As the years mount up I find myself becoming more and more like my parents.  They would wax poetic about what it was like to be growing up in the teens and twenties of the last century.  My brother and I would roll our eyes and prepare ourselves for what was to come.  How the kids of “today”(which was 60 or so years ago) have no respect and don’t accept responsibility, yada yada yada.  I now find myself with those words on my lips and must bite my tongue because the torch has been passed to a new generation of nostalgic old men!

Looking at an old album of black and white photos of my family back in the 50’s and 60’s stirs great memories in my mind but it doesn’t stimulate feelings for me other than remembering the people and the event.  Nothing brings those memories to life the way music does.  I don’t need the pictures when a particular song comes on the radio.  The music makes me feel, hear and see the people and brings me back in time to significant places in my life.  And for me the music was always associated with significant memories and special places or events.  One of my earliest family memories was of everyone sitting around the living room on some holiday with my dad playing the ukulele and my uncle, on the guitar and everybody singing, “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover.”  Dinner would be over and my Aunt Eleanor would be dancing around the living room with the remnants of her last Manhattan sloshing  around in her glass after a few too many, designed to make her unable to wash the dishes.  Everybody was singing and as I write about this I can actually hear the voices, the clapping and laughing and the teasing of Aunt Eleanor about how she always managed to get tipsy as soon as the dishes had to be done.  This went on every year and every holiday for the first 2 decades of my life.

In junior high school, we would spend summers in my mom’s home town, Mahanoy City, PA.  My cousin, Linda and I learned to do the double lindy together watching American Bandstand and The Steel Peer and then practicing the dance at the Teen Canteen every Saturday night.  The song we learned to dance to was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  To this day when I hear it on 50’s on 5 on Sirius radio, I can’t help but be back in Mahanoy City in my uncle’s living room practicing the steps.

In my senior year in high school, my friends Anne and Norman and I would get in Norman’s little Nash Metropolitan every Friday night.  We’d drive on the Van Wyck Expressway to LaGuardia Airport.  You used to be able to go on the observation deck, meet your friends and watch the planes take off and land.  We whizzed along the highway with the top down and the radio blasting, listening to Cousin Brucie.  It seemed he played “If I Fell” every Friday night. To this day when I hear it, I stop whatever I am doing, sing along and remember Anne’s clear voice, Norman’s tuneless voice and mine, trying to harmonize as we shared this carefree moment.  I felt free and I feel that way whenever I hear it. Anne and I were dance partners too, and loved to dance together at the high school sock hops.  We couldn’t wear our shoes on the gym floor so to dance we had to take our shoes off.  I was popular with the girls in high school, ‘cause I could dance so I always had a dance partner, but Anne and I were special partners.  I am still in touch with Anne though she lives half way across the country.  We still want to meet once more before…….to share a few lindies together again.  I am sure we could pick up right where our feet left off.  She and I even invented a new dance we called the penguin to “Be My Baby.”  When I hear either of those songs it brings me close to tears and a feeling of warmth and longing for youth fills my mind.  I loved her parents so it even allows me a moment to remember them fondly, even though her dad always called me Stupid Bastard.  I haven’t thought about that in years!  And I was never sure why he called me that but it was said with affection so it was important to me.

