AD(H)D World

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As grandparents and elders, we should be troubled by the startling rise in developmental disorders among children today.  Autism and ADHD have become commonplace — one in every 110 children for autism; nearly one in 10 children in the United States aged 4 to 17 years for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — and so are kids on meds and in special education.  Some experts point to better diagnostics for learning disorders (LD) in general, but I’ve wondered what role our speedy, information-saturated culture plays.  What might be the effect of  food additives, dyes, artificial sweeteners, or just too much sugar in everything we eat?

Yesterday, I had two experiences — a film called Bag It! and an NPR program (Our Toxic Love Hate Relationship with Plastics) — that make a strong case that the epidemic of learning disorders we are seeing in our young is due to exposure to chemicals, in utero and in infancy.  The chemicals in plastics, that is, specifically phthalates or plasticizers, ubiquitous in toys, food packaging, hoses, raincoats, shower curtains, vinyl flooring, wall coverings, lubricants, adhesives, detergents, nail polish, hair spray and shampoo, baby care products and, until recently, baby bottles.

We are from birth to death, literally saturated in plastics: see Five Gyres, if you still believe that when our plastic bagged garbage is picked up from our curb or dumpster, it goes ‘away.’ As one interviewee in the film said, There is no away.

As grandparents, we need to be concerned, very concerned, and we need to decide what we personally are going to do about it.  You might start by watching Bag It! , now part of the Whole Food Film Festival, Do Something Reel, showing this month in celebration of Earth Day, April 22, nationwide.

In another lifetime, I helped promote plastics professionally. You could say this is by way of a small mea culpa.

Re-Housing Our(elder)selves

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About 15 years ago, we went in search of a new home, and a new type of home.  Somehow the concept of  co-housing had floated into our head space. We were attracted to the idea of  ‘building a better society, one neighborhood at a time,’ to quote the current official cohousing slogan.  This was pre-grandchildren and the appeal of sharing a planned community with people of all ages, including small children, seemed vastly more appealing than the 55+ adult gated communities then being marketed.  So we signed up for a co-housing conference in Maryland where a new community was forming, and the following year we toured four communities, Cantine’s Island, in Saugerties, NY, award-winning  Windsong in Langley, BC, Quayside Village in North Vancouver, and Trillium Hollow in Portland, OR (a city where some of our family already lived).  Of these, only Windsong was completed and occupied at the time.  We attended open houses at all of these, and spent a night at Windsong.  We even joined two of them at the minimal membership level. People were friendly and welcoming, some were close to messianic about their chosen form of living.  Forming a co-housing community is a long and challenging process and a few ‘burning souls’ are essential to sustain the effort.

We supported the living lightly on the planet philosophy of co-housing communities of which EcoVillage in Ithaca, NY, is perhaps the best known example.  We liked the self-governance ideals, the espousal of diversity.  We were attracted to the idea of a neighborhood planned to maximize contact among the residents, a kind of  y’all come, potluck ethos very different from most suburbs, including where we live now in South Florida.

The closest we’ve come to that kind of community sensibility was our eight years in Hoboken, NJ, where everything one needed was within walking distance.   If street life didn’t bring you into contact with a neighbor or two and the possibility of a social event, stoop life — hanging out on a balmy evening on your own front steps — certainly did.  It was a small town in every sense of the word, with Manhattan right across the Hudson River.

For us, the downside of co-housing was governance by consensus.  At one of the just-forming communities we toured, I sat next to one of the members in a meeting.  An open house usually includes a pot luck and an invitation to whatever is happening so visitors can get a sense of community process.  This meeting was about landscaping and it went on and on and on, and finally broke up with no decision.  The woman looked at me very kindly and said, “If you’re serious, get used to it.”  I gather that some communities have modified this form of governance.

