I was trying–Jack Jones, that’s it–to remember the name of the Texan my mother fell in love with the summer of 1962. We had gone to spend three weeks with my aunt and cousins in Eldorado (pronounced ell-dor-AY-doe), Texas. No fathers. Just women/girls. And a cowboy brought his son and a trailer with a horse to the tiny rent house in the tiny West Texas town. JoAnne and I talked to the boy and patted the horse while Jack Jones went inside to talk to my mother and aunt.
But that is another story. Today I was trying to remember his name. Jim Jones? No. Tom Jones? No. And then I read Nurse Jan’s column in the church newsletter. “Memory loss is NOT a normal part of aging,” she wrote. Shit. Because I am having more and more trouble remembering things. Yesterday we were talking about Thomas Edison because Jim had checked out a new biography of him. “Who was the plant guy?” I asked. I could not remember Luther Burbank for the life of me.
So when I couldn’t remember the cowboy’s name, I marked yet another “senior moment” in my book of aging, only to find out from Nurse Jan that it is NOT a part of aging. It is something more sinister. Alzheimer’s, maybe. Dementia.
Memory loss is only part of it, though. There are my doughy arms. They were not that way 10 years ago when I wore sleeveless blouses. This began first with a crepey look on my upper arms, starting six years ago. But now, even though I have not gained weight, my arms are doughy. DOUGHY!
My vision is notably worse, also. I will have surgery in a month to address the Fuchs’ dystrophy recently discovered in my eyes, something my mother warned me about 10 years ago when she was diagnosed with it. “It is genetic, so you and your sister may both have it,” she said. I paid little attention because at the time my eyes were fine, and I try not to worry about possible trouble. The Bible says that each day has enough troubles by itself. But now that day is here, and I will have a pocket created behind the lens in my right eye, and then a month later new cells inserted in that pocket. I will need to lie flat on my back, not moving, for a day or two, which means sleeping in another bedroom because I snore if I sleep on my back–another addition to the list of ailments associated with aging.
Loss of hearing seems to be a normal part of aging. I better not read Nurse Jan’s column saying it isn’t. My mother insisted she didn’t need hearing aids (“They don’t work. The man down the street got expensive ones, and when I asked him how he liked them, he said they didn’t work.”) as she asked us to repeat almost everything we said. I determined to get hearing aids early so my friends did not have to say everything twice for me.
Then there is my shrinking attention span. Yesterday I heard part of the sermon, the part about living in a very small town where everyone was the same; but once Pastor Jeffrey began talking about the Spirit living in each person, I drifted off. I used to believe that the listener brings as much to the sermon as the preacher. I used to listen hard for some nugget. Not anymore. As if the stickum of my brain is wearing out. The old Velcro, dulled by years of dust and threads stuck to its loops, is not holding tightly to my thoughts anymore.
On and on. Feet hurt sometimes. Muscles get pulled for no apparent reason. Stomach hurts. My knees are still all right. Today, at least. Who knows how they will be tomorrow?
What is not diminishing, though, is sex. After a decade and a half of celibacy–single and happy to remain so–I married a friend of eight years. He had typical male issues which were addressed with a pill, and I had to deal with lack of practice at hosting a cannon in my private parts; but while it is different from sex in one’s thirties, where clothes fly off and desire is intense, this is reliably good. Fun every time. Not dependent on ambience or mood, even. Less frequent, but so much more regular, normal. Part of life instead of some wild add-on. Jim doesn’t mind my doughy arms or no-longer-flat stomach, and I don’t mind his skinny body with a belly. No wonder Sarah conceived Isaac at 90. Maybe sex was good for her and Abraham. Not as intense, but good. Jim and I both know that the time will come when we will call it quits, but that time isn’t here yet, and it is not a dreaded time. Lying body to body, hands rubbing skin, kissing without throbbing passion–all this is also very good, just like God’s creation. Very good. And when it is time to sleep, I say, “Pardon?” and Jim repeats, “Move over, sweetie,” and we separate and sleep–me on my side so I don’t snore.
Here’s to Efrain!