Grandmas

Once upon a time there were two little girls called Rosa and Cinnamon. One day, while their grandma was taking them to her house for a sleep over, she overheard the older one, Rosa, telling her littler sister in a very matter-of-fact way:

“We’re going to Grandma’s because she lives all alone and she hasn’t anyone to talk to except a cat”.

This alarmed Grandma who was unable to reply as she was busy driving her little silver car in heavy traffic.  She thought of her grand daughter’s statement which while true, made her sound like she was a sad, lonely old lady.

Grandma actually had a very full life with good friends, activities like Tango dancing, (well until her right knee needed an operation), and the odd silver-haired handsome prince who would stay over, so very rarely did she feel lonely.  It was true that she did live with a strange black and white cat known as Paco with whom she would hold whole conversations that no one else really understood.  She would say something and Paco would reply.  This sometimes went on for quite a while and she didn’t think it anything strange.  She knew people commented on this about her but this didn't worry her.

Grandma felt that overall grandmothers got bad press, or rather were frequently misrepresented. Whenever there was a grandmother in a storybook she was shown as a plump old lady with her white hair in a bun and an apron donned over her bosom and pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven or sitting in a big old fashioned chair knitting.  Spectacles were always perched on the end of her nose. The picture book Grandma was kindly and never swore whereas Grandma sometimes said four letter words when no one was around, though never in front of Rosa and Cinnamon.  It was like believing that little girls were made of “sugar and spice and all things nice” and boys were made of “frogs and snails and puppy dog’s tails”. It simply wasn’t true picture of how children were just as the picture books weren’t true about the grandmas she knew either.

For example her princess-pretty grand-daughter Rosa with her flaxen plaits most definitely was sugar, whereas Cinnamon, (the younger one), with her mussed-up golden brown hair along with a look of mischief in her dark eyes was all spice with “puppy dogs tails” - thrown in for good measure.

Grandma liked be glamorous yet had a leather biker jacket she liked to wear now and then along with dangly earings - mostly because it made her feel younger.  She had a job of sorts.  Her hair colour varied but it was never grey.  She exercised daily to keep her figure trim and used all sorts of magic potions on her face to keep the grandma-like wrinkles at bay.  She enjoyed listening to the radio especially current affairs on BBC.  When she could afford it she went to the opera or ballet in her best frock but now and then she broke out and danced to Bruce Springstein or raved to Led Zeppelin like there was no tomorrow.  Rosa and Cinnamon liked it when Grandma danced and they would join in and all rave together.

Grandma worked hard at not conforming to a stereotype that was, she believed, a relic of a former age.  Just a few years ago before she actually became a Grandma she went off to South America to live in the Andes.  Most people thought it was an exciting adventure for her, which it was but what really prompted her to go was a mid-life crisis.  With no partner, no grandchildren and her youth receding behind her, she was secretly disgruntled about being at this stage of her life with nothing to look forward to.

Or so she thought until she returned from the Land of the Incas and grand children came along and then she was disappointed at the world at large for holding out on her for so long. How wonderful grandchildren really were, especially her own Rosa and Cinnamon!

And she knew that out there other grandmas who were like her.  Grandmas who had done all sorts of things in their lifetimes like working hard in low paid jobs to support their families, writing novels, lobbying for political change, running corporations, canoeing up tributaries of the Amazon along with the grandmas who baked cookies, knitted and held long meaningful conversations with their cats.

Grandmas, it seems, come in all shapes and sizes with a variety of hair colours, yet what they all have in common is that they love their grand children very, very much.


* The name of the cat has been changed for reasons of confidentiality

Ageism and Sexism in News Reporting

I am increasingly perturbed by how middle aged people are reported in the media. We're frequently pigeon-holed into a byte-sized description that is more stereotype than reality. For example take the " Elderly sixty-year-old grandmother of three charged with terrorist attack." Why do we never see a corresponding description of a sixty-year-old grandfather of three?