Today, as co-housing has evolved and grown (there are communities in 37 states and several Canadian provinces), there is more variation in community aspirations including the introduction of the concept of co-housing for elders (a word I prefer) developed by architect and co-housing in America champion, Chuck Durrett.  I’ve heard Chuck speak at an American Society on Aging session and his arguments (read here) for elders living in a community are starting to make a lot of sense to me…again.  I guess you could say it’s deja vu all over again, but with a sense of urgency that I could not have experienced in a pre-grandchilden, pre-Inconvenient Truth, Union of Concerned Scientists report world.

More reading:

Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living, Charles Durrett

See also: Dr. Bill Thomas’s The Greenhouse Project

Reading Jabberwocky to the Blind

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“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”  The Dalai Lama.

What I’ve been wanting lately is to teach more yoga classes.   For a variety of reasons, this isn’t happening, but having some extra time on my hands has given me the space to think about other passions, e.g. the reading of poetry out loud.  I have been reading poems at the conclusion of my classes since I began teaching yoga in 1998, and I know some of the poems I’ve chosen, e.g. Mary Oliver’s The Journey, resonate with students so much, I get requests for copies.  I write poetry, too, almost as much today as I did when I took Larry Raab’s poetry workshop at the Breadloaf School of English in Vermont.   Writing poetry is a private affair.  Reading poetry — mine or others — out loud is an act of communion.

Last week, a new door opened and I walked through it with no idea where it may lead.   A friend and fellow yogi who teaches a pro bono class to blind students was casting around for something new to offer them.  I found myself agreeing to read poetry to them the following week on a see-how-it-goes basis.

The class ranges in age from mid-twenties to 60-something, two men, five women.  Two are suffering from macular degeneration and are partially sighted.  All of them seemed eager to experience something and someone new.   After the introductions — I walked around where they were seated and clasped their hands as we exchanged names — I asked them about first poems.  The older among them all recalled having to memorize and recite in class.  They thought it made children dread poetry.  The younger immediately spoke about having Dr. Seuss read to them as children.  A happier memory.

They were eager for me to begin reading so I started off with some light verse from Dr. Seuss:  Do you like green eggs and ham?  I started.  I do not like them, Sam-I-am,  they chorused back.  Wow!  Next, Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussy Cat, followed by Jabberwocky (smiles).  Some e e cummings, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken (a sigh or two).  Billy Collins’ Dharma — ‘Oh, yes!’  ‘My dog is named that.’  We talked a little about how poems make us feel. ‘Funny inside.’  ‘Emotional.’  ‘Light.’  Next, Walt Whitman’s I Hear America Singing, then A Pot of Red Lentils by Peter Pereira (Please read that again! )  Â Finally, Pablo Neruda’s Ode to My Socks.  ‘Mmm-hmm!’  Applause.

Our class was almost over.  I asked: How would you like to write a poem next time?   (Next time?)  Richard already writes poetry, a woman sitting next to him said.  A brief pause, for Richard to collect himself.  Then, he launched into a recitation of two originals, topped with a third, composed in the moment.   Not just good.  ‘Twas brillig.

The Poetry Foundation

The Writers Almanac Comes to your inbox daily.  Garrison Keillor’s reading of the featured poem is a great way to start the day.

The Poem Hunter

Helping Japan

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The first thing many of us want to do after we absorb the news of a catastrophe like the tsunami in Japan and its aftermath, is reach for our checkbooks.  Money is important, of course, but where and when and whom it best serves need careful consideration.  For instance, after Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma, the country of my birth, I discovered that the most effective relief agency was The Merlin Group because they already had staff on the ground, familiar with the population and local conditions.  For the same reasons  I gave to Partners in Health after the Haiti earthquake.  This time, I also decided to wait until it was clearer where a relief donation could do the most good.  Apparently, I’m not alone in this: http://blog.givewell.org/2011/03/11/japan-earthquaketsunami-disaster-relief-donations/ Once again, the key is to target dollars to local groups.  http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/15/what-aid-makes-sense-for-japan/work-with-local-groups-in-japan

Check out what your community or congregational response is, and join it if it meets your criteria.   Here’s a list of agencies vetted by InterAction: http://www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-support-japan-earthquake-response A useful article: http://www.interaction.org/how-help

‘Tis the Day After Christmas…

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and through our abode,

there lingers a fragrance of cinnamon and cloves.

