The Gifts of Age: Part 2

What­ev­er we believe to be our gifts of age, it seems impos­si­ble to con­clude any­thing but that they derive from expe­ri­ence. This is true not only for the gifts men­tioned in Part I — free­dom from mak­ing judg­ments, inner con­fi­dence, accep­tance and fruition — but for so many oth­ers unmen­tioned so far, such as wis­dom, peace of mind, con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to a pur­pose, or enjoy­ing the fruits of for­mer accom­plish­ments. It also seems impos­si­ble to con­clude that these gifts are giv­en to all. There are many who have them in great mea­sure, and who rev­el in them and use them wise­ly, but there are also many cranky and unhap­py old men and women who seem not to have them at all. If the gifts are tru­ly gifts of age, then it is prob­a­bly more accu­rate to say, rather than that the gifts are not giv­en to all, that all are not able to receive them.

Dan wrote, “Accep­tance is not a per­fect word. It does not ful­ly con­vey the sense of flow, ful­fill­ment and peace of mind that I asso­ciate with it. It does­n’t ful­ly express the sense of grace. But I like it because what I hear in it is not the part of accept that means endure but the part that means receive. As in receive a gift. If I’ve learned any­thing, it is how to receive. It was a friend, a psy­chic, who first told me — as I was wait­ing for insight at the bot­tom of my lone­ly pit — that I need­ed to open myself and learn to receive (was it this that changed the pit to a well?).”

“You are try­ing to do every­thing on your own,” she told Dan. “You don’t trust the uni­verse and you don’t see that the phys­i­cal real­i­ty of your cir­cum­stances, the phys­i­cal world itself, is thin as tis­sue paper.” She relat­ed the sto­ry of a man and his wife, clients of hers. The man was wash­ing the dish­es one evening when he heard a ker-plop into the soapy water of a bowl in the sink. Reach­ing in, he pulled out a ring. He had nev­er seen the ring before. He took it to his wife who exclaimed, “Where on earth did you find that? I haven’t seen that ring in twen­ty years!” Dan’s psy­chic friend explained that it had just come through in order to help the woman deal with what it sym­bol­ized to her, some unfin­ished busi­ness from the past.

“I’m sure I pri­vate­ly scoffed at the story,” Dan wrote, “Yet I would say this has turned out to be what has hap­pened to me, too. Some­thing, a coin, a ring, has come through that tis­sue paper thin wall of time and space. Its grad­ual recog­ni­tion has had a mirac­u­lous effect. I do a bet­ter job of receiv­ing myself just as I am and receiv­ing oth­ers just as they are. I’m more open. The wars between me and me have dimin­ished over time, replaced by an inner con­nec­tion to the flow. I know I’ve embraced some­thing — or it has embraced me.”

Becom­ing more open to receiv­ing what is avail­able to us, rather than strug­gling along pos­sessed by the desire to have things our own way, appears to be a pre-req­ui­site for acquir­ing the gifts of age. And Deb point­ed to a few oth­er pre­req­ui­sites when she wrote, “Age brings wis­dom, a com­mon­ly held belief. Although wis­dom is not con­fined to old­er folks, wis­dom can man­i­fest new strains, or gifts, as we age, if we remain aware, open, and reflective.”

Aldous Hux­ley summed it up this way, “Expe­ri­ence is not what hap­pens to a man; it is what a man does with what hap­pens to him.” It is what we do with our expe­ri­ence that deter­mines whether or not we are capa­ble of receiv­ing the gifts of age, and approach­ing our expe­ri­ence with aware­ness, open­ness, and a habit of reflec­tion appears to be prerequisite.

Deb expe­ri­ences a bit­ter­sweet qual­i­ty to real­iz­ing it has tak­en her fifty-sev­en years to arrive at her inner con­fi­dence. “But some things just can’t be rushed,” she wrote, “Like the silky taste of an aged Caber­net, or the pati­na on a piece of old bronze.”

She con­fess­es, “Over the past two years I have been envi­ous of women with sil­ver hair. Not gray hair, or white hair, but sil­ver hair. It hap­pened again a few weeks ago while out hik­ing to a water­fall. I saw a vibrant look­ing woman in her for­ties with beau­ti­ful sil­ver hair. Con­trary to our youth-dri­ven cul­ture, she did not look old in her sil­ver locks.” Deb will turn six­ty in 2011. “That’s my tar­get date to have grown out my roots and become dazz­ing­ly sil­ver-haired, whether it be au nat­ur­al, or with the help of my hairdresser.”

This Sep­tem­ber, Dan, at fifty-nine, will mar­ry “a fab­u­lous woman and soul-mate.” He explained, “We met on eHar­mo­ny a few years ago. I haven’t been mar­ried in a decade and that will com­plete a cycle of some kind. I feel I am com­ing home, maybe for the first time. Indeed, what a les­son, learn­ing to receive, and a ring it is that shows up. Who on earth would have guessed?”

I am the old­est of our troi­ka. I have eight years on Deb, sev­en on Dan. Unlike Deb, I’ve been bald for a long time and don’t care at all about what hair I do have. Like Deb, judg­men­tal­ism feels less sat­is­fy­ing to me, and I no longer care much about prov­ing some­thing to oth­ers. Unlike Dan, I would prob­a­bly not have scoffed at the psychic’s sto­ry about the ring. Like Dan, I have had to learn how to receive and was remar­ried at about the same age that he is now.

I can say from my “elder” posi­tion to both of them (and per­haps to you) that if you remain aware, open, reflec­tive, and recep­tive, the gifts of age will keep get­ting bet­ter, at least for the next sev­en or eight years, which is all that I can speak to.

Ring image photo credit: “JK.” Technorati Tag: Self-Knowledge