As women we are still defined by our fertility, although I have never seen a woman described as "childless" unless it was integral to the news report. Occasionally it still seems to be necessary to mention if a woman is blonde in a news story. Important yes, if the report is on a missing person. The "Marilyn Factor" with all its salacious connotations, is alive and well. This is also discriminatory against us L'Oreal'd brunettes.

Why the use of the moniker "elderly" is objectionable to me is that most baby boomers in western society are still working, running businesses, technology savvy and contributing taxes. We are a core part of the volunteer work force. When you've reached six decades, it is likely you may still have a parent living who is truly "elderly" in their eighties or nineties. Considering our governments want to push the retirement age upwards from sixty five to eventually to seventy years, being described as elderly is no longer appropriate. Having encountered covert ageism in my job seeking endeavours, it is time to bring about a change in the attitudes embedded in our society about older people. For starters, the media could rethink their terminology.

Certainly as recently as forty years ago being in your sixties was elderly. I certainly feel younger than my own mother who by the time she was my age had suffered a number of strokes. With each generation life expectancy increases in tandem with advances in medicine, knowledge of nutrition, the role of exercise and an overall higher standard of living. In Victorian times it was rare for children to know their grandparents.

So to the journos out there, who are probably unlikely to read this anyway, the goal post has shifted kids. Middle age was once thirty five, only ten years older on average, than you are now. I hope you remember this in thirty years time when my generation is truly "elderly".

Strategies to Cope with Unemployment

 

It's a few weeks, possibly months down the track and you've got over the novelty of lying in bed, strolling down the road for a cup of coffee on the way to the library; or maybe not. This would be a fine lifestyle if only you had the funds to sustain it, but maybe you still have a mortgage, the kids haven't finished university or you hoped to have saved way more in your retirement fund. With all the things you hated about your job, whether it was the politics, the bullying or the boss, you're feeling nostalgic about how your salary magically appeared in your bank on a regular basis. 

• If offered a career mentor as part of your redundancy package, accept the offer. During my first redundancy I resented this like hell yet found the experience really helped identify what kind of role I was best suited for and the kind of workplace environment I flourish in.
  
• Work and rework your curriculum vitae. Remember your CV should not be a tombstone for dead jobs, so remove any experience more than ten years old unless you are, for example, an architect with an award winning built project. Get professional help if you can afford it, failing that some up-to-date books on building your CV.
  
• Maintain a job search spread sheet with all jobs applied for, contact details of who received your application, and your impressions overall if you get to an interview. This process of keeping a record is a good aid to memory if you go for a position at the same agency or company later on.
  
• If you missed out on a position you were particularly sold on, politely phone the employment agency or company and ask if there was any specific reason you didn't get the job. Explain that this is to assist you with your future job search. Express appreciation for their help.
  
  
• Up-skill. Find out what is offered through local institutions such as Citizens' Advice Bureaus, high schools or universities. I have found some free self led courses surprisingly helpful. It will never hurt to add a few more skills to your CV. Remember any positive action taken, however small, will help stave off the onslaught of hopelessness and depression you could be experiencing.
  
• Undertake volunteer work. While it may be difficult to commit when you believe that your next job is just around the corner, the experience is beneficial in a number of ways. It directs your focus beyond your navel offering social contact with purpose. Volunteer work creates a sense of being employed whether paid or not.
  
• If you must deal with Work and Income New Zealand, do it online where possible. I find my self-esteem goes down a hundred points the moment I enter the portals of a WINZ office. In my experience WINZ is not about empowering individuals but rendering them victims serving a system in which boxes must be ticked.

• Finally, find someone you can talk to who knows how to listen. The best person is someone who has shared a similar experience and come out the other side. While most people want to leap in and offer a reason you may not have got the latest job you've applied for, remember again this is for them to try and make some sense of your situation, rather than you. With this in mind, I suggest you nod and smile politely. 

You have already gone through massive rejection with redundancy but believe me there is more to come. Like endeavours to find that one true love, rejection is all part of the process. You'll feel flat, disappointed and wonder if anyone is going to want to employ you / love you ever again. Take a break from job seeking for a while, then gird your loins and get on with it!