No stockings were hung here —

the children all grown,

gone to in-laws and ski slopes

with children of their own.

We’re done with the shopping

and decorating trees,

over the holiday stress

that once brought us to our knees.

But one habit remains

though many have flown,

the baking of bread

with the warm taste of home.

So bring on the butter, brew a fresh pot of tea,

’tis the Day After Christmas for you and for me.

One of my favorite memories of this year was a short period of teaching creative writing to elders at a retirement community.  The day I got the assignment, I also found a copy of Judith Viorst‘s wonderful Unexpectedly Eighty: And Other Adaptations at the library.  So I brought it in with me to a session and read the last poem in the collection: After Giving the Matter A Great Deal of Thought. Then, I asked the participants to write that line on the top of a piece of paper and continue on for about ten minutes.  We had such a good time with this exercise, no one wanted the session to end, and I have all kinds of new ideas about doing more of this work.  Creativity bubbles up wherever it can.  You just have to give it space and make it welcome.  Try this exercise for yourself.  It’s a great year-ender.

Here’s a post-Christmas gift for you lovers of poetry who have yet to subscribe to Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac:  click here.   I couldn’t live without this daily reminder that, as William Carlos Williams puts it: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”

The Striking French

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Driving to the first of two yoga teaching gigs yesterday, I listened to a report on NPR that Paris was all but shut down by unions striking against the proposed rise of retirement age from — get this — 60 to 62.   Flights were disrupted and even the Eiffel Tower was closed to tourists.  A few weeks ago, when the movement (if one can call it that) for status quo was just heating up, I heard a couple who had just turned 60, offer an argument you won’t hear on this side of the Atlantic so much these days, that they some how deserve to retire.  They felt they had paid into the pension funds and were fortunate that their pensions would not be threatened by the new law, if indeed it is passed.  In the background, one could hear the voices of their grandchildren for whom they offer care one afternoon a week because they enjoy it.

Contrast this to the desire of most Americans — I’m one of them –to continue to work and not only out of financial necessity, although that is certainly a factor given the sorry rate of saving and investments of many older adults.  The new MetLife Mature Market Institute Study finds “startling” the news that many Early Boomers plan to remain in the labor market.  But if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that we believe that money is not the only driver for the choice to continue to work.  We happen to think we will remain healthier for it — that alone is a good way to give back.  And unlike our French cohorts, we take a certain pride in continuing to contribute actively to society and to the well-being of future generations, including our own grandchildren, if we have them.   I admire many things about French culture — the food, the art, the joie de vivre, and the fact that the welfare of children is a national priority.  How they will reconcile childcare costs with an aging population that wants to be supported for 25 or more years is the question.  Send in the grownups.

Generational Warfare

Chair Yoga: Seated Postures for Everybody

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When Michelle Obama does yoga as part of her recent President’s Council on Fitness initiative, you know yoga has gone mainstream.  In the 15 years I’ve been a practitioner (including the last 12 as a Kripalu Yoga-certified instructor), I’ve seen yoga grow from the culture of the ashram, dependent on the guru-disciple relationship, to a billion dollar industry of conferences, workshops, star yogis, fashion clothing, DVDs, books and the like.  Pick up a copy of Yoga Journal and the cover will likely feature a well-toned yogi in spandex performing one of the more difficult postures.  I love YJ for the useful articles and professional advice I usually find there, but I wonder how many people get turned off by those daunting covers.

