Aging – On the Bright Side: Finding Resilience and Joy in Later Years
Alexandria, VA – I’ve written about many aspects of aging. If you’re curious, search for Memories and Musings on TheZebra.org. Besides On Aging, there are columns on Driving Miss Daisy, Elder Friendly Dining, Moving, Ring of Roses, and Witnessing Spring.
I have long accepted that I won’t live forever and I’ve prepared for my dying fairly well. What I didn’t foresee was how physically painful aging could be. I thought that staying fit – working out in a gym five-six times a week, hiking, eating mindfully, and staying active with friends and my art – would protect me. What I didn’t foresee was that some things perhaps not in my control could sabotage my sense of well-being. Most of all, I didn’t foresee how fragile and vulnerable I would feel – and actually become. Last year I had two successive compression fractures in my lower spine, each treated with Kyphoplasty procedures.
Recently, coming home from an art exhibition opening at night in the rain, I drove my car into a drainage ditch on Telegraph Road. Mercifully, miraculously, I was unhurt. My car didn’t fare as well.
The first estimate for repairing my 2011 Hyundai Elantra was over $6,500, more than the car’s value, causing me to seriously consider giving up driving. Intellectually I know one day I will have to stop driving, but I’m not ready yet. The possibility caused me to check out aging-in-place options – Alexandria at Home and At Home Mount Vernon. Neither covers the part of Franconia where I live. I did find a third church-based organization, Shepherd’s Center, that serves my area but I’m not ready.
On the bright side: Because we were iced in, I hadn’t seen my BNE (Best Neighbors Ever) in weeks. I missed them and when the ice melted I invited them to visit. Chatting over coffee and home-baked brownies they told me about a friend who had a good experience with an auto body shop on Van Dorn Street. That company’s estimate for repairing my car was one-third of the first estimate I got. One-third!
It was still expensive but if the car doesn’t develop other problems in the near future, it’s worth it to me. I gave that company an okay to order the parts.
Another bright spot is feedback from my sister and cousins on my recent column on Mah Jong, Chinese Food and Kaifeng Jews. The column evoked many memories, each precious, but one from the youngest cousin brought a big smile.
“I play Mah Jong,” she wrote. “I have my mother’s set and a memo pad. (As a child) I would take the drink and food orders from the ladies. Of course they got nothing from me, I was only playing waitress.”
I can envision that little munchkin taking orders on her pad.
One of the brightest spots in this already too long, cold winter (it’s the beginning of March as I write) was getting in touch with a woman I photographed as part of my photographic documentation of worship in Alexandria, “Converging Paths.” She was about 3 years old when the photo was taken at Beulah Baptist Church, and she no longer lives in Alexandria.
The work was first exhibited at The Lyceum, Alexandria’s History Museum, in 1986. A new version, “Witnessing Worship” that included the history of photography, was exhibited there in 2023. Her brother saw it and told her about it. Their parents had saved the Washington Post article with the photo but didn’t get a print. She researched Tisara Photography and found my son Steven Halperson who now runs the business and he told me about it. I followed up and asked for a recent photo and permission to post both images on Facebook.
The good news is that Nancy Smith and I are now Facebook friends!
Mosaic Artist-Photographer Nina Tisara is the founder of Living Legends of Alexandria