The Nature of Happiness II

The catalyst that changed the bliss I had been experiencing despite my situation, was the meeting up with an old lover; he the inconstant constant in my life for almost thirty years.

I am no longer in love with him, but I thought why not? I hadn't seen him for five years when I had fled his town in a state of shock. However we had been in touch sporadically by text and email, beginning not entirely by chance some months ago. I told myself that I would be open, not to presume or leap onto my perch overlooking the moral high ground as I had done in the past. After all, I knew what he is like.

One outcome of our meeting was certain; the historic dynamic between us would restored, albeit temporarily and as a consequence of our enjoyment of each others' company, we would sleep together. This was not an issue with me. I was certain of this because being the age when women are invisible I was consciously seeking affirmation of my femininity and sexuality with someone whose body was as familiar to me as my own.

Over three days we enjoyed companionable days and nights together. We both complimented each other on how well we looked considering our ages - he 65, me just a few years younger. I recall him laughing spontaneously, over a drink at something I said. He held my hand as we tore from bar to bar in downtown finding the right crafted beer on tap to meet his exacting tastes.

Then there was the day he had to go home.  With hindsight I think there was a subtle switch in mood for us both. He was in having to catch a flight home mode which always underpins the hours prior to leaving no matter how much time you have. I was tired because I'd lain awake in that wide bed unsettled by the fact that there was no doubt someone else in his life eating away at me. I knew he lived alone so relax, I told myself. I acknowledged he lacked emotional depth and I have known that for a long time. Yet I have always loved his company over and above that of anyone else. My expectations of him all those years ago were projections I imposed on him born out of loneliness and need. He hadn't changed, but feeling this kind of weary bleakness, had I? Did I still unconsciously expect something more from him?

Warily, I'd put my hand up when he first proposed meeting. Eyes wide open yet meeting with him again I realised with an uncanny sense of deja vu that in some ways my situation was not dissimilar from the one I was in when I knew him all those years ago. It was the difference in our material situations that unsettled me the most, now as it did then. A sense of being powerless accompanied the feeling, now as it did then. I was no longer the sole parent of young children, but here I was unemployed with nothing set by but still presenting the same confident, well dressed face to the world.

So this is what has brought me to my present state where worry and reality have set in for the winter. A familiar gnawing has settled uncomfortably in my belly as I wonder how I am going to survive financially, going forward and alone.

Isabel

  The Last Picture Show

When I was growing up we never called going to see a film, “Going to the movies” which would have been a very American expression then although it is what I say nowadays. “Going to the cinema” seemed to have a particular British ring to it. Films and “going to the pictures or the flics” was our terminology growing up in 1950s New Zealand.

Most Saturday afternoons my brother and I would be given a shilling, (ten cents) or perhaps one (shilling) and three, (about fifteen cents), to “go the pictures”. We would walk over to the Southern Cross theatre in the local township, to watch whatever was showing on a Saturday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Although my mother, unlike other women in her generation, did have a car, we were rarely driven or collected afterwards. My parents must have welcomed the respite from two boisterous children who, if they weren't collaborating to build a hut in the backyard or start their own handwritten newspaper, were always fighting.

We used to queue up dutifully at the ticket box to buy our tickets and lollies (candy). There were always the rough boys in the front of the queue, who weren't necessarily bad at all, just unruly.   We were well behaved children who lived in fear of someone telling our parents if we were seen to misbehave while out. I don't think we were ever told this, it was just implicit in how we were brought up then. When I met my future husband in my mid teens, I found out that he was one of the “rough” boys in the front of the queue!

In those days, we stood for the anthem which was not New Zealand's national anthem but “God Save the Queen” which preceded every film showing. Then there was the Movietone news reel and I remember the opening title had a fighter plane flying overhead. I recall now somewhere in the opening titles there was a shot of Kookaburras with the sound of their unique laugh so possibly these news reels originated in Australia. However I can still hear the rousing music of the introduction in my head and the dramatic urgency in the clipped, distinctly British tones of the commentator.

