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    Last week, as a Sierra Club volunteer, I went camping with 15 teenagers.  They are recent Hispanic immigrants, attend Baltimore City Public Schools and are part of an after-school program in Fells Point sponsored by the Baltimore City Health Department.
    “Muy pequeno” English was spoken, so all of my bodily movement and facially expressive skills were on display.  This was challenging, interesting and seemed worthwhile to try to connect young people adrift in a society full of obstacles to a resource which is mostly free and provides a grounding and uplifting experience.
    Over Labor Day, my family of origin will have a large reunion to meet those with whom we may never have associated a face with a name and to celebrate the multi-generational journey of our ‘mishpacha’ on these shores.  A century from when my ancestors disembarked to these young people and their families pouring in.
    From my ager perspective in the middle, I see backwards and forwards.  That’s the thing; we expect there to be a forward movement.  For these travelers, leaving home to emigrate to a new land probably seemed like little or no choice, yet the implicit hope was to wind up someplace better.  They hadn’t counted on all the differences from their parochial culture to this wider world of mega-choices.  They wanted somehow to keep the thread of their known life alive while maximizing benefits in a place of professed boundless opportunity.
    Is this not how it is with us going from the land of early middle to middle middle to late middle and finally to what is preciously ironically known as ‘young senior.’  This used to be defined as 65-75, now who knows if 70 is really the new 60 or even 50?  Chronological time pulls us forward, but emotional realities cling to the past.  We step each day into an unchartered era haunted by the specter of decline of one faculty or another that we have depended upon our whole lives.
    And yet, tenaciously, we strain to hold onto our ‘real’ self, the person we have always been.  This is the young woman who danced at the prom, although now maybe our knee hurts after walking two blocks. But her essence is alive within us, the desire to be in synch with the music, lively, interactive, finding the lightness and flow of existence.  This is the man who was stalwart and decisive in his career and now has trouble figuring out which shoes to put on, yet who still likes to be treated with respect, even deference.
    Present circumstances do not drown out former ‘zeitgeists’ we spent years evolving.  We yearn for recognition of what once was most active and now still lives within.  For those who meet us today, we say come closer, look at me, behold my essence and relate to that, not to the sore knee or vague sense of focus.  This is what’s most imperative for those who seek to be caregivers to the elderly, whether relatives or paid workers.  They need to really see and comprehend the person within while being tender with the compromised body/mind that is their charge.
    Unless we stay put in our land of birth or never grow up beyond middle adulthood, this is the journey we all must take, going forward as dreams and the passage of time pull us and hoping to find consideration and compassion that amplifies the essence of whom we have always known ourselves to be.

    Aren’t we all so glad to take a dip in the pool when we’re hot and miserable?  Not everyone. One says he never learned to swim as a child. Another emphatically states she will not don a bathing suit.  These resistances speak to the twin perils of aging—being acutely aware of gaps in past development and assessing where one lines up now on a societal standard that is deemed impossible to meet.
    So perhaps past learning was ineffective or teaching was incorrect or the experience was a frightening one. Now there are pedagogic and psychological methods to overcome these, if one is open. We’re not talking Michael Phelps or diving; we’re trying to increase a comfort level.
    The bathing suit issue.  Tell me one woman who is completely satisfied with how she looks.  I still love the ad the Body Shop used to portray.  it showed a nude ‘tzaftig’ woman stretched out on a sofa.  Text read: “There are 8 supermodels.  The rest of us look like this.”  Exaggeration?  Yes, but this is how many of us think, that we must meet a tough standard; otherwise, we’re not allowed to be us.  And sure, cellulite, spider veins, dark spots, stuff that jiggles, that’s what we might come to after decades.
    But at this age, any age, we’re still God’s creatures and entitled to be part of life. The real criteria for engagement is up to us. In my teaching of creative movement at various camps, I have had five year old children tell me:
“But I can’t dance.”  Pathetic.  Yet, they weren’t hatched this way. Someone planted this dire message, and now they assumed the identity.
    Same with us now. Can we allow ourselves to get back to authentic desires and impulses underneath the social conditioning and past experiences of ‘failure’?  Alright, so we couldn’t do something back then; perhaps we were even embarrassed by our efforts, and others contributed to our shame.  That is tragic and untenable.  But more tragic is when we keep ourselves locked into the prison of yesterday ongoing still today.
    We are breathing; we are alive.  Life is movement and engagement. So, go ahead, put a toe in the cooling water, and let yourself be buoyed by the floating weightlessness which is how we came into this world.

