Rethinking Aging (1)
Your audio-and-text option:
Listen to RoseMarie’s story as you read it (below).
The air in the Meadowbrook Commons was thick with the scent of charcoal. It was the annual Summer Sizzle Cookout, and RoseMarie knew it would attract a big crowd.
The revel from the cookout floated up to RoseMarie’s third-floor window.
RoseMarie, 83, watched her peers gather on the lawn. She should have been down there, too, chatting with her good friend, Eleanor, from 304.
But she wasn’t.
Instead, she was focused entirely on a task far more demanding: following a recipe for classic French madeleines she had seen on a YouTube tutorial. She had chosen this specific task precisely because it was complicated, demanding intense focus, and provided a perfect, bulletproof excuse for her solitude.
The recipe was a glorious mess of precise measurements and terrifying technique. She had meticulously creamed the butter, folded in the flour, and added the requisite lemon zest.
But her oven was temperamental, and her technique was rusty. When she finally pulled the tray out, the small, shell-shaped cakes were not the golden, puffy triumphs promised by the video. They were flat, slightly burnt on the edges, and stuck stubbornly to the pan, having achieved the unfortunate texture of dense, sugary rubber.
RoseMarie stared at the tray. The kitchen felt silent after the intense whirring of the mixer and the clatter of pans. Outside, she could hear a burst of canned music starting up from the cookout.
A sharp, familiar stab of old-world pressure hit her. I failed, she thought. And I skipped the social event for this inedible, sticky mess.
For a moment, she felt regret — regret for wasting the ingredients, regret for confirming her neighbors’ unspoken suspicion that she was antisocial. This was the old RoseMarie, the one who tried too hard and apologized too often.
But the moment passed, replaced by a clear, steady calm. She didn’t have to apologize for the burnt madeleines. She didn’t have to pretend they were good for soon-coming guests.
“Well,” RoseMarie muttered, pulling her spatula from the sink, “that was certainly an adventure.”
She scraped the sticky, ruined shells directly into the garbage, then turned on the tap for hot water. She spent the next fifteen minutes washing the whisk, scrubbing the pan, and wiping the counter until the kitchen gleamed. This quiet, repetitive labor — the restoration of order — was infinitely soothing.
When the last towel was hung, she turned her attention to her Plan B, the true reason for her contentment: the perfect cup. She heated the kettle until it sang, retrieved her favorite floral china mug (too delicate for the communal dishwashing), and brewed a dark, aromatic Earl Grey, adding only a thin slice of lemon.
Settling into her worn armchair by the window, RoseMarie sipped her hot tea. The flavor was rich, simple, and exactly what she needed. She realized that the entire afternoon — the intense focus of the baking, the drama of the failure, and the quiet ritual of the cleanup — was her time, owned entirely by her.
The effort, even the failure, was more engaging than the passive “fun” below her window. She hadn’t wasted the afternoon; she had used it, charting her own course and embracing the imperfections of her self-directed life.
The messy attempt and the perfect cup confirmed that her solitude was not a lack of participation but a complete, coherent experience of her own making. And that was more than enough.
Also hear and read this “parent story” from 2024:
Go to “Denny’s Blind Discovery”
Age: Our greatest asset!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Graying”
Weekly Stories About Aging Well
“It’s impossible not to love someone whose story you’ve heard.” - Mary Lou Kownacki
Stories about addressing ageism.
Stories about handling ableism.
Stories about thriving during the second half of life.
Accolade: “Love reading your stories. You never disappoint.” - Mary K.
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It was snowing and slippery one night coming home from work in the dark Wisconsin countryside.
I had no cell phone (it was 1967), crutches in the back seat (essential for someone who walked with difficulty due to cerebral palsy) and new tire chains in the trunk.
My most difficult hill with a not-so-gradual curve was still ahead of me, and I was afraid of siding into the ditch.
And I had very little experience driving in snow.
I tried the hill, and half up I stopped in the middle of my lane because I was too afraid I would spin out on the upcoming curve. I sat there for a while, letting the cars behind me successfully go up the hill.
I again tried going up the hill and made it around the curve.
I stopped at a gas station in the next town after (not before) the “big hill” and had those tire chains in my trunk put on the back tires of my Chevy Malibu.
I made it home that night but never explained to my family why I decided to put tire chains on my Malibu.
The same gas station took them off the next day because I found them clunky, noisy and relatively useless.
* When have you experienced failure at your own making and now feel OK with it because it was a private learning experience?