Though musically inept myself, it was so important throughout my life.  I could run up to my room, put my hi-fi on and get lost just thinking.  I carried my transistor radio around everywhere to the chagrin of my parents, my generation’s version of the i-phone.  I guess it isn’t surprising music is so important in our lives- it is everywhere- elevators, the doctor’s office, the barbers, in fact I can hardly think of a place where there isn’t music.  Music was always playing in my inn, all day, every day, even when no one was there. One of my fondest memories from the inn was one weekend an elderly, excuse me, mature, couple from Great Britain came and registered.  They were all excited about being in Vermont.  Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating and for the three days they stayed with us, it rained.  The last night they returned from dinner and were sitting out in their car for a long time.  I always checked the parking lot so I could greet our guests to see how their dinners went.  I was in the dining room when they came in the door and she came over to me and explained to me that 50 years ago that night her husband asked her to marry him.  They were at a night club in London and her husband asked the band leader to play her favorite song, “Moonlight in Vermont.”  They came to Vermont 50 years later to celebrate and to see the Vermont moon in person, but the weather did not cooperate UNTIL they pulled into our parking lot after dinner. As they sat in their car, the clouds separated. The moon came shining through. So they did get to see moonlight in Vermont after all.  She returned to her husband in the living room and I knew I had several versions of the song in my collection.  I picked the one by Billy Butterfield and his Orchestra sung by Margaret Whiting.  No sooner did 2 notes play than she came running into the dining room in tears saying that was the exact version that was played that night.  I told her that dancing was permitted in the living room, started the song again and disappeared.  The next morning at breakfast she and her husband told us that this was the most special holiday they had ever had.  What a special feeling that gave me to think I had been able to provide them with such a memory, but it was more about the music! I get teary eyed a lot more than I ever used to.  Nostalgia is something hard to avoid. Each generation has its own memories and its own music.  The two are tightly intertwined, but the tears they provoke in me aren’t of sadness, but are tears of relived memories, renewed friendships, and recycled emotions.  I can’t imagine living without them or without my music!

Getting in Tune

George, that’s a beautiful story about finding the Moonlight in Vermont tune! Your words underline the shared enjoyment of music and how it acts as a transit to past experience.

I wonder whether musical preferences change for a person as they age — or perhaps become more eclectic? Sure, I tend to gravitate to music of my youth. And I like some soft jazz, bosa nova, and reggae – background music. However, lately, I find a pull to more classically composed scores, be it methodical Mozart or romantic Rimsky-Korsakov.

My father played such music all through our childhood – he favored the romantics. I still love some of those pieces and think of him whenever they are performed (ah, Clare de Lune!). And of course, a tip of the hat to Walt Disney Studios for bringing classical music to animation. There’s more, though: the deeper, longer rhythms and lied motifs of these works call out to me – differently than a popular song that gathers you in with a catchy refrain and jaunty jingle (though I enjoy those as well).

I don’t pretend to know much about music, despite the best efforts of our college’s listening lab. However, in tennis jargon, if someone hits a ball that strikes your racquet with greater force than you would expect, it’s called a ‘heavy’ ball. Symphonic music seems like that to me – it has momentum, it builds; it carries the force of a full orchestra. Its weight is required to ping a chord buried deep within that may not be associated with memory, but simply a fundamental aspect of our nature

Now, some music has become decidedly less evocative – plaintive lamentations (“I’ve got tears in my ears as I lay on my back in my bed as I cry over you’) or pieces simply devoted to anger or calls to action. I don’t tend to seek that reinforcement of social consciousness these days. On the other hand, I am amazed to hear myself whistling hymns from time-to-time. What’s happening here? I’m curious how you would score your life in musical terms? My oldest grandson is resuscitating Pink Floyd, so maybe the Dark Side of the Moon would be his theme. I’d probably go for a tablespoon of Take Five with a dollop of Scheherazade. You?

Marching to a Different Beat

As I think about the role of music in George’s heartfelt story and I ponder the influence of music in my life, a curious notion is evolving that suggests I have a fragmented and disjointed relationship with music.  Like George and Wally, it seems to me that most people regularly seek out music to bring them into a particular mood or frame of mind.  I, however, despite coming from a family of talented musicians, don’t relate in the same way; at least not in any predictable or consistent manner.

My mother was an extraordinary, pianist; her brother was a natural on the violin and her father played the bass in the orchestra of the Waldorf Astoria for a living.  And, while I dabbled with piano, violin, and viola in my early school years, I found it to be a foreign language I just couldn’t decode.

When music became an important part of the high school social scene, I again found myself struggling to understand it, figuratively and literally.  And while I like certain popular tunes, and was caught up in the feeling of freedom and lightness during a college concert or from swelling voices extending a song on the jukebox at a local bar, it was short-lived and fleeting.

