, (as well as a “chocolate meltdown”—both surprises ordered by daughter Eleni)-- I felt ready to cross the threshold into the next liminal stage, whatever it brings. 

Does The New York Times Scorn Women?

If you read the New York Times announcement of my daughter Eleni’s wedding last year, you might think the mother of the bride was dead, hidden away in the attic, non-existent or had never held a job in her life.  The New York Times (free-lance!) writer, Devan Sipher, who wrote the announcement cited the professions of the mother and father of the groom and the father of the bride, but refused to mention the fifty years I had spent writing for national newspapers and magazines, even though 21 of the articles I’d written had appeared in The New York Times.

(You may remember Devan Sipher as the writer of the notorious “Vows” column in the Times celebrating a couple who dumped their spouses for each other after they met at their kids’ pre-kindergarten classrooms.)                                 .

While the snub was painful, I put it aside until yesterday, when I read a new post on my daughter’s blog “The Liminal Stage” called “Nice Work if You Kin Get It.” Eleni studied folk lore and mythology in college and will publish her second book “Other Waters” in February.  She usually writes in her blog about “psychological thresholds, times of transition…The biggies are birth, marriage, death.” The subject of yesterday’s post was “kin work” which she explains as  “the term anthropologists use to describe the ‘conception, maintenance, and ritual celebration of cross boundary kin ties’” –in other words, hosting Thanksgiving dinner, remembering birthdays, sending Christmas cards…you get the idea.

Eleni went on to say that it’s usually women who do kin work and their work is usually unpaid and therefore undervalued. She continues:

“I also think it’s a question of identity. If someone goes into an office every day, society knows how to define him or her–by his or her title or job description. The fact that a person goes somewhere and does something that someone else pays them to do renders them, inherently, worthwhile. Those of us who work at home, juggling work that pays us along with kin work, are considered dilettantes.

“This was brought into high relief for me during my wedding, by the writer who wrote up our New York Times’ wedding announcement …

“The reporter asked where my mother, a writer, had been published in the past year. I said Vogue and Budget Travel. 

‘If that’s it, that’s exactly what the Times is trying to avoid–-part-time work,’ said the man, a freelancer himself.

“This angered me for any number of reasons: First, who gets to decide how many publications per year make one a full-time freelancer versus a part-timer? What if your sole publication is a groundbreaking article or book? (I mean, if my mother had been Harper Lee, would he have said, ‘And what has she published in the last 51 years since To Kill A Mockingbird?’)

“And second, what’s wrong with part-time work anyway? In an economy such as ours, and a world in which technology enables us to work from home, more and more people in any number of fields are going freelance. Does the fact that they don’t go into an office every day mean that they don’t really work?

“But what angered me most was the misogyny of it all. My mom had gone into an office before she started raising kids. As did I. And the fact that she re-shaped her career to make room for kin work, as well as paid work, had rendered her so unimportant in the eyes of a paper she had contributed to well over a dozen times, that she was omitted from the graph describing the jobs of the parents of the bride and groom in the wedding announcement of one of the children she’d made time to raised. So yes, as Mary Elizabeth Williams pointed out in Salon today, the New York Times does have female trouble.”

Eleni’s right. I did go into an office for many years—working first for Ladies Home Journal, then in London, editing a small magazine called “Homemaker’s Digest”, then, after returning to New York and marrying a reporter for the New York Times, I worked for a syndicated features service that published my articles around the world.  By the time the second of our three children was born, I only went into the office a few days a week, working at home on other days.

When our third child was born in 1977, our family was moved by the New York Times to Athens, Greece, where I raised the children while my husband spent most of his time in Turkey and Iran covering revolutions and war as the Times’ foreign correspondent for the Middle East. (He usually made it home for Christmas.)  During the five years in Greece, I wrote a number of articles for the Times about entertainers, politicians, artists, travel and archeology.

Among the journalistic gigs I’m proudest of is the series of essays I wrote for the Times “Hers” column in 1979.  People born since 1970 cannot imagine what a journalistic milestone it was for the Old Gray Lady to launch a weekly essay written by women about women’s issues.

During the 1980s I wrote a monthly column called “Kids in the Country” for  Country Living, and have continued to publish free-lance articles everywhere I can, including several in Vogue, as well as writing a number of movie scripts with my husband (which have been optioned but so far not made it to the screen.) So, from my point of view, it feels like I never stopped working

Daughter Eleni ends her blog post with a thought about her baby daughter Amalía: “This attitude towards women–and work–this idea that any work done at home is irrelevant, is something I struggle with now that I am doing more kin work than ever. How can I raise my daughter not to think that her father’s work is more valuable than mine because papi gets dressed and drives off to the office, and mama stays home and writes in between loads of laundry…Maybe by the time Amalía does kin work of her own, we’ll have figured out a way to reward it, beyond just giving it a name.”