“I can’t do yoga; I’m too inflexible.”  If I had a dime for everyone who says this when they discover what I do…  The reality is, people who sit in chairs most of the time (and that’s nearly everyone in the West) are likely to be inflexible, and not just in the body.  My Burmese grandmother grew up sitting on the floor, with her legs crossed yogi-style or hunkered down, with her arms wrapped around her knees.  In her eighties, she had the body of a much younger person, was up with the dawn to meditate, and active all day long.  She didn’t do frailty.

The sedentary lifestyle of our desk-bound, television-addicted population reinforces more of the same behaviors.  So the very idea of getting down on a yoga mat starts to sound more and more impossible.   But yoga has been evolving in other ways that open up its tangible benefits to more of the population, particularly older people who want to maintain good health, preserve their independence, and forestall the so-called diseases of aging.  It is no accident that some of the greatest yogi masters are robust well into their 80’s and beyond.

Last weekend, I became certified in Chair Yoga, a form that adapts many classic yoga postures to the seated position and makes the benefits of yoga available to a much larger population including older adults.  Chair Yoga, as developed by Lakshmi Voelker who has devoted most of her life and career to yoga, delivers the benefits of yoga, including flexibility, strength, improved circulation, and mental focus, to anyone able to sit in a chair, including those in wheelchairs.  In her three and a half day workshop at Discovery Yoga in St. Augustine, Florida, 23 eager students — yoga instructors, physical therapists, Reiki masters and others — learned seated variations of postures like Mountain (Tadasana), Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana), Tree (Vrkshana) and the Warriors at varying levels of challenge.   We learned how to add 1- and 2-lb. weights to increase the fitness challenge.  And we experimented with double chair and partner-assisted postures.  We were encouraged to replace some or all of our personal practice with chair yoga to improve our skills as instructors.  The biggest surprise was not how well these postures could be adapted for the chair, but how physically challenging they are, even for the young and fit.

Even if you have a yoga practice and/or other fitness routine, there are times when mat practice is not feasible.  You can practice chair yoga at your desk at home or work, on the train/plane/bus or in a car (not while driving!)  If you are recovering from an illness or injury, chair yoga can help you resume your normal fitness activities sooner.  You can even do chair yoga while you’re watching television.  Don’t just sit there!

Sweating the Big Stuff

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Sound familiar?  You are (blissfully) unaware of the aging process until one morning, you are standing at the bathroom mirror brushing your teeth as usual, and whoa! this strange person stares back at you.  Your eyes may be as sharp as ever, the expression in them the same, but your features seem to be slouching in a Southerly direction.  (French women seem to enjoy special dispensation from these facts of life.)

For some folks, women mostly but not exclusively, this new old face is enough to send ripples of panic through the whole body.  Before you know it, you’re Googling anti-wrinkle creams, Botox treatments, and/or face lifts.  (Yes, I admit I went as far as to check out the non-surgical options, see The Perricone Prescription.  The good news: it is based on an anti-inflammatory diet and boosts one’s general health and well-being.)   If you are past your fifth decade, you may personally know women (and maybe a few men) of a certain age who have submitted their tissues to the surgeon’s knife.  While I respect the right to make this choice, ‘nip-and-tuck’  isn’t in my future.

Of course, I’m not in the entertainment business where my wrinkles could directly affect my livelihood.  And I don’t plan to run for political office, ditto.  If Sarah Palin looked like Golda Meir, goes one recent joke, would we even be having this conversation?  The truth is, whatever we do cosmetically, we will all end up looking something like Golda Meir (or Mike Wallace) if we’re lucky enough to live that long.   But honestly, would you choose youth and beauty over a reputation for doing good work; passionate support of worthwhile causes; spreading joy; being trustworthy; being a good parent/grandparent/friend or any number of other qualities you value?

