ROBERTO AT 74

I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! A whole month since my last post. I must have been busy.

Last month, I left 74 (my 74th year that is) and arrived at the 74th milestone. On the first of this month, I moved into my new home...at 74 Sterling St. Corning NY. There is a small joke with my address. Sterling runs between two streets, one named Dodge and the other Sly. You to be made of sterling stuff to thrive between the dodgy street and the sly street!

Being now in my 75th year, I celebrated by rejoining the local brew pub club and now have a tankard numbered 75.

I have been at #74 since June 1, virtually camping here with just a very few things. That is the great thing about passing through the eye of the needle, you do not have much to move from one place to the next! The house has not been lived in for two years so a good bit of the time has gone to making things work properly. A contractor (Daniel) comes and goes working on the roof to have it properly ventilated (and therefore cooler) and also on the electrical system which is a bit ancient and some circuits are defective. My Japanese bed and futons have arrived and I am learning to sleep on them. It was so hot early on in June that I moved down to the lower level for cooler sleeping. I am working long days, with lots to do, and therefore sleeping well. With the carpentry work done on the roof, it has now been painted with special white, reflective paint. This will greatly extend the life of the roof and cool the attic space very considerably. Since then I have been removing the walk-in robe and the storage closet that have divided the two bedrooms to create one spacious room the width of the house.

Entering my 75th year: My doctor and I agree that I am in excellent health. Also, the surgeon who did my 'tin' knees agrees that I have been looking after his handiwork well. Having the old, worn out knees replaced has been a great boon, giving me back a decade or more of life and activity.

The house is proving to be well located. It takes just 20 minutes to walk to the gym; so each morning before breakfast to row on their excellent, well-maintained Concept2 machines. I am learning a lot about walking.

Which brings me to the Battle of Aging (you will have to wait to the next post to get me on spirituality). I could claim to some expertise on aging (for non-US folk, 'ageing'). For one, it seems I am getting old. For another, if one is aging, it pays to know as much as possible about it. For a third time, in one of my lives, I taught a special course on the psychology of aging for five years, but that was when I was young!

Aging is a very slow process, almost imperceptible, so you have to keep an eye on it. Rather like the jungle or the forest asserting itself against farmland or the creep of weeds in the garden. In terms of thermodynamics, we are caught up in entropy or the tendency to chaos; the temporary structure we call our 'life' needs constant repair and will eventually fall to the ground, despite all our efforts. Besides constant vigilance (totally lacking the those who are still in the first half of their life), slowing aging requires lots of work. Aches and pains have a lot to do with it (discounting the effects of serious illness), as their constant press, if not resisted, steadily limit what one can do. And before you know it, you feel 'old'; if you are not careful, once you admit this, there are things you no longer attempt because you are 'old'.

I noticed this with my infamous knees: as the pain became chronic, I changed the way I walked and stood. I suppose I could back out of this and say that the way I walked and the way I stood changed. Uma called my walk 'the Robert walk'. Once I caught sight of my reflection in a shop window and thought, 'Golly, I stand like my father!' Of course, I had an immediate understanding of how he got to stand that way.

I once read that everyday one must do something you did when you were young (like skipping, hopping about, or whatever, that you gave up doing). If you like, you could call this 'active denial'; of Freud's famous defense mechanisms, denial is hard to beat. In regard to aging, it works well right up to death.

I am rather good at active denial and I hope to improve. At one level, this means forcing or requiring oneself to do things that some may thing 'the old' should not do. One of my heroes, a doctor in British Columbia, was still cross-country skiing in his mid 90's. I met two eighty year old men at a Cycle for Diabetes event who had recently completed the 'Ride Across America'.

Such heroes are almost inspiring enough to attempt the impossible but not quite. It takes a lot of personal resolve and self-forcing to do the yoga, go swimming, get on the cycle, hit the rower and do that morning exercise routine. I have found that sticking to my New Year resolution of not eating until I have done my morning exercise routine has turned into a major blessing.

Lots could be said about the battle of aging (good diet, maintain active work, keep good company, enjoy some wine and beer, and the like) but beware the slow sap of giving in to it. Whatever you feel you should do...get on with it; make yourself do it.

And good luck.