Even today, I can go days without playing any music in the house.  When I do activate my Sonos speakers, I enjoy the oldies, classical pieces, and meditative arrangements.  I feel them.  They move me.  But I don’t look for them.  I don’t miss them when it’s quiet.  They are, for me, just one of many nice options to lighten my day.

And, while I also don’t consciously seek it out, I enjoy immensely the music of nature.  As I walk through acres of wooded trails with my rescue mutt Duke every day, I am calmed and moved by her sounds, the wind through leaves or as it whistles around barren trunks, bird songs, the hollow reverberation of the woodpeckers as they seek their food beyond the layers of tree bark, the many sounds of the stream as it flows, trickles, or rushes at different levels after a rain.   As I write this piece on my porch with Duke by my side, the rain is falling steadily and plays a tune as it echoes off the metal roof of my nearby woodshed.  I love the changes in volume as the rain falls more heavily for a while and then subsides.  It calms and soothes me.  It’s my kind of music.  I’m not sure why I don’t think to seek it out but I do enjoy it when I find myself in its presence.

We are but a moment’s sunlight fading in the grass – Youngbloods

You know it – I know it: the mortal coil has a limited warranty. The tides lap at our sand castles, until finally, they are indistinguishable from the rest of the beach.

When I was six, my brother and I shared a bunkbed in a space that used to be a foyer. Times were tight and the room was our bedroom while the upstairs of our house was repurposed into a rental apartment.

One door off the room connected to the kitchen which once contained a deadbolt lock. Because the lock had been removed, a beam of light broadcast into our bedroom from the hole where the lock had been. After my brother and I were tucked into our beds, we would hear our parents talking at the end of the day, while they sat at the kitchen table — and look at that knothole with its pure circle of light.

One night, I got to thinking that my Mom and Dad might die someday. It was a disturbing thought that got more intense as I listened to their happy voices. Finally, I leapt out of bed and went into the kitchen, eyes full of tears and asked if they truly were going to die.

Of course, they hugged me and reassured me that this was an event in the far future. It probably was also a real buzz-kill for whatever happy conversation they had been having, but they were young and no doubt did not dwell long on the premise.

Years later, my father sat me down at his hospital bedside and told me that it had been a privilege to raise my brother and me, but that he needed to say goodbye. I could barely concentrate on his words through my sobs. In retrospect, I recognized that in both cases, the immediacy of MY feelings had taken front and center. While understandable for a child, something more was required as an adult – that is, the poise needed to listen and properly thank my Dad for his life.

So I pass this on: Honor the efforts of the dying to consolidate their life. My father essentially offered me his death-poem.  It is important to have this moment belong to the teller of the tale. My role was to listen, provide reinforcement and comfort. Perhaps even retell some tales. My Dad desired to die in dignity – don’t we all?

An old psychological truism used to be that all learning experiences are painful. If that is true, then Death is a great teacher. Although it sounds oxymoronic, Death allows you to take the long view. That is, you can evaluate your life up to present against the expectation of a finite end. Death shows you what is important — Death keeps you honest.

In The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Carlos Castenada’s Yaqui shaman, Juan Matus, suggested that he keep Death on his right shoulder – a constant arbiter of decisions and attitude. I believe that is a useful remedy for the world weariness that can sometimes plague old age. When confronted with the inevitable end of days, even the most routine acts can seem exquisite.

Let’s face it, the process of dissembling and decay is elemental and ever present.  Even the sounds our words make begin to degrade as they leave our mouths. Entropy happens. Our task is to strive to re-create in the face of continual destruction: evoke memories, build new stories — make myths together. And honor the living who are proceeding toward their farewell.

In a discussion, Henry brought up a term that resonates: a living eulogy. Why wait until a person has passed in order to let them know how they have been instrumental in this world? Express how they have helped others to navigate through difficult paths. In addition, make your own eulogy: what made your life worth living – and what is your unfinished business? Cherish our imperfect performance called life.