The floor of the huge theatre was wooden and sloping towards the stage and this offered a wonderful opportunity to roll *Jaffas which were a noisy distraction. Of course if we made too much noise an usher would shine his or her torch on you and tell you to be quiet.   We did what we were told, we didn't question or give a rude sign in return. As the festoons of the velvet theatre curtains rose I used to speculate how many dresses the voluminous fabric would make for a distant aunt, who was a rather large lady. Why I did this, I will never know.

What I enjoyed mostly were the serials. Always shot in black and white we watched “Deadwood Dick”, “The Lone Ranger” and my absolute favourite “Zorro”, which established early on my connection to my inner Latina. I so wanted to be one of those exotic Mexican women of fire and smouldering beauty, with luxurious Rita Hayworth hair and an off-shoulder peasant blouse who had been “done wrong” but drawn against her will to the handsome hero brandishing a pair of six-guns.

I don't actually recall the main features but these generally were war films set in the Pacific, pirate adventures or westerns where the Indians were always the baddies. I was fond of actors like Richard Wydmark, Gary Cooper and John Wayne. Sometimes my brother and I ventured further to the Victory Cinema where a McDonalds stands now. You could get in there for ninepence which left you with six pence for goodies. The ninepenny seats though were up front close to the screen and again the rougher kids used to sit there. The Victory was such a big theatre that it even had a balcony.  At half time, (yes there were intervals), we would cross the road, to the an ice cream factory and buy an ice cream there. If you were prepared to sit in the cheaper seats and be associated with what I perceived as the riff raff, this gave you threepence more so you could have both lollies and an ice cream!

My brother and I took our time walking home. Sometimes we'd stop in a nearby park to play on the swings and slidesr. By the time we got home it was time to wash our hands for what we called tea in those days that was served right on five o'clock.

*A small round orange-coated chocolate sweet.

The Nature of Happiness

Today I feel blissfully happy. This sun is shining, there is no wind and having just scrambled up the side of my local volcanic cone and back down again after viewing the stunning view from the top, I still have oodles of energy to spare. I've sanded down my front steps and primed them ready for painting and tugged a few weeds from my garden.

The reality is I am unemployed and don't have as much financial security that I might have expected at this stage of my life. I do need to earn a living but having had periods of unemployment post redundancies where the job search hung over my life like the sword of Damocles, I don't want to repeat this pattern. I am blissfully going with the flow as life presents itself, unsure what my next step will be.

So right now there is no plan beyond getting as much out of each day as I can. I am happy, today, here, now. I know happiness isn't a static state and it can evaporate in an instant. I know that because I have known great unhappiness, depression and anxiety. 

What do you think? Am I naive, burying my head in the sand and live to rue the day I was so careless about my future, or am I on track to an exciting and unknown destination life has in store for me?

Isabel

Who Wants to Live Forever?

How often do we hear the saying “Life isn't a dress rehearsal, it's the here and now”? 
As I sail into my third age I have been confronted with the realisation that life is finite.  How many more years are ahead of me, fifteen like my late mother, twenty five at the most?  While this sounds pessimistic I tell myself that I being realistic. Of course in tandem with the sensible part of me acknowledging this I am also in total denial. While writing this, I was ambushed by lyrics of the Freddie Mercury song popping into my mind "Who wants to live forever when love must die? Who waits forever anyway?"

Good point.  The clock is ticking, and without realising it our whole lives up until this point have been the dress rehearsal for when we grew up. Well in case you didn't notice we are the grown ups so we'd better settle for making the most of the here and now.

Let's face it; there are insidious and niggling physical reminders that we may not be as young as feel on the inside.  But the truth is most of us baby boomers feel much the same as when we were 20, 35 or even 45, only happier, with less angst and if we are lucky, with little or no mortgage.  We still have hope, though that is rather nebulous as to what we are hoping for but it probably includes expectations of good health for our remaining years with the same for our life partner.  Our hopes are likely to include being in a comfortable situation financially.   And finally, if single, we are most definitely not ready to give up on finding love, as the number of baby boomers on online dating sites attest.