At 96, I see two paths open to me, one circling a world raging with war and conflict, the other winding through the stillness deep within me. One road is shrill with voices shouting to be heard. The other is so quiet I can hear the whisper of kindness, gratitude and compassion.
Turbulence erupting on one road makes it impossible for me to hear or be heard. On the other, every word rising through the stillness makes its presence felt. I’ve turned away from the noise and intend to walk the quieter path deeper into my nineties.
The path I’ve chosen isn’t the easier one for someone four years from a century old. Many men my age dismiss aging as “it is what it is,” nothing more than miles on a road they’ve always travelled. I am seeking a more serene path I can follow through the miles remaining to me. Much of that serenity I would have to find within myself. I would begin by shedding behavior that shaped me for a lifetime.
Hours I spent reading or watching the news, defending my opinions and challenging those of others are now devoted to listening to what I can hear if I am still. I decline to enter debates about Iran, Gaza, Ukraine and this nation’s politics. I can do nothing about these global events, but can listen to the quiet voice guiding me to becoming a more loving human being.
That love becomes the air I breathe when I am with my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all of whom live far from me. Cross-country travel fractured by cancellations and delays punishes a body whose parts are wearing out But, I travel alone, carrying one small bag while my grandchildren must come to the airport with babies and belongings that would burden a tribe.
I just returned from San Francisco where I held my month-old great-granddaughter for the first time. I let her three-year-old brother tattoo my shoulder, an honor my granddaughter said he bestows only upon a select few. I then flew to Los Angeles where my two-year-old great-grandson sat on my lap to hear stories, some of which I read to his grandmother more than a half-century earlier.
I’ve also made it my commitment to say “yes” instead of “no” to possibilities that have more to do with beginnings than with endings. I’ve never meditated for more than thirty minutes, but just enrolled in two Buddhist retreats. How I will spend hours in mindfulness and silence where minutes can seem long concerns me. But, I see this as an opportunity to learn more about regions of myself I’ve never explored.
I’ve made other changes as well, always moving deeper into myself and further from the world around me. I waste no time lamenting events over which I have no control. But, if I remain quiet, the stillness within me seems to take my hand and lead me to where I must go.
Not long ago, I began the day scrolling through texts and email. When I scroll now it’s late in the afternoon, long after I meditate to soften the day’s sharp edges. When I first lost my wife after nearly seventy years of marriage, I found no reason to get out of bed to endure twenty-four empty hours.
In desperation, I turned to ChatGPT, asking if anything existed that would unclamp my bed’s grip on me. I learned it was not only grief that made leaving bed as painful as walking on shards of glass, It was the grasp of the fight or flight stress hormone, cortisol.
AI created a meditation I could follow that would drain the cortisol and fill its void with serenity. The fifteen minutes I spend meditating have swept the glass from the floor, making it safe to leave bed and begin a day that is no longer empty.
I still mourn the wife I met when she was seventeen and I was twenty-two and just off a troopship from the Korean War. I’ve managed to survive because I know Muriel has not left me, that she remains in my consciousness, my being, her soul touching mine.
The books at my bedside are another testament to changes I’ve made. Works of non-fiction about the world and its rotation into chaos are gone. They’ve been replaced by books on Buddhism, mindfulness and the brain.
I don’t know if it’s wisdom and the changes it has wrought in me that have guided me to the path I’m on. I do know I walk that path with gratitude for the man it has helped me become. Bob’s articles have appeared in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and in Next Avenue, the publication of the Public Broadcasting Service. His book, “What’s Stopping Me From Getting Ahead?” was published by McGraw Hill and is in five languages.