    Encapsulating a history where I’ve seen inflation rise and fall, weathered other dire recessions and wondered about covering my next bills, I have respect for the dollar.  I’m far from my Dad who made $10 weekly at his first accounting job in 1940 and even from myself who was proud to earn $95 in the mid-‘60’s as a neophyte reporter.
    Yet, a dollar ain’t no spare change. And if aging gives us not just a perch to judge right from wrong but rather some timeline perspective, then it’s interesting to note where a dollar is spent these days and the import we bring to it. Economists call this ‘extrinsic value’, as different than the gold standard. So it’s all in the eyes and genes of the beholder, and when that spending beholder has lived 60 plus years, you could complain that money doesn’t buy what it used to or you might discover gems in one’s acquisitions.
    With age come reference points. Things always seem to be more or less, better or worse, not as much or even greater.  What excites us is not innocent newness but in the story we tell ourselves compared to another time and place.  This continuity gives depth and a way to place meaning for all we encounter, something that cyber age techies with all their inventiveness are years away from accumulating.
    So back to the dollar and how, within a span of a few hours, this wound up being a micro-decoder of my life through the decades.  All items mentioned here were a dollar even or adding a few pennies with the highest spent being two dollars.
    First purchase was a toasted bagel.  This allowed me to sit outdoor at the cafe, look at the lake, watch the birds and write on my yellow pad. There’s always something I’m writing, whether for the eyes of others or not.  It’s one way I feel alive, creative, connected to the past and hopeful for the future.  I always wanted to be a writer, vocation; now I’m a writer, avocation, and I’m grateful for the ideas and vocabulary that still come my way.  One thing I’m writing is the activities plan for a large family reunion we’re holding over Labor Day.  Writing and planing group activities, two of my favorite things.  How blessed to have time in the sun to do these.  I won’t get ‘paid’ for my efforts, but I feel full indeed. That’s a lot to gain for the price of a bagel.
    Then, I bought a newspaper, “The Afro-American.” It comes out weekly and I buy a copy each month.  I’m trying to keep up with a culture that was central to me for ten years when I did community work in East Baltimore.  From our mostly White, semi-suburban enclave, it’s easy to disconnect. But what I read about are the same issues of disempowerment, higher mortality and morbidity than the general population and a quest for just due which still seems out of grasp for much of two-thirds of the population of this city.  I reflect soberly on whether the efforts of my agency at the time made any real impact.  A chance at historical review for the cost of a slim paper.
    Onto a yard sale under sunny suburban skies. A sweater of pea green with tag that said “cashmere/silk” and “do not dry clean.”  Thus, the light brown stain would probably have to remain.  I bought it anyway.  It had glittery sequins sewn all along the edging.  It seemed like a gorgeous ‘schmata’, what Nicole Kidman might clean house in.  It was an indulgence, a reminder that old and good is still better than new and cheap. This could be my ‘social security’ if government belts are tightened.  A fashion shopper of today might have tossed it out.  As an ager, I held to the past to ride with me into the future.
    And then , euphony.  I heard these sounds as I was doing my grocery store rounds. They came from a shiny brass alto sax lightly fingered by a man standing in the drenching humidity.  Theme songs of the ‘40’s dancing into a stagnant day.  The background to my parents’ courting.  The foreground to me picking up a note of hopeful continuity in the chaos that’s become our daily fare.  I spoke with the player whose voice had the same smooth lilt as his tunes.  I saw dollars stuffed into his music case. I was glad to bend down to put mine in. A mere token to entry to a kinder, softer world.
    All told, I spent five ones and some change.  I certainly learned the value of a dollar.

It’s good for us; who can argue?  Every doctor and health expert tell us to pump that blood, stretch those muscles. It’s a good way to get up an get going, so we don’t waste the day. We may meet friends and interact, all good for the brain cells.
    There’s walking paraphernalia, sturdy shoes and inserts, wick-a-way nylon to dismiss sweat and heaven forbid, actual body odors, MP3 players to pipe soothing sounds through our ears. There’s walking indoors which calls for purchase of a treadmill or joining a gym which means having a ready way to get there. There’s walking outdoors which means finding routes with a minimum of traffic where we won’t feel too bored or get in a rut which could discourage regular usage.  All of this costs money, takes planning,  may involve coordination with others.
    What about the actual walk itself?  What is it like to propel our body through space for the purpose of being fully engaged in movement and aware of scenery changes as we pass by?  How can we make our walks anything but routine, rather journeys of wonder and discovery?
    Is this fantasy in this age when all territory has been mapped out and where information saturates our every life experience?  Consider John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, who pined: “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”  Or who saw fulfillment for our essential hunger: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to stay in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
    How can we avail ourselves of these blessings in everyday jaunts?  What about instead of taking a pre-determined route to allow your senses to lead you?  Go where the sun is shining down, where leaves are blowing and beckoning, where bright flowers bloom, where water runs and glistens. Even semi-urban neighborhood may have bits of greenery and byways where we can open our senses.  Stop when you see something that draws you, and really take it in.
    Breathe deeply and focus on what you see and hear and smell rather than organizing your mental shopping list.  This will clear your mind to be ready to take on the day with fresher perspective. Know that your awareness and full presence during the walk is what really counts to buoy your life energy, not the exact number of steps you talk.
    Perhaps you’re walking slower than you did; perhaps you’re more concerned with balance now.  But you are moving through the journey of your life. To quote John Muir again: “In the eternal youth of nature, you may renew your own.”  Have fun out there, step by step, smell by smell.