——

It was difficult reading Wally’s piece, even painful in places.  I guess because of the topic of death and of our own mortality. Throughout my life, death has always been present- beloved dogs and cats, elderly relatives who in many cases scared the living Bejesus out of me(pardon the pun), but death still seemed far off and impersonal for a long time growing up.  I had a goldfish for 12 years in a little bowl that hung on with minimal care or attention but when I found it one morning  floating on its side I was devastated. At that point I was old enough to understand, and then began wondering if it was something I had done or didn’t do.  My parents tried to ease my conscience and told me that 12 years was way longer than the average goldfish’s life span.  And for a while I can remember asking them what was the average life span of my dog, or my parakeet, or the mosquito in my room at night.  I think at one point I was so angry at a teacher I asked them what the average life span of a teacher was.  That was the last time I asked them about lifespans for some reason.
And as you mature, you deal with the deaths of aunts and uncles and  other significant people in your life and begin to accept the idea that it happens to all of us.  But we naturally assume that is far in the distance. All kinds of life things happen, school, career, families, all things that for some reason allow the years to pile up without realizing it til all of a sudden your own kids are asking you about lifespans and accumulating their own experiences.  For me, that time was a real danger zone because  significant people in my life then were in the declining years and I watched as my parents couldn’t do what they used to be able to. 
I never had the fortune to say good bye to my parents like Wally did. My dad died suddenly while on the toilet one morning. My mom, all hooked up to ventilators and tubes in Winthrop Hospital, passed after my brother and I left for the night.  The hardest death was that of my brother because we had become very close after our parents died and after I had come out to him.  He and I would talk regularly, laughing at things my dad did or bitching about things my dad did.  After his death, the loneliness was incredible.  A void that no one other than a sibling could fill.  My kids were great but it just didn’t feel the same and there was and still is an emptiness that only he could fill.
Now I am the oldest living member of my family.  The only living member of my generation or above. Death doesn’t scare me so much anymore cause I have seen how death can be a relief of pain or loneliness.  I had 3 elderly aunts who lived into their late 90’s and they were ready to pass when their time came.  I saw such strength in them, and faith that truly comforted them until they passed.  They were ready, and I want to be at that point when I am called also.  Their eulogy, all of my family members’ eulogies would include love and tried the best they could to be good people.  That is what I want to be remembered for as well and I hope I will be remembered for doing good things for people, making people laugh and hope that when my name comes up in conversation it will put smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes, cause I was pretty special after all, but tears of joy and pleasant memories.

——

Understanding the Last Sunset

Wally’s story resurrects many memories and stimulates many thoughts as I find myself in the winter season of my life. 

My dad was an absent father.  When I turned 40, I tracked him down, asked him questions, and got some ambiguous answers. But I did receive closure to the question I asked of myself – Was I my father?  Six months later he died without any of us at his side.  I said what I needed in that solo encounter.  I expressed my disappointment in him and my desire to remain detached but I said it without anger and with quiet resolve.  I don’t know how he felt or what he may have thought about in the hospital in his final hours after failed heart surgery.  Perhaps his other family provided the final dignity and farewell that he would have wanted.  Since we never met and have no contact, I’ll never know.

I do know that Wally’s call, to honor the efforts of the dying reminds me to ask more of what others need and offer less of what I think they need.   A noble model for all relationships at all stages of life!

Wally mentioned my idea for a living eulogy. What if we made time to celebrate people’s lives while they can still hear it?  In a sense, create a service for them not about them.  I suspect many of us underestimate our worth and value to those who know us.  Might hearing those words now, influence the rest of our lives for the better?  I’d like to think so.