In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a baby is born old and grows younger each year until he ceases to exist.  The tragedy was that he was moving through life in the opposite direction from everyone else, including the love of his life.  It wasn’t so much an compelling story-into-film as a cautionary tale.   In the world of the imagination, maybe we can fool Mother Nature.  In real life, not so much.  The aging face that looks back at you by dawn’s early light is a reminder that it’s time.  Time to cultivate a sense of self deeper than your skin.  If we — especially we women, weren’t so caught up in how the world sees and judges us (our faces, our clothes, our homes), we might be putting more attention on things like, let’s see, the epidemic of violence against women; the threats to our basic rights to clean water, air, education, health care; what kind of world we appear to be leaving to our grandchildren.  We could be sweating the Big Stuff.

V-Day: A Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls

The Center for Public Integrity

Not That Easy Being Green?

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Well, easy no (Kermit, my friend), but possible.  You will have to make changes in how you live that seem so small they couldn’t possibly have an impact.  You will risk making friends uncomfortable.  You may be labeled Treehugger — like there’s something wrong with appreciating a reliable source of oxygen.  Don’t be surprised to learn that innovation will probably begin at the grass roots — hey, that’s us, particularly those of us old enough to remember when Global Warming was barely a blip on the radar.  If we keep working, our solutions and ideas will percolate up to those in power, or maybe we’ll create a new power base.

We have to embrace activism but without the us vs. them, blame-and-shame game that tends to alienate people when we can spare no one.  We need to “act as if what we want is already true,” to paraphrase a quote circulating in New Age circles.  Author and expert on the power of intention, Lynne McTaggart had a radical suggestion about the spill in the Gulf in the three-part teleconference series: The Gulf Call to Sacred Action.  She suggested to her listeners that we stop demonizing BP for this disaster which could have occurred at any one of hundreds of deep water drilling sites, and start imagining that BP engineers are successful at capping the leak.  And then, imagine that the massive cleanup that follows unites people and resources in unprecedented, effective ways.  McTaggart is best known for her research into the power of intention (The Intention Experiment, Free Press — Simon & Schuster 2007).  Other visionaries on the call: Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston.

We need to find, fund, nurture, and support people who are working on solutions:

Here are a few examples:

“It’s not that easy being green
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves…
But green’s the color of Spring.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain,
or tall like a tree…”

Hands Across the Sands

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Maybe you don’t think of yourself as someone who joins a rally in the street brandishing a hand-lettered sign and shouting  slogans.  Me either.  Whenever I get an email alerting me to a social action that requires me to actually show up, I find myself wondering if my physical presence really matters, say, at a rally with members of my congregation in support of affordable housing in my community.  I question whether I really need to drive down to Senator Bill Nelson’s office when I could sign a petition on line or fax or call him.  Not that those things aren’t important, too.  Then I remember what Gandhi and Martin Luther King accomplished by being willing to put themselves at risk, and I feel ashamed of myself for even hesitating.

There are some things that cry out for organized, apolitical action and the BP spill and all that it represents — corporate greed and malfeasance, hubris, folly — is one.  If you live anywhere near a beach, particularly in Florida, you can take a stand.  Chances are excellent that someone is organizing a  local Hands Across the Sands event on June 26.  As the name suggests, it will be a human chain lining the beaches at noon for 15 minutes, to express opposition to offshore drilling and support of clean, renewable energy.

The movement actually started in Florida on Saturday, February 13, when thousands of Floridians representing 60 towns and cities and over 90 beaches joined hands to protest the efforts by the Florida Legislature and the US Congress to lift the ban on oil drilling in Florida’s waters.  Florida’s Hands Across the Sands event was the largest gathering in the history of Florida united against oil drilling.  Thousands joined hands from Jacksonville to Miami Beach and Key West to Pensacola Beach.  On June 26, we’ll be at Juno Beach, wearing this DYI T-shirt.

If you’re landlocked, you can organize or get involved in a different kind of action.  Here is a list of other volunteer opportunities connected with the BP spill.

Other ways to get involved in saving the world.  If our generation doesn’t, who will?

Faith-based activism

The Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers

The Elders