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A Cautionary Interlude
Richard Bach of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame has written, “You teach best what you need to learn most.” That has certainly been my personal experience. At several of our Councils, I have told the following humbling story of my 60th birthday :
The pilot project at Wildacres had opened with rave reviews, and we were now planning a national tour— with Estes Park in Colorado its first stop. I was living where I'd lived since arriving in Chapel Hill three years earlier: at Ox Bow, a community with four 1960s-vintage mobile homes, a pillbox-like duplex, a manor house (owner-occupied), and one horse. Ox Bow had gone way past seedy and ended up somewhere between trendy and bucolic.
 Except for Rudy, the lord of the manor, his wife and three young children, and one young couple who'd vouched for me (it wasn't easy to get into OxBow!)
and then moved out themselves, I barely knew my neighbors whom I'd see from the windows of my mobile home, driving off to work or returning home, and sometimes moving out or moving in.
On my 60th birthday, I decided things had to change. I couldn't continue to gallivant about the country peddling “community” and, all the while, live like a recluse at home. Besides, the week had been momentous, not only my ascension to “official” elderhood, but other fresh news that needed sharing—a daughter who'd had successful brain surgery and the birth of twin grandsons.
I baked a pineapple upside-down cake, apportioned it, wrapped a ribbon around each piece, then set out to “introduce” myself and apologize for my failings as a neighbor. I found the landlord clearing out one of the mobile homes:
—What happened to the sculptor? I asked.
—He moved out.
—When?
—Couple of months ago.
—What's the name of the fellow who lives behind me? I'd
like to take some of this cake to him.
—He's gone
too.
—No! I thought I just saw him leaving for work this week.
—He moved out over the weekend. You're
now the tenant with seniority. And pretty nearly the last.
—Anything
else I need to know?
—The horse died.
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brings in a “harvest” of diverse
experiences, ideas, and musings: on story as a legacy of eldering, on the spirituality of elder Circles, and on creating the communities that support us in the ways that matter most.
[B]ecause we shared the water pump in our compound, there was a constant stream of neighborhood women who came over during the day. Their children also visited for hours at a time, looking for volunteers who would play with them and provide access to things like soccer balls and books. Without realizing it, Jonelle and I were being introduced to the idea of an intergenerational community…
Love is a complex force, more easily understood in the heart and through metaphor and stories than through words. Trebbe Johnson and Connie Goldman, however, find words to bring us closer to understanding the concept that has confounded all. Their books are very different, but both illuminate aspects of love that give added meaning to life during this second journey...