What Matters

“As long as you have your health…” These words were often uttered by my grandmother and later as an aphorism from my mother every time I faced disappointment.
As a child who was healthy, these words offered little solace to whatever ailed me. Health? Everyone around me seemed healthy, most of the time. Why would that matter when issues of fear, loneliness, heartbreak, or ridicule loomed bigger than life?
Now, at 72, with all those years of experiences, readings, and self-reflections under my belt, health, in the scheme of things, really is important. Health is up there on the list of what many people of my vintage would argue, really matters. But is that what matters most?
Another consideration I gleaned has to do with relationships. As I read and reread endless profiles of women registered with online dating sites, a large majority firmly declare that strong relationships with family and friends are something of which they are most proud and something they seek in a potential mate. How can I disagree with the notion that positive relationships are what really matters. I’ve often remarked that even sunsets seem more beautiful when viewed with someone you love. And the last entry in Chris McCandless’ journal (Into the Wild) read: “Happiness is only real when shared.”
There are other really important things that I could list here that would answer this query about what is important. After all, isn’t life replete with complex shades of gray, varying in hue based on individual perceptions? Yet, pushed to hone it all down to one core belief, I would say that having a healthy and reflective relationship with myself is what really matters. If I truly know myself and am truthful with myself, when all else falls away, I remain grounded. That is to say, if I’m content with my own companionship I have a solid foundation from which to face all desirable and undesirable experiences. I can recover from the blinding joys or crippling tribulations that come my way and remain focused on living purposefully. My dependence is on myself.

We often add up what we’ve accomplished and accrued and use the total as evidence of having a life well lived. Perhaps those of us who do so should make a conscious effort to be certain that’s what really matters and to consider the words of Einstein who wrote, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Having written all of this after much thought and deliberate reflection I am clearer about what matters less and what matters more. Naturally, I don’t know what future challenges loom. But I do know that for the rest of my life I want to concentrate on living in alignment with how I want to be remembered and how I conduct myself on a daily basis.

Have you given thought to what really matters to you?
And, are you mindful to act accordingly?

Recipe for What Matters

I agree with everything Henry wrote…health, relationships, knowing yourself and being comfortable in that knowledge of course. But that seems like a baseline for what matters. There is a lot more…. and those things are like ingredients in a favorite recipe. They are what made me…. ME! A cup of memories that I shared with my brother growing up matters. Memories of my kids when they were little…all kinds of memories! They can’t be left out or substituted because then the final dish won’t taste like it’s supposed to.

Add a tablespoon of the touch of others. Caresses, massages, tickles, and pats matter. Also shaking hands with people you meet or hugs with friends matter. You can always tell when that ingredient is missing. Beauty matters! Mix in a cup of beauty- audio and visual, natural or manmade- a sunset, an autumn leaf, a beautiful painting, the sound of a babbling brook or a thunderstorm——a favorite tune that transports you back to your youth to a special person and a specific place, not to mention a teaspoon of the aroma of my dad’s tomato sauce or a crackling fire in the winter. And don’t forget to sprinkle in those deep belly laughs shared with people, the kind where you can’t catch your breath and fill your eyes with tears of happiness. Cook all these ingredients for a lifetime and it adds up to someone special—YOU! And that matters!

Too Big for My Brain

Well written, George! You make a good case to add a celebration of the senses to ‘What Matters’: straight-up epicurean. But isn’t ‘what matters’ simply what you decide should matter – a personal choice.
Some might say that what matters is what you lack/what you need. In certain circumstances, what matters most is living one more day, hanging on to your identity, or being self-sufficient. Remember Abraham Maslow’s need hierarchy: from safety concerns to self-actualization? Different areas of focus follow need fulfillment. Does ‘what matters’ change over time – or is it eternal? Maybe what matters is not even our choice after all. Isn’t this question the very essence of philosophy? This subject is too big for my brain – and this page!
However, at its heart, I’d argue that what really matters is the purpose you bring to life and the elegance with which that purpose is applied. I guess I’m adding a moral compass to Henry’s conclusion (‘know thyself and be comfortable’). After all, intention guides action. When your actions are consistent with your purpose, you have achieved that “impeccability of word” that we have discussed – or what Jordan Peterson describes as minding your patch. Okay, that’s good enough for me!

Takeaway:
Be aware of your intentions. If you cannot express a purpose for your being in the world, embark on a journey to find one. Refine that statement of purpose as you learn more.