I share that wish, and I hope that when Amalía gets married some 30 years from now, her mother will be included in the New York Times announcement, acknowledged as a real person who had a real career.

A Crone Considers Modern Childbirth

 About a month ago I wrote in “Pregnancy – It Ain’t What it Used to Be” about all the new wrinkles there are to the processes of pregnancy and childbirth since I gave birth (by Caesarian) to three children back in the seventies.

Since Christmas Eve, when daughter Eleni and her husband Emilio broke the news that we were to become grandparents (at last!) I’ve been having a lot more fun following her pregnancy than I did with my own and I’ve learned a lot at the same time.

I picked up such new-fangled terms as a babymoon, a push present, a birth plan, a birth mix (of music), a doula, and of course the baby daddy.  (How did we ever give birth in the olden days without all these improvements, not to mention the pregnancy web sites that e-mail you news and advice every week?)

Eleni’s blog is called “The Liminal Stage” and, as she says, pregnancy is the most liminal stage of all.  She has written several posts on the topic which have reduced me to both laughter and tears, because she’s so funny, while being honest and wise about the hurdles of a first pregnancy, that I have to share some of it with you.

In “Have Ipod, Will Give Birth” she discusses the almost universal tendency of moms to tell a pregnant lady their terrifying birth stories (which reminds me of a maternity t-shirt I saw for sale that read:

No advice

No birth stories

No touching the belly

Eleni wrote that she’s much more excited about preparing the playlist of music to listen to during labor than preparing the birth plan to distribute to the doctors.  As she says, “Birth plan? Who am I kidding? …I have a feeling that the list of people who are in charge of this birth is a three-legged stool: God first, Amalia [the baby’s name] second, me third (although without me, the stool cannot stand!)…So yes, I’ll study up and write a birth plan, and I’ll take childbirth prep class and breastfeeding class and infant CPR, but when push comes to shove …I’ll do whatever it takes to end up with one healthy, happy baby and one healthy, happy mommy.”

The classes Eleni and Emilio will be taking teach hypno-birthing, which was originated in the U.S. in 1989 by a four-time mother, Marie Mongan, who was inspired by the teaching of Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, (who wrote “Childbirth Without Fear.”) They believe that by refocusing the mind away from pain, birth can be a painless process.  If you want to know more about it, here’s a video showing calm and happy moms popping out calm and happy babies.

Back when I was birthing babies at New York Hospital in New York, we were required to take Lamaze classes to prepare.  My husband dropped out after the first class, telling the startled nurse/teacher , “If God meant for men to help with childbirth, then men would get pregnant.” No baby-daddy would dare talk like that today!

I had heard from my children’s contemporaries about many unusual (to me) methods of giving birth—in a birthing tub, for example, or squatting and tugging on a bar, so that gravity helps. But last week, I learned about a method that left me speechless.  Eleni mourned that her pre-natal pilates classes in Miami had ended because her pregnant teacher, Kim, had gone off to Hawaii to have her baby in the ocean while attended by dolphins.  Yes dolphins. 

 (This image is from Jonathan Goldman's "Healing Sounds" -- "for birth meditation and deep relaxation")

Apparently dolphins bring calm and good karma and all sorts of help. Birthing with the dolphins is gaining popularity all over the world. If you don’t believe me, or want to know more, check out Eleni’s post: “The Dolphins Ate my Workout.”

Dolphin birthing would not work for me.  I’d spend all the time worrying about sharks attracted by blood in the water, or dolphins kidnapping the baby once it comes out.  But then, I always was a worrier. I was the only woman in my Lamaze classes who always flunked “relaxing.”

I know I’ll have a lot more surprises coming before I’m finally a grandmother.  I plan to go down to Florida shortly before Eleni’s  due date of Aug. 19.  I already know I won’t be allowed in the delivery room, which is fine with me—It will be crowded enough with Eleni, her husband Emilio, her sister Marina (who’s trained as a doula), and assorted doctors and nurses. 

Eleni is the only one in her pre-natal pilates class who plans on giving birth in a hospital—and I’m real glad she does.   She and her friends are much better informed about the whole childbirth process than my generation was.  As she wrote, “Not to get too Zen about it, but I’m not attached to any particular method of birth; my plan is all plans and no plans all at once. I’ll try to give birth without drugs, but if that gets unbearably painful, I’ll have an epidural, and if there’s some sort of issue with the baby that indicates a C-section is recommended, I’ll do that if I have to. Either way, I’ll be a mom in the end.”

Meanwhile, she writes, choosing the playlist of music for Amalia’s birth-day has been “hours of fun for the whole family.  I’ve been listening to it all morning, and Amalia has been dancing away.  I think she loves it too.”

Liminal Stages and Death on the Internet

I thought I’d introduce this subject with a photo of a fabulous horse-drawn hearse that I saw in Granada, Nicaragua.  The coffin rides like Sleeping Beauty inside the glass compartment, and you’ll notice that the horses are draped with crocheted blankets.  "Why?" I asked.  "Because this is a very serious time,” I was told.)

My husband claims that I’ve been preparing for death ever since my twenties--over 40 years ago.  I guess that’s what you get when you marry a hypochondriac with a gloomy Scandinavian background. (Remember in "Annie Hall" when Diane Keaton and Woody Allen were breaking up and sorting out their books? She said something like: “All the books with ‘Death’ in the title are yours.”  You should see my library.)

So about death. Like everything else, dying has apparently been transformed by  the creation of the internet.  I think we’re all familiar with on-line memorial pages where mourners can post their condolences and memories of the dear departed.

In today’s New York Times (Jan. 25) there’s a front-page story reporting that  funeral homes are now offering bereaved families the opportunity to invite friends and relatives who can’t make it to the actual funeral to watch the services live on the computer and then re-view the tape over and over again. Some of the companies offering this service to undertakers are FuneralOne, and  Event by Wire.  Even the famous Frank E. Campbell funeral chapel in Manhattan is introducing a webcasting program.

Some funeral directors offer the on-line funeral service for free, according to The Times, and others charge $100 to $300.  A family can make the funeral broadcast open to the public or issue invitations along with a password. (I wonder, does Evite do funerals?) This service has allowed the military colleagues of a Marine killed in Afghanistan, for instance, to view his hometown funeral including the arrival at the airport, the graveside ceremony and the 21-gun salute.  The father of the young Marine said he watches the funeral over and over again on the computer. “I don’t know why, but I guess it’s healing.”

Two weeks ago, the cover story in the Sunday New York Times Magazine of Jan 9, 2011 --“Ghosts in the Machine”-- was all about what happens to the words and images of yourself that you’ve posted on the internet—after you die.  Will you be remembered by your last foolhardy Tweet?  By those embarrassing photos on Facebook? Entrepreneurs, according to The Times, are popping up who will manage your digital afterlife for a fee—acting as a virtual executor who will categorize, file, organize or just do away with your on-line self. 

Andy Fish, the artist and instructor who taught me about blogging and Photoshop and computer illustration, says that he plans another kind of digital immortality—in which he can communicate with his fans from beyond the grave.  Andy often writes  a week’s worth of posts for his blog,  www.AndyFishWrap.blogspot.com , and then schedules the dates on which they will be posted on Blogspot.  Using that facility, he plans to post an annual message on his birthday well into the next century, even if he’s already gone to his reward.

Death, of course is one of life’s major passages. So why not make some plans for it ahead of time? 

For a woman’s group I belong to, with a different topic for discussion every month, we once wrote and read aloud our obituaries. It was a worthwhile exercise.  Leaving a draft of one’s obituary probably would be helpful to  survivors as part of your  internet estate unless, like my husband, you already have an up-to-date bio on your computer for public appearances and press coverage.

(One of Nick’s colleagues at The New York Times back in the day was the head obituary writer. He was always amazed that he could get in to see anyone—no matter how important—by mentioning his job.  Every big shot cares about what his Times obituary will say about him.)

Speaking of life passages, daughter Eleni Gage just launched her blog “The Liminal Stage”, on New Year’s Eve, which she calls “The most liminal night of the year".  The subtitle is:  “Navigating a modern world with the help of time-tested traditions.”

"Liminal" comes from the Latin word for “threshold” and Eleni has packed several liminal moments of her own into the last year: getting engaged, then married and moving from Manhattan to Miami. 

Here you see her at her wedding in Corfu, Greece, about to toss a decorated wedding bread to the single ladies behind her (a Corfiote twist on throwing the bouquet.)

Eleni  majored in Folk Lore and Mythology at college and, like me, she really loves learning about traditions, rituals, superstitions, divination – in all cultures.  She writes on her blog:

“It’s precisely because people get anxious around liminal stages, and the questions they raise, that cultures develop rituals designed to bring comfort, protection, and luck…My family is Greek so we throw pomegranates on our doorstep to invite abundance, and sit down to a meal in which a lucky quarter (wrapped in tinfoil for hygiene) is hidden inside a meat pie. …Whoever finds the quarter is guaranteed a good year, an extra little burst of confidence with which to face the unknown future. That’s the point of rituals, and of this blog–to invite luck, to celebrate a given moment, and to use traditions to do what they always have–to give yourself the tiniest sense that you can control what happens to you, even if that’s just an illusion.”

 You can find Eleni’s blog at www.TheLiminalStage.com or by clicking on the title in my blog